Would you -- could you -- confront 30 living legends of graphic design and ask them to spill their guts? Would you have the cajones to ask them for examples of their best and worst work? Then, could you showcase this information in a book that you solely wrote and designed? Talk about pressure and expectations.

Thankfully, author and designer Stefan Bucher, head of 344 Design, has done this for us, and it has even earned him honors in STEP Magazine's STEP 100 Design Annual 2005.

"All Access: The Making of Thirty Extraordinary Graphic Designers" presents the life stories of these graphic design masters and showcases known and unknown works that span their entire career.

Why did he do it? Because he wanted to, of course. Why did he want to? Simple really, but it's best he tell you himself.

SK: How did you decide on the 30 designers? Were there more than 30 initially?

SB: Initially, I thought of profiling 50 designers, but that quickly turned out to be impossible within the constraints of the page count. There just wasn't enough room to do 50 great designers justice.

I decided on the 30 designers in the book purely based on my own taste. Everybody in the book is a personal favorite. They've all done work I respect. they've all followed career paths that were interesting to me. Ultimately, I picked 30 people I wanted to talk to.

SK: You break the 30 down into 15 famous designers and 15 up-and-coming designers. Why not just 30 famous designers?

SB: The book really deals with the event horizon of "making it." In the book I come at it from both sides---before and after---in the hopes of finding out what "making it" actually means for graphic artists working their way up today. As much as I would've loved to include 15 additional famous designers, I wanted to showcase 15 people that are just under the radar to see if the challenges they encounter are the same or different from what the famous fifteen had to face when they were breaking through.

SK: What do you hope designers get out of examining the earlier works of these designers?

SB: The main point I'm hoping to illustrate with the earlier work is that nobody came into the design world doing the work they're doing now. Everybody had their work cut out for them. There were no miracles, just determination and hard work. Some people started at a really high level, of course, but each and every designer in the book has grown by leaps and bounds throughout the years until they reached a moment of critical mass of quality, ambition and recognition that allowed them to produce their first big hits.

SK: Did you struggle with creating a great design that didn't compete (or clash) with the designs and designers you were showcasing? Was this even an issue?

SB: Creating a suitable gallery for the pieces and the stories that went with them was certainly a concern. I wanted to design pages that would allow me to do three things:

First, I set out to show as much work as possible---for every piece on the page, at least two more had to be cut---and still keep it from turning into a cluttered mess.

Second, I wanted each piece to shine as much as possible. This is really about telling the stories of 30 people in words and images and it was important to make them each look as great as they are.

Third---let's not kid ourselves---I wanted to do a little showboating of my own. That's where some of the little extras come in---the overall book design (especially the graph on the inside of the dust jacket), the opening spread of each chapter, little details in the way some of the pieces are presented, the introduction.

In the end, I hope that I've been able to achieve all three things and merge them into one cohesive, harmonious piece.

SK: What was more challenging -- designing the book or writing it? Why?

SB: Both were tremendously challenging---much more difficult than I had anticipated.

The writing was hard for me, just because I have a tremendous fear of the blank page. Once I get started, I actually move pretty quickly, but it's embarrassing how hard I fought every day not to sit down and start the process. I never knew how forcefully I could resist doing work I had chosen to do.

The design was easier in and of itself, because with design I just have a much denser solution to dip my seed crystals into than I do for writing. But what made it taxing was that---unexpectedly---my publisher showed much greater resistance to my design than to my writing. While most of my writing was approved without changes, I suddenly found myself having to defend my design decisions against intense feedback again and again. That took a real toll. But all is well that ends well.

SK: Did the final outcome evolve or change much from the original initial concept? If so, can you talk about that a bit.

SB: Initially, this was supposed to be a picture book. I wanted to show early work, the hits, as well as the latest and greatest. My editor asked me to add short bio blurbs---about 500 words each. But as soon as I started that process, I knew that I'd have to write people's whole story to get to a point beyond sound bites. And so the book went from a planned 15,000 words to 75,000. I lack the talent to do things half way. I have to go to extremes, even if it means that I'm at my desk for days on end without sleep. That's why I'm now so pale that even sunless tanning oils don't work on me anymore.

SK: What personal lessons have you learned from writing and designing this book?

SB: The main lesson I learned is that nobody ever arrives. None of the designers told me "Hey! I made it. I'm on top and I'm feeling good about it. Time to kick back." Each and every one of them still has some sort of monkey on his or her back. Despite years of success, most still have to work for a living, and they all crave new challenges. The journey doesn't end until it's ended for you. Is that discouraging or heartening? A little of both, perhaps.

The book is about ambiguity, in a sense. It's about 30 designers that are dealing with the fact that there are sparks flying in their heads that most people don't have and not everybody can understand. How do you distill those sparks into something that can survive outside yourself, something that can be set free and understood by the rest of the world? How do you deal with the effects of the process? Long hours, fraught relationships, insecurity, the fluctuations of your own ego---the list goes on. The book presents 30 answers, 30 best guesses, 30 works in progress.

SK: How has the experience helped you grow as a designer and/or writer?

SB: Talking to all these people who I've admired for a long time gave me a privileged perspective that I hope I've shared in the book. It gave me a strong sense of belonging, but it has also made me face that the brass ring will not bring salvation from fear and insecurity. It made me reevaluate my own motivation for doing what I do.

I wrote the book, because I had questions. The answers have multiplied my questions by a factor of ten. But they're good, difficult, important questions and sorting out my own answers to these new questions will probably occupy me for many years to come. I hope it'll be the same for everybody who spends time reading these 30 stories.

SK: Do you plan on a volume two?

SB: Are you nuts?! I barely survived this one! :^)

No, it's time for me to go back to doing my own work.