A publisher called Publicaffairs hired Worksight to design its catalog and then a book. The publisher grew and asked Worksight to redesign the catalog. Now Worksight produces it every three months. It started as what Santoro calls a "quickie catalog design" four years ago and has now turned into solid business every three months.

Eventually, Publicaffairs asked Santoro to design a book called America the Beautiful, a book by Lynn Sherr on the history of Katherine Bates's turn-of-the-century poem turned song. Doing a complex project such as designing a book was certainly a step up from the previous catalog work. Scott has found that the strategy of starting small works for publishers in general. "If we get a book project, usually I'll try to work my butt off to get something designed really smartly or efficiently. I guess that is the hope of all designers."

Sometimes this strategy backfires, leaving the designer with a great portfolio piece but not much more in the way of new business. Worksight designed an identity and a Web site for a small start-up dot-com company. After the Web site was done, the company kept the logo but then asked the new president's son to redo the Web site. Even though this project ended up not leading to other projects, it was important for Santoro to do a good job on it. In the larger body of work of a designer, it is essential to pay attention to detail, even on the smallest projects, because this work can have a life beyond the client, to both fuel the imagination and provide portfolio material.