I might have two left feet, but I like to dance—to shuffle, to bounce—between the analog and the digital. Looking back at some of my early work, I have enjoyed doing so for some time, but I wouldn’t have told you that. Not then. It was not until recently that I noticed the throughline.

I am not a digital native, but I am, for all intents and purposes, a digital native designer. I made tens or hundreds of digital images before I ever heard the term “paste-up” or meaningfully touched an X-Acto knife. My design life began by making basketball graphics on the family’s kitchen desktop using my accountant father’s copy of Photoshop Elements. I didn’t take “Intro to Art” until my senior year of high school, and when I took a three-hour drawing studio class my freshman year of college, I had panic attacks. Making creative work without a mouse in my hand did not come naturally to me. But it would, eventually, come, and for this I am grateful to my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, even if little of the work I made for it was any good. At the time, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and the like felt like things I had to do in order to get my graphic design degree. And they were, of course, but now I see these classes for what they were named and designed to be: foundational. I still wouldn’t call myself a technically proficient artist, but I am a willing one, and I think that often makes all the difference. I am not as afraid of being “bad.”

Printmaking, with its close relationship to graphic design, was my favorite of these studio art classes by a wide margin. But I don’t think I viewed what I made there as “graphic design,” so to speak, despite just about every project that semester containing some combination of type and image. I saw graphic design as “What I Do” and the work I made in other classes as scary, then fun, artmaking experiments separate from my main thing. I was younger and too interested in what calls “the noun” instead of “the verb.” Now, I’d just call those non-graphic design projects part of my creative practice—a soup in which graphic design may be the broth, but far from the only ingredient. As if proving this to myself, I still keep a poster I made in that printmaking class in my studio.

Throughout my time in school, there were other indicators of an interest in moving between analog and digital techniques for the same project. In the screenprinting unit, I made my design in Photoshop before burning my screen. In Typography II, I made the word “life” out of crushed lemon slices and photographed it.1 In my capstone project, I wrote words on my body, buzzed my hair, photographed myself (shirtless, in the snow), and produced a poster on which I asked gallery viewers to write what they wished people knew about mental illness. The degree to which this work was successful varies, but with the benefit of hindsight, it is telling that these projects remain my favorite from this time and, to my current sensibilities, hold up the best.

After university, there were fewer readily available opportunities for this sort of process experimentation, and what opportunities there were I did not seek out. I was working second shift at a newspaper, dating my now-wife long distance, and had not yet realized how important this “dancing” would become to me. A year or so after leaving the paper and moving to Ann Arbor, I started making collages out of the pages of the local newspaper there. I can’t remember why I did so in the first place—isn’t that funny? Collage is so important to me now—but I called this series “In the News.” I leaned on my newspaper design experience to make compositions that looked as if they were themselves weird, wacky, and satirical newspaper stories.2 Around the same time, I started creating other collages out of magazines, books, and other paper, including a series of simple, color-block collages that became a staple in my sketchbook. One collage, featuring illustrations from a 1920s National Geographic on a solid green background, immediately reminded me of The Great Gatsby and the book’s symbolic green light. So I scanned this collage, added pieces of a car digitally, and added the title and some fake blurbs. Sharing this particular cover to Instagram played an instrumental role in the development of my book design career.

Despite this, in my so-called “professional” practice, I have spent a lot of time making digital-only work. Many, if not most, projects in my early freelance career only called for digital technique. And even if they did not explicitly, a digital-first approach was usually faster and more comfortable for my calcifying professional habits. But alongside this digital paid work, my personal work increasingly leaned analog or some combination of digital and analog. Manipulating analog collages on the scanner bed. Sketching people I took digital photos of. Photographing a book I ruined with mayonnaise and messing with it in Photoshop just for the sake of a newsletter thumbnail. Most recently, I created a skull illustration by sketching it, vectorizing it, printing it with my shitty Epson, tracing it, transferring it to a linoleum block, carving it, inking it, printing it, crumpling it, and then scanning it. Phew—did you follow those steps? They weren’t perfect, but the rhythm is there.3

In the last two years, I have started to bounce between digital and analog in new ways for paid work. Revisiting my past as we have, this feels long overdue. On the other hand, it feels like the perfect time for this growth. For one thing, I now have a home studio in which to make this work. I rented a studio for a few years before, but I underestimated the extent to which a dedicated room in my house might facilitate those projects that dance between pixels and ink.4 I can leave materials out and let them linger, returning to them when the kids are asleep or my time otherwise allows for it. This room—and the materials I have amassed over the years—help me see through ideas that were previously difficult to explore without either dedicated space or unfettered access to it.

Beyond my new studio, now feels like the time to become a more consistent practitioner of this dance thanks to the rise of both generative AI and templated design software. Whether you are pro- or anti-AI, I think these technologies have and continue to usher in a new era of both access and aesthetic uniformity. Whether they fire up ChatGPT or Canva, just about anyone can create a halfway-decent flyer for their business or event. But while the average aesthetic quality of this output has improved since the early days of desktop design software, I cannot help but think that what we are seeing mirrors what happened when Comic Sans was originally disseminated to the public via the Microsoft operating system: the font ended up everywhere, irrespective of taste or craft.

There is interesting, creative usage. But the floodgates are open.

In response to the rise of AI, there is a growing counter-trend toward handmade and what some are calling “ugly” work. “Ugliness is proof of life,” says Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick in The Creative Review. I am likely never going to become a craftsman, artisan, or work exclusively with my hands. I love what digital technology has afforded me and my work, but I also want to feel at home with either a mouse or paintbrush in my hand. Whether my design work is ugly or beautiful—and book covers may call for both—I want my work to breathe with this life. I want to make things that feel like they were made by me, whether that be from a technique I use or conceptual choice that I make.

Maybe someone can perform a similar dance with the use of AI. I have my doubts, but I am slowly putting down my proverbial pitchfork. It’s too exhausting. However, in the gradual dissipation of this antipathy, there remains complete and utter disinterest. It is simply not for me.

It is my belief—my fervent hope—that being a practitioner of this analog-digital tango is what sets me apart from the maddening crowd of would-be artists and designers who don’t care about process, about the making in and of itself. Design is for clients and “solving problems,” sure, but in order to be allowed to keep solving these problems, the work must find a way to stand out. It is my hope that by continuing to practice this dance, I may find joy, meaning, and value in my work for as long as I have the privilege of making it.

July 20, 2026

Feedback on the [redacted] cover today from N. The press is pleased! They asked for a small handful of revisions, all perfectly reasonable. It looks like S will have to wait to get her handwriting on one of my covers, though—they asked for another subtitle treatment on the collage option. N said it was “feeling maybe too ‘rockstar memoir.’”

Emails from C at [publisher] and M at [publisher] today, too. The Boyd book doesn’t have a final page count yet, but it does have an estimate, so C would like to proceed with the mech and update the spine later if needed. M sent an updated subtitle. While the first book was only the addition of a comma, this has happened on all four books I’ve done with them to date.

Book Covers of Substack

Dancing with Pixels and Light: talks about exploring cyanotype for one of his book covers:

What I’m Reading (books)

The links below are affiliate links with bookshop.org. Buying a book via those links is a great way to support the newsletter! You can also buy something else and still choose to benefit Nathaniel Roy Design.

Good Movies as Old Books by Matt Stevens

Making Art and Making A Living by

100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sara Ruhl

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

What I’m Working On

I am doing some image research on oil derricks for a book cover project about a former boom town in California.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

I tried something new on a recent book cover project: sawdust lettering. The book, appropriately enough, is called Sawdusted: A Millhand’s Chronicle of Hell-Raising and Hard Work.1

I’ve wanted to include more analog work in my covers for a while now, but until I moved my studio to my basement this year, my circumstances made that difficult (besides the occasional handwritten “essays” or “poems”). I’m really inspired by the work of David Drummond, who is one clever motherfucker. So much of his work is tangible and photographed. One time, he shared a photo of a toy car frozen in a block of ice for one of his covers. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would spend a lot of time thinking about that image. It opened my mind to what a cover could be—I should thank him.2

And so I made my sawdust letters, but not without much trial and error.

First, I made the sawdust. I alternated between a small handsaw and a drill on thin pieces of wood my dad left behind from his work building the studio.

For my first attempt at making these letters, I printed the letter “S” in my desired font, placed a transparency sheet over it, and gathered the sawdust on top of the letter with an x-acto knife. This was incredibly tedious. A day later, my dad suggested using a stencil and I said “oh, duh.” I printed that letter S at something like 500pt and cut it out of the paper with my blade. I gathered the saw dust on top of my stencil, lifted the paper, and there was an “S” made of sawdust.

After I did my first few photo tests, I struggled mightily to isolate the sawdust from the background. Photoshop’s selection tools have gotten really good since I began using the software, but no matter what I tried, there was always some residue of the white paper included in my selection. This was particularly highlighted when I put the letter on a green background. I didn’t want a white background for this cover, so I thought my idea might be cooked.

Then my brilliant and beautiful wife suggested I photograph the letters on a green background. This is why I always have and will share my work in progress with non-designers. I took her advice and took it even a step further by scanning the green paper I would use to photograph the letters so that the green background in my document would match the background in the photograph as closely as possible.

I had a preliminary cover!

I was happy, but I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t yet good enough. Notes from some colleagues confirmed my thoughts. The lighting was inconsistent, because I shot each letter on my desk using my work lamp. I liked the warmth it gave, but the shadows were wrong and tone inconsistent between letters. The shape of the individual characters weren’t as defined as they could be. So I made them again.

This time, I printed my stencils on 65 lb cardstock instead of copy paper. The latter was a rookie mistake in hindsight, but I was, in fact, a rookie in this process! Every good process involves iteration. The thicker paper kept far more of the “cuts” and detail from the stylized typeface I chose. I also chose to photograph the letters in my portable photo studio box this time. Again, probably something I should have done from the start, but I was initially put off by how pale and flat it made the sawdust look. But, as every photographer knows, a flat image with lots of data gives you the most flexibility possible when editing the images. I shot the letters, applied some edits, cut them out, and assembled my cover in Photoshop. I also photographed a light sprinkling of sawdust (four times to get the amount right) in order to tie the composition together.

In the end, this cover wasn’t chosen by the publisher. I am okay with that. I also love the one they did choose! This cover can still live in the “cover graveyard” section of my website, and I genuinely feel that the process of making the thing was its own reward. Maybe more than I have for any other cover, used or unused.

For those interested, below is the final cover followed some more unused options.

Leave a comment with your favorite cover and why ⬇️

Leave a comment

In Case You Missed It

My last newsletter was about how feelings play a role in my design process:

What I’m Reading (books)

The links below are affiliate links with bookshop.org. Buying a book via those links is a great way to support the newsletter! You can also buy something else and still choose to benefit Nathaniel Roy Design.

Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens

100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sara Ruhl

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

What I’m Reading (links)

Someone free Colleen Hoover’s movies from the shackles of that narrow sans serif font on all of her books by

The Publishing Process for Creatives: What I Wish I Knew Before I Started by

What I’m Working On

• A query letter and book proposal! Ya boy is trying to get published.

• Bouncing between digital and analog processes to make this little guy:

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Feelings are an integral part of my design practice.

For some, capital “D” Design is a supremely objective, reason-driven profession. In many sectors, it is and (mostly) should be. Something designed to save lives, for instance, should probably rely more upon fact than feeling. However I don’t save lives, I design book covers.

My emotions are why I design book covers in the first place. I design books (and promo materials for the library) because I’d rather stop designing altogether than make something in order to sell the latest toothpaste or gadget stealing attention from our lives.1 Feelings even dictate the kinds of book covers I work on, which is bold considering I was desperate to work on any “real” book cover just seven years ago.

Naturally, feelings also play a part in my actual design process.

When I am designing a book cover, I am guided by excitement. I may get excited for a variety of reasons, but this emotion is always a guidepost. I get excited when I have an idea I think is particularly good, clever, or appropriate for the book. I get excited when I try a new technique, or when a client asks for a collaged option. I get excited when I move something ten pixels and the metaphorical puzzle suddenly clicks into place. There is anticipation while I wait for the client to decide on a direction—will they go for the weird one? (There’s always at least one weird one). The choices I make do have logic, but this logic is usually far from objective. My favorite work, both from myself and others, tends to have a subjective logic about it. After all, isn’t this true of books themselves?

There is also curiosity and fear, both of which are flirtations with the unknown. How do I best represent this book? Have I already had my last good idea? Can I push myself to do something new?

I am also guided by disappointment. Or, rather, the anticipation of disappointment. Just this morning, I removed a cover I liked from a client presentation because when I searched my feelings,2 I knew that if this cover was chosen over some of the other options I made, I would be disappointed—even if I liked the cover in its own right. I do everything in my power to only send work I would be happy to see on the shelf. If I cannot design enough options that would make me happy, I settle for nothing less than content. At least, that is, until revisions begin.

In the revision phase of a project, the most common feelings I experience are dread and frustration. Dread comes before I begin the edits, knowing that change must come to something I like and worked hard on, when my proximity to the work still blinds me to how it can be improved or else better serve some publishing goal. Frustration arises when I receive a revision I do not agree with. This happens less often now that I don’t work with CEOs writing “calling cards,” but frustration is still inevitable in client work. A good designer needs access to their emotions—even frustration—but must also be able to shut the valve when necessary. They must care enough to do a good job, but must also be able to detach themselves from any particular outcome. I can do this, but it usually takes a few days. If the frustration persists, I know there is something worth pushing back on—but, if possible, with frustration in the back seat. Frustration can tell you where you should go, but it shouldn’t drive you there. The best work is imbued with emotion, but that work—or future, similar work—will not see the light of day if emotion gets the better of its designer.

Then, there is relief; a cover has been chosen! Relief comes even if the chosen rectangle is not my preferred rectangle.3 Depending on what was chosen, I may also be elated or disappointed. But regardless, it is another job complete, another paycheck on the way, and another opportunity to do more, good work in the finite time I have left to do it in.

In Case You Missed It

I chatted with about why we didn’t like this recent cover of Wuthering Heights.

The Booktender

They made this on purpose

Hello readers! In today’s post we, Nathaniel Roy of A Book Designer's Notebook and Abra McAndrew at The Booktender, unpack the visual strategy behind Simon & Schuster’s rebrand of 2026 film-adapted classics as part of a “Female Filmmakers Collection.” It started with…

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a month ago · 34 likes · 11 comments · Abra McAndrew and Nathaniel Roy

invited me to share some “Reasons Not to Quit”

Reasons Not to Quit

"Change will come—you should stick around for it."

Welcome to the Reasons Not To Quit Perfect 10…

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24 days ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · Hanne Blank Boyd

What I’m Reading (books)

The links below are affiliate links with bookshop.org. Buying a book via those links is a great way to support the newsletter! You can also buy something else and still choose to benefit Nathaniel Roy Design.

Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens

100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sara Ruhl

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

What I’m Working On

A biography about someone you have definitely heard of(!)

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Inspired by the likes of Aaron Draplin and his Field Notes, a few years ago I started making my own pocket notebooks.

They weren’t very good! Eventually, I took a break. Had another kid. Recently, I started making them again, and I’ve improved my process. It’s funny how our hobbies come and go. Now, I might be obsessed.1

It requires some tools and practice, and these are definitely not perfect, but I am frankly surprised at how well I can get these little notebooks to turn out. I think if I can do it, anybody can!

Here’s a video illustrating how I make mine:

Here are the tools I used in this video2:

• Cover: French Paper | 80 lb Cover in “Jelly Bean Green”

• Insides: Finch Paper | 24 lb bond / 60 lb Text Opaque Digital

• Self-healing cutting mat

• X-acto knife with #11 blade3

• Metal ruler/straight edge

• Small binder clip

• Brayer4

• Bostitch booklet stapler

• Small corner cutter/rounder

• Sandpaper

Optional: A custom stamp!

Eventually, I plan on getting a heavy-duty guillotine cutter. But for now, I am enjoying being gloriously inefficient. If you are also going to be inefficient, I recommend keeping bandaids nearby.

Happy making! If you make a pocket notebook, I’d love to see it.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Pound for pound, there may not be a single book I’ve learned more about book design from than Book Design Made Simple by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett. In addition to the book, there is a blog I have referred to many times to refresh my memory on some technique or tool.

Recently, I learned two things about Book Design Made Simple in one fell swoop:

1. The blog is going away later this year.

2. The blog is being archived by my book design colleague !

You can find the blog archives here.

