Peachpit

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Peachpit Press
Type Public
Founded 1986
Headquarters Berkeley, CA, U.S.
Parent Pearson PLC

Peachpit is an educational publisher and has been publishing books, PDFs, and videos on the latest in graphic design, desktop publishing, multimedia, web design and development, digital video, and general computing since 1986. Peachpit is the home of the Visual QuickStart Guide, Visual QuickPro Guide, Take Control of..., and Classroom in a Book series, and the design imprint New Riders and its Voices That Matter series. Peachpit is the publishing partner for Adobe Press at Adobe Systems, lynda.com, NAPP, Apple Certified at Apple, Inc, AIGA Design Press and others.

Contents

[edit] History

Peachpit Press was founded in 1986 by Ted Nace. Nace named his company Peachpit because at the time, he and his college roommates were "living and working in a peach colored house in Berkeley that was such a dump it was considered a 'pit.'" [1] Ten years later, in 1996, Nace sold Peachpit Press to London-based media conglomerate Pearson PLC. Peachpit Press continues to operate out of Berkeley today.

Although known as a Mac publisher Peachpit started out publishing Windows related books and then purchased Mac Bible Publisher Goldstein and Blair. (Aptly named after characters in the George Orwell novel 1984). With the addition of the Mac series books Peachpit became published in both OS areas. From the beginning Peachpit became very popular with the Mac community via their strong outreach and support of User Groups.[citation needed] In the 1998 when Apple user share was down to 4% of the computer user market and Power Computing was making Mac clones, Peachpit was still publishing a large portion of their books in the Mac space.[2] Peachpit’s popularity with Mac users grew even stronger with their popular easy to read series Visual QuickStart Guides.[citation needed]

The Peachpit Offices in Berkeley
The Peachpit Offices in Berkeley

[edit] Notable Authors

Some notable Peachpit authors include: Scott Kelby, Robin Williams, Garr Reynolds, Joe McNally, Steve Krug, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Jakob Nielsen.

[edit] Publications

Peachpit’s publishing history includes :

Zap!: How Your Computer Can Hurt You - and What You Can Do About It[3] by Don Sellers
Zap! is considered the first book written on Computer Safety.[citation needed] In order to make sure this book reached the hands of the people who needed it most (mainly office workers) Peachpit gave away over 75,000 copies to companies and corporations who promised to provide it to their employees.

Kid’s Web Kit by Lisa Lopuck
When the web first began gaining popularity adults were not the only ones browsing -- children were surfing too. Lisa Lopuck who taught multi media and Web design at San Francisco State University wanted to help kids shape the future of the Web and wrote the first Web design book for kids.

Ecolinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information[4] By Don Rittner
Ecolinking was the first GREEN online guide.[citation needed] Ecolinking brought forth the many ways computer users could go GREEN.

Computer Privacy Handbook[5][6] by Andre Bacard
Peachpit published the first guide to PGP. (Pretty Good Privacy)[citation needed].

Gay and Lesbian Online by Jeff Dawson
Gay and Lesbian Online was "the first trade guide to lesbian and gay cyberspace".[7] When it first published it debuted at the Pride Parade where Peachpit set up a booth and author Jeff Dawson signed copies.

Avatars! Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet[8][9] by Bruce Damer
In 1997, six years before Second Life launched (and nine years before it became mainstream), Peachpit published Avatars with Bruce Damer.

[edit] Imprints

Although Peachpit Press is Peachpit's flagship imprint, Peachpit also publishes or partners with Adobe Press, Apple Certified, lynda.com, and New Riders.

[edit] Conferences

Peachpit hosts the Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference series.

Year Location Conference Site
Oct 2007 San Francisco, CA 2007 website
Jun 2008 Nashville, TN 2008 website [10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://jtchatter.blogspot.com/2008/01/another-bedtime-story-for-designers.html jtChatter
  2. ^ http://www.macgathering.com/2005exhibits/index.html#peachpit Mac Gathering
  3. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n84/ai_15958316 Find Articles
  4. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE5DC1230F931A25756C0A964958260 NY Times
  5. ^ http://www.andrebacard.com/press.html Andre Baccard
  6. ^ http://www.businessweek.com/1996/37/b3492110.htm Business Week
  7. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Gay-Lesbian-Online-Indispensable-Cruising/dp/1555838227 Amazon
  8. ^ http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars/ DigitalSpace
  9. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2pj7sBPSYw YouTube
  10. ^ http://press-releases.techwhack.com/17446-new-riders TechWhack

[edit] External links