Hooo boy, my "top 2" are kind of gritty:
1. Costs. I thought I understood how design choices (aesthetic and technical) affected printing costs, but I was wrong. Hundreds of dollars later, I might not have achieved much wisdom but I do have a much clearer understanding of the domino effect between, say, resolution and paper quality and printer technology and subsequent cost. Don't trust printers/lab assistants/computers to be infallible. You have double- and triple-check everything along the way.
2. Diversity of skills. This class has truly shown me how diverse a designer's toolkit needs to be, both technically and aesthetically. I say this knowing I didn't venture all that far outside of my box, but awareness is the first step to growth.
It ultimately was incredibly rewarding to create a book cover to cover. To have a THING that I can keep near my creative space and look at and get a little rush of "ok, you did that." That's important for me and my twitchy ego. My little "Lightning Rod Man" will be right there next to "Pale Fire." I can't wait (/totally can wait) for my thesis year to get started so I can create my own book from scratch without having to, you know, actually print and bind it myself.