You can find the video archives here.

Hadley on the project:

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase. While this is incredibly sad news, Fiona and Glenna have generously allowed me to archive their blog posts on Hadley House to avoid having them disappear with their website. You can find all of their archived posts here. Fiona and Glenna have made a huge impact on my life, teaching me so much about book design and giving me the hope, motivation, and confidence to succeed in this field. I am eternally grateful. It is an honor to learn from them. I think you will feel the same <3

Here’s a small sample of the archived posts you can find at :

Hadley House

What Type Size Should I Use?

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase…

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2 months ago · Hadley Hendrix

Hadley House

Designing a Book Title Page

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase…

Read more

2 months ago · Hadley Hendrix

Hadley House

Creative Book Cover Treatments

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase…

Read more

2 months ago · Hadley Hendrix

Hadley House

ISBNs for Self Publishers: How to Get and Assign Them

In October 2026, the website BookDesignMadeSimple.com (founded by Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett) will be closing, and their co-written book will no longer be available for purchase…

Read more

2 months ago · Hadley Hendrix

If you have any interest in self-publishing, do yourself a favor and check out these archives. Thank you Hadley, for preserving such a wonderful resource!

News

I got asked to do a cover for a very exciting book! It’s a political biography for a new client.

In Case You Missed It

What I’m Working On

I’m making lots and lots of handmade pocket notebooks. I think they look pretty good! I continue to flirt with turning this into a business, but for now I am going to keep it a hobby. I love giving them away. I did design and order a custom stamp, though

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

I recently completed work on the cover for a book called The Collapse is Here: The Hopeful Christian’s Guide to Restore Faith, Home and Community by Gabe Lyons.1 I didn’t count—because who has the time—but I am pretty sure this title now holds the record for “most unused cover options” in my portfolio. I thought you might like to see some of them to get an idea of what can go into designing a book cover. This one took about three months from creative brief to approval.

Here’s what the final cover ended up looking like, followed by nine unused, or “killed,” covers.2

There are many reasons a cover may or may not be chosen beyond whether or not it is “good.” Some reasons I know here, and some I don’t! But I keep moving, iterating, and exploring. I’m particularly fond of a few earlier covers, particularly the first one in this gallery. I wanted to see it with a gold foil stamp. However, as pretty as that would have been, the imagery wasn’t right for the book. And that’s alright. The greatest strength a designer can have is caring enough to do a good job, but never getting too attached to a particular outcome.

Which cover do you like best? Why?

Leave a comment

What I’m Reading (books)

I just finished There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib . I really enjoyed it, but found it difficult to read at times. It was definitely written by a poet, if you know what I mean.

I am currently reading Apparitions & Late Fictions by Thomas Lynch, a poet, essayist, and mortician in my home state of Michigan.

I started Box Office Poison by Tim Robey on my phone to read while getting the kids to sleep.

What I’m Reading (links)

My Adventures as an Illustrator

I Made the Animorphs Covers. I Did Not Expect This.

I’ve been doing cover art for over fifty years. More than two thousand covers, by my last count. I’ve painted for Baen, Bantam, Tor, Del Rey, Scholastic. I spent seven years as a matte artist at Disney. I’ve done space operas, military science fiction, horror, fantasy, kid’s series. I painted the…

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a month ago · 168 likes · 8 comments · David Mattingly

What I’m Working On

• The cover for a memoir about working in a saw mill.

• The cover for a book about how smart fish are.

• The cover for a book about Islam in the second half of the 20th Century.

• The jacket mechanical for The Grassland Queen by Priyanka Kumar.

• Graphics and marketing material for an anime event at the library.

• A sticker sheet for a classic arcade week at the library.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

This week, another one of my book jackets entered the world! We Interrupt This Broadcast, a lovely collection of poems by Gregory Orr, was published on June 2.1 My copy from the publisher has not yet arrived, so on my way to grab ’s Don’t Call it Art, I asked the Barnes and Noble employee where to find the store’s tiny poetry section and snapped a photo. I’ve been designing books for a while now, but this is just the third jacket of mine I’ve seen in the big box store. It’s incredibly exciting and I hope, to quote a friend, that I get old before this feeling does. I am incredibly lucky to do work at this scale.

Also this week, I am working on a cover for one of my clients that always seems to bring out the best in me. I’m trying something new on this one—a new technique for me. Reaching just beyond what I previously knew myself capable of making. There has been trial, error, iteration, thinking, talking to others, and, eventually, success. While seeing my work on the shelves of a national bookstore is rewarding as hell, this stretching, this focused iterating, is the best feeling I know. Better than sex, drugs, or Christmas. You’re certain you can create the vision in your head, you just need to figure out how to do so, and fail slightly less each time until you arrive. I haven’t read his book of the same name, but I think this stretching just beyond oneself is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as “flow.” If flow was a place, I’d build a house and live there.

I can’t share the cover yet, but here’s a look at what I’ve been doing: making and photographing sawdust letters.

• Last week, it was announced that my cover for The Promise of Language by Keith Gilyard was selected to be a part of the Association of University Presses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show for 2026. This is my first time being selected and something I’ve hoped to be able to say since I learned about the award several years ago.

• continues to do great cover design work for fellow Substack writers. I’m not taking on new self-published projects at the moment (maybe talk to me when both kids are in public school), so if you’re hoping to work with me, you should reach out to Shane instead.

  

• Speaking of Don’t Call it Art, ’s features Kleon’s notebooks in a recent post.

Noted

How Austin Kleon Keeps it Fun and Weird

It’s my birthday this week…

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2 months ago · 281 likes · 65 comments · Jillian Hess and Austin Kleon

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

If and when a book transitions from hardcover to paperback, its cover is subject to change. Sometimes the change is slight—The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead comes to mind—and other times the change is more complete.

There are a variety of reasons a book’s cover might change. In a rare treat, I was recently offered the opportunity for some insight into one particular cover evolution: that of Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross.

Hazel Says No is Gross’s debut novel. It comes out in paperback on June 2. Please enjoy the following Q&A with author .

How long after Hazel Says No came out in hardcover was the paperback edition released?

A year, minus two weeks. Hazel Says No is out in paperback on June 2.

The big one: do you have a favorite? Why or why not?

That feels like choosing between my two best friends; I love them both for such different reasons. The original hardcover’s design is inspired by my house in Maine: a white 1870’s farmhouse with green shutters and a yellow door on the porch. If you look closely, you can see that each of my main characters has a sort of totem object. Claire, the clothing designer mother, has her laundry on the line. Hazel has a canvas Brooklyn tote, her brother Wolf his school backpack, and Gus, the American Studies professor dad, a stack of papers to grade. On top of repping our Brooklyn transplants, the Greenberg Blum family, and their new home in small town Maine, the hardcover has a wraparound jacket evoking the Maine town beyond, blurbs I adore and generally feels very Brooklyn family moves to small town Maine. For the paperback cover, we wanted to represent Hazel and the novel’s sharper edges. The cover design has a singular focus on the titular character Hazel, and the feminist and collective NO of the book. There’s something crystalline and oh so cool (I think!) about the paperback.

One cover features a house, the other a person. Does one cover represent the book better than the other? How does that aspect influence how you feel about them?

The challenge with the cover design, and talking Hazel Says No, is also what I hope readers love about the book. Hazel Says No is both a family novel where bad things happen and life is far from perfect, and a story of feminist resistance, resilience, and finding your voice and community. And it’s (hopefully!) smart, sharp and funny. And set in Maine. That’s a lot to cover in, haha, a cover.

I’m sure it happens, but this is the first time I’ve heard about an American publisher licensing a foreign edition’s artwork for the American paperback. What was the rationale behind the cover change to your book? Was it a creative or sales decision? Was it a publisher decision, or something you pushed for?

Yes, from what I understand this is very unusual. My Italian publisher is Heloola, a super special indie start-up that began with a quite popular book club and subscription service, and then launched their own imprint. The first book they published was Angie Kim’s Happiness Falls. Hazel Says No was their second. Alice and Giada Cancellario found HAZEL and me quite early on and have championed my novel in Italy. We’ll meet for the first time in Rome at the end of May!

Rethinking the US paperback cover was a very collaborative and mutual-feeling editorial, creative, and sales team decision. My agent Henry Dunow and I had fallen in love with the Italian cover and wanted to bring that sharpness to the paperback. That was our dream — but we had no idea what Hanover Square/HarperCollins would think. My editor John Glynn, Editorial Director at Hanover Square Press, loved the idea of licensing the Italian cover. So did sales, marketing, and the rest of the team. It was remarkably easy once we made that suggestion. I’m forever grateful to John and his colleagues for being so open and excited about giving HAZEL a whole new look.

If there’s more to the story of how the cover evolved, I’d love to hear it. Were there any other scrapped ideas for the paperback adaptation?

With the hardcover jacket, we went through many iterations, but for the paperback, once we decided on the Italian version and asked to license, the process felt (at least to me) super simple.

How much input did you have for the original cover? How does that level of input compare to your input on the paperback?

Unlike my earlier books, where it was more about picking among a few options presented to me, and having some but not loads of input, I was lucky to be very involved early on with both of my Hanover Square/HarperCollins Hazel Says No covers. When we began brainstorming, I sent my editor John Glynn everything from covers I love to photos of my house to images of Alex Katz’s Maine paintings.

With the paperback, all credit goes to Alice and Giada Cancellario, who worked with the Dublin-based, Italian artist Mario Sughi to find this perfect Hazel. Mario’s work is also used for the cover of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s latest novel Lake Effect. Cynthia and I are both represented by Henry Dunow, and Cynthia’s blurb is on the front of both of my covers. But the art/artist crossover is a happy coincidence.

Both editions feature paintings, or at least painterly illustrations. Were these artworks created specifically for their respective covers, or were they existing pieces that were licensed? If the former, how was the subject matter chosen? Why do you think the painting medium made sense for your book?

Andrea Cheung created the hardcover image for the cover. (And so beautifully, I think.) The Mario Sughi image already existed, though his Hazel feels bespoke, or at least, meant to be. Alice told me she and Giada were searching for the perfect image while looking at Mario Sughi’s recent work. Alice said over email, “We saw her and thought: oh, that’s Hazel.”

As for the medium, I wonder if that has to do with the Hazel Says No being a book set in Maine. Or maybe that HAZEL has a freshness best captured by the painting medium? I’m curious to hear what you and your readers think. Especially once you read.

Is there anything else you want to share about the book or its covers?

For the German edition Hazel Sagt Nein my publisher Bastei Lubbe went with the American hardcover version for their jacket. In promoting the German-language Hazel, they sent promo boxes of book-related goodies containing Hazel’s first day of school tote bag mentioned in chapter one—including everything from tampons to a journal they made with NEIN in big letters—and included a key chain with the family’s yellow front door. This summer, after eleven years in our Central Maine town, my (real) family and I are moving to a new (dreamy) part of Maine. My new set of house keys is on the German key chain, reminding me of my beloved old house’s yellow door, our time together in “Riverburg” (the fictional town), and writing a book about a Brooklyn family who move to a small town in the middle of Maine — and find themselves along the way.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Here are some things I thought worth sharing this week.

Get your work out of the sketchbook!

shows us how a simple sketch or collage can be elevated by putting it in a frame and mat.

I didn’t mat it, and it’s definitely off-center, but I took his advice and framed one of my favorite collages in my sketchbook.

Behind the Cover with Drew Buxton and Kate McMullen

Hub City Press Associate Publisher Kate McMullen and author Drew Buxton chat about the cover for his new book, Daytona Teddy Riggs (pre-order the book here).

Zona Motel

CONVERSATION: Behind the Cover with Drew Buxton and Kate McMullen

At Zona Motel we don’t do Cover Reveals. We don’t believe in them. We see Cover Reveals as part of corporate publishing’s attempt to turn books into soulless market commodities. Cover Reveals have re…

Read more

3 months ago · 19 likes · 4 comments · Zona Motel and Kate Arden McMullen

I collaged my grandmas casket, this is how it brought some closure

A beautiful piece by about collaging their grandmother’s casket and an exploration of making art as care.

Bone Folder Press

I collaged my grandmas casket, this is how it brought some closure

Read more

3 months ago · 48 likes · 13 comments

The Official Permission to Suck at Drawing Certificate from

I downloaded this, printed it, and pinned it to my corkboard.

What you wish you knew at 32

New Work

A recent cover I designed for University of Texas Press.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Hey folks,

I don’t have any capital W writing in the can, so I’m stealing ’s format this week. Here are ten things I thought were worth sharing.

Substack tells me this one is too long for email. Click here to read this in your browser.

The Hours

I bought this combined edition of The Hours by Michael Cunningham / Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf this week from Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor.1 Isn’t it gorgeous? The cover was designed by Delcan and Co.

From the publisher:

In The Hours, the acclaimed author Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf and the story of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. In this edition, Cunningham brings his own Pulitzer Prize–winning novel together with Woolf’s masterpiece, which has long been hailed as a groundbreaking work of literary fiction and one of the finest novels written in English.

The two novels, published side by side with a new introduction by Cunningham, display the extent of their affinity, and each illuminates new facets of the other in this joint volume. In his introduction, Cunningham re-creates the wonderment of his first encounter with Mrs. Dalloway at fifteen—as he writes, “I was lost. I was gone. I never recovered.” With this edition, Cunningham allows us to disappear into the world of Woolf and into his own brilliant mind.

Choosing a Cover Font

Courtesy of Daniel Benneworth-Gray and his great newsletter Meanwhile, here’s Jon Klassen on choosing a cover font for picture books.

Looking at Picture Books

Choosing a Cover Font

I love type and lettering. Maybe more than drawing. I don’t think I have wild taste in fonts or type, but when it’s well excecuted or cleverly-placed, I get just, or even more excited about it than even great illustration. I think great type design can totally save an illustration, and bad type design can almost totally ruin it. This post is mainly a ch…

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a year ago · 320 likes · 14 comments · Jon Klassen

Cover Notes

Over on Substack Notes, has been sharing collections of covers by specific designers. Give her a follow to learn who designed your favorite books!

The Ray Bradbury and Dua Lipa Blunt Rotation

Last weekend, I saw Penny and Sparrow in concert at The Ark. Penny and Sparrow might be my favorite musical act. They are definitely my favorite musical act to see live. They play beautiful music and have funny banter—including a joke about Ray Bradbury and Dua Lipa being the ideal blunt rotation. Context: their song, Bishop, references a Bradbury interview.

The duo reads a lot, and there are more than a few references to books in their songs.

Terrestrial Poems Cover Reveal

shared the cover for Terrestrial Poems, a forthcoming book of regional nature poetry from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The lovely cover was designed by Phil Britton, a letterpress printer from Marquette, Michigan. Kickstarter comes at the end of April, so follow Brinksi if you’re interested in this book.

Making Type: James Edmondson of OH no Type Co.

Courtesy of the The Weekly Typographic newsletter: An interview with James Edmondson, the man and type designer behind OH no Type Co.

New Business Cards

I made new business cards. I’m quite fond of them (for now)! They were printed by the good folks at Print-Tech in Saline, Michigan.

A Cover Credit Conundrum

I recently started reading Theo of Golden with my mom for our two-person book club we started a few years ago when she underwent chemotherapy treatment. As I usually do, I checked the back cover to see who designed the book’s cover. The credit read “cover design by 99Designs” and “cover illustrations by the author and Garry Pound.”

If you aren’t familiar, 99Designs is a graphic design platform that connects freelancers and clients. It began as a design contest site but has since expanded its offerings to include freelancer matchmaking as well as their own “Pro Studio” (and is now owned by Vistaprint).

I found it strange that a book from a Big 5 imprint would credit an entire design platform with the cover design, so I did a little digging. After some Googling, I learned that Theo of Golden was originally a self-published book.2 Additionally, I found a cover reveal video by the author that shows what is essentially the same cover as the Atria Books version—but not quite.

Though I am still not entirely sure why an individual designer hasn’t been credited, what I gather from this is that the original, self-published version of the book—which you can still find on Amazon, I think—used a cover designed by someone hired through 99Designs. Simon & Schuster, wanting to capitalize on the success of the self-published book, decided to keep the cover basically the same, with a few tweaks, to optimize recognition. Maybe crediting 99Designs was the bare minimum on their part to credit someone they didn’t hire for a cover that they made changes to. Maybe the cover was provided by 99Designs Pro Studio, making this credit is the most accurate. Maybe this is what the author requested. Maybe the designer didn’t want credit.

If I was curious enough, I might buy the 2023 self-published version and see who that cover credits, but I must admit, my curiosity ends at the prospect of spending money.

Best Book Covers of March

According to Literary Hub, here are the best book covers that appeared in March.

Some good ones in there, but I find there is a lack of variety in the aesthetic taste on this list. I like this one the best:

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
—Nathaniel

Perhaps this goes without saying, but every designer’s process is different. In my experience, the often loosely-defined “process” is an amalgamation tools, habits, and sensibilities.

If you’ve been reading for a little while, I think you will have a decent feel for my sensibilities. Maybe even my habits—like posting too often on Substack Notes. Today, I thought it might share a little bit about the tools I use to design books.

Notebook

My notebook is extremely important to my book design process. With it I take notes at client meetings, brainstorm ideas, and make sketches. I primarily use an A5 hardcover notebook but I also carry with me a pocket notebook for scrap and making notes when I don’t have my bigger notebook.

Because I know folks will ask: I use a hardcover dot-grid A5 Leuchtturm1917 and, usually, a Field Notes.

Pen

I like to use Sakura Pigma Micron Pens for writing and sketching. This is not a cheap habit. Along with my notebooks, I ask for them for Christmas each year. I try to use Pentel drafting pencils, but I bend the tips without fail, so I use whatever pencil happens to be lying around. Recently I have started using Uni-ball Vision pens.

I also have a couple of fountain pens that I like, but never seem to use for long …

Studio

Perhaps not a tool in the way you might think, I absolutely consider my studio a tool, and an incredibly important one at that. I am an introvert who likes—no, needs—his own space, and none of my cohabitants are tidy creatures.

Until recently, I rented office space above a restaurant in the town where I live. We bought a house in December and, last month, my dad and I (mostly my dad) finished a new studio space in my basement. It’s my favorite little room in the world.

Desk

On something of a whim at IKEA several years ago, I bought this big, standing desk. It has served me well, even if I don’t use it to stand all that often. One of my favorite features is its mesh netting running along the length of the desk’s bottom, helping to keep all of my various cords and cables (sort of) tidy.

Computer

Right now I am using a 2024 Macbook Pro. Before that, I used a 2021 Macbook Pro, until my daughter knocked over the glass of water I left out and onto my backpack containing said computer. Before that, I used a 2012 Macbook Pro. I’m proud that it lasted nine years. The computer, of course, houses the programs I use to create my design work.

I used to be very anal retentive about cleaning my computer. I am less so today—but I still will flinch and possibly break off your finger if you touch the screen intentionally.

Right now, I just use a monitor from my job. Couldn’t even tell you the model if I tried. In the last 18 months, I’ve done a lot of work from the couch while holding a baby.

Adobe Programs

I primarily design front covers in Adobe Photoshop. Full covers and book interiors get designed in InDesign. When setting lots of type, use a program that’s designed for it. I use Illustrator when a cover has flat, vector graphics.1 I’m not much of a (lowercase) illustrator, so I don’t use programs like Procreate or even an iPad. At least not yet.

Adobe has its problems, and on occasion I’m tempted to try out a competitor like Affinity, but I don’t have much motivation (or time) for that. Adobe is still the industry standard and I know it well.

An Adobe subscription also comes with access to Adobe Fonts, which is handy.

Vellum

Vellum is a book formatting software great for self-publishers without the technical know-how to use InDesign. I don’t use it often—I bought a copy seven years ago when AADL was a freelance client and was using the program to lay out their books—but it’s still a tool on the belt, and I did use it for one self-published project last year. If I use it, the client always knows, and I charge accordingly.

Note: The Vellum hyperlink above is an affiliate link. I earn a small commission if you purchase a copy of the program.

Image websites

I use so many damn image websites. I probably use Adobe Stock the most, and then when needed I use iStock and Shutterstock. If the publisher is paying for the images, I’ll sometimes use Getty or one of the other big boys.

I also use a fair amount of public domain imagery. There’s a big list of these sites on my Book Design Resources page.

Camera

I don’t use my own photographs in my book cover designs as much as I would like to, but the camera is still an important tool in my practice. I use the camera to document my finished work as well as works in progress.

As of yet this is not connected to book design (until I make a photo book, that is), but street photography is also an occasional hobby of mine.

I have a Canon Rebel T6s and a Fujifilm X-T30.

Portable Photo Studio

In conjunction with my camera, I use a foldable, portable photo studio to shoot photos for projects and document my work and the ephemera I’ve collected over the years. I’d like to start using it to shoot stock photos.

I bought this one made by Amazon Basics.

A little photoshoot for my job at the library …

… that turned into this social media graphic.

I shot this photo of Cinema Ann Arbor in my photo box, edited it in Lightroom, and added the yellow background in Photoshop.

Phone

When a book cover requires handwriting, I will often just snap a photo with my phone and then send it to myself to process in Photoshop. Scanning is better, but I am sometimes lazy. I also use a few apps like Lightroom, Airtable, Basecamp, and Google Drive.

Airtable

Airtable is my project management tool of choice. I have not been great about updating it since the baby was born. Airtable is a powerful database tool with many automations and features that blow my mind.

A few years ago, I used it to send automated and customized cold emails to potential clients. The success rate wasn’t high, but the process was fast and it did lead to more work. Doing so kickstarted this phase of my freelance career.

Wave

Wave is an online, free accounting software. I use this to track business expenses and export profit/loss sheets for tax time. It’s pretty good for being free and helps keep my overhead lower.

Squarespace

I host and designed my website through Squarespace. It’s not the cheapest option, but I like it and am not a web designer. It works for me. I’m sure someone will chime in with a better alternative in the comments.

Google Workspace

When I first started using Squarespace, it included a year of Google Workspace. After Adobe Creative Cloud stopped letting you sync its folders locally, I decided I wanted a new storage solution and started a Google Workspace subscription with Google directly. I currently have 2 TB and it syncs between the cloud, my computer, and my phone.

Scanner

I use an Epson V600 scanner. From my research, it seemed like the best of the budget-friendly options. You can drop some serious cash on a scanner. I use this to scan collages, handwriting for book covers, and many things in between.

X-Acto knife

I use an X-Acto knife to make collages. I have a bunch now, of various sizes, including my favorite which has rubber grip from top to bottom and can store multiple blades inside itself, accessed by a screw top.

Cutting mat

I use a self-healing cutting mat from Fiskars, 18x24’. I don’t know what I’d do without it. I keep a pocket-sized one inside my backpack for collage-on-the-go.

Hamilton Flat File

I bought this behemoth last year from the local thrift shop for $500. I couldn’t pass it up—it was made by Hamilton, a company that is a former producer of wood type, type furniture, and is now a wood type museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. I saw a listing for the same cabinet on Ebay for over $1,800.

I’m still figuring out the best way to use it, but right now I use it to store collage cuts and scraps, vintage ephemera, posters, old design work, photographs, and other stuff. I finally printed labels!

Thanks for Reading!

I may be forgetting a thing or two, but that is basically it. Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

In 2027, Futura will be 100 years old. It was designed by Paul Renner.

Check out this wonderful walkthrough of the typeface by the good folks at Letterform Archive—Futura: A Typeface for Our Time

Mrs Eaves, a modern Baskerville interpretation designed by Zuzana Licko, was named after William Baskerville’s live-in housekeeper, Sarah Eaves, the woman whom he later married.

You cannot copyright a typeface. You can, however, legally protect font files.

Works Not Protected by Copyright

113KB ∙ PDF file

Download

United States Copyright Office

Download

If you correct someone who says “font” instead of “typeface,” there are better things to do with your time 99% of the time.

Comic Sans was designed for a program called Microsoft Bob in the 1990s. It was never used for said program, but it was included in Microsoft’s operating system, therefore making it available to everyone who used the OS.1

Garamond is named for Claude Garamond, a sixteenth-century Parisian engraver. There is no “original” Garamond typeface.

Futura is on the moon.

Trajan is based on the lettering found on—get this—Trajan’s Column.

Helvetica is named after “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland, the typeface’s country of origin. The typeface’s designer, Max Miedinger, originally called it Neue Haas Grotesk.

Georgia, Verdana, and Tahoma (among many others) were all designed by a man named Matthew Carter.

Using Papyrus is an irredeemable design sin, but Comic Sans is acceptable in certain circumstances.2

Eric Gill, the designer of the ubiquitous Gill Sans, was a pedophile and sexual abuser.

Though similar, Gill Sans is not the typeface used for the London Underground. That typeface is called Johnston, designed by Edward Johnston. Gill Sans is based on Johnston (the font) and Johnston (the man) was Eric Gill’s teacher.

There is a documentary film about Helvetica directed by Gary Hustwit. (It is wonderful).

Arial is a Monotype clone of Linotype’s Helvetica. The two are metrically compatible.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

I love handwriting on a book cover. Whether it be the whole composition, or just the phrase “a novel,” it adds a human touch to the design that is rarely, if ever, replicated by a digital font.1

For a long time, I didn’t know how to add it to my own covers effectively. I had a few problems:

1. My handwriting is not great.

2. Even if a cover called for sloppy, handwritten type, I found it difficult to compose said type. If a designer is worth their salt, even a “sloppy” cover is considered.

3. When I tried to add handwriting to a cover, I struggled to make it look like it was written on the cover instead of just added to the cover digitally. That difference might sound insignificant, but in my opinion, it’s the difference between professional and amateur work (as it pertains to handwritten type, at least).

All of my favorite designers have handwritten type in their bag of tricks, so I was determined to figure out how to add it to mine.

After much time, trial, and error, here is what I do now.

Style & Composition

When a cover calls for just one handwritten word, like “poems,” I typically just write it over and over and over again in my sketchbook. This can take a while, but if I am patient, I can typically come up with something usable. Sometimes I have my wife take a crack at it. Throughout this process, I attempt to make subtle adjustments to how I write the word for different visual flavors. This isn’t natural for me, so I have to pay close attention to the way I make the letters.

This is what I did for my covers for We Interrupt This Broadcast by Gregory Orr and Our Fragile Freedoms by Eric Foner.

If I want to make the title, subtitle, and/or author name handwritten, I need to think more about how the type will be arranged in addition to how each individual letter looks. And I would say that nine times out of ten, I am unsuccessful with the above approach for single words. So I figured out a way to “cheat.”

Now, when I want to use a lot of handwriting on a cover, I set the type in Photoshop first, as if I were designing a cover with my standard digital process. Sometimes it’s a serif/sans serif, sometimes it’s a handwriting font.

Then I:

1. Isolate the type so it’s the only thing showing in the document.

2. Print the type-only composition.

3. Using tracing paper, I trace the type-only composition with a pencil, pen, paint marker, paintbrush, or whatever else the project calls for.

4. Scan the handwriting and bring it back in to Photoshop.

Why not just use a handwriting font, you might ask? Most of the time—and especially at larger sizes—they just aren’t realistic looking enough. There are two problems:

1. At larger sizes, the vectorness of the type becomes apparent, even if it is distressed.

2. Great handwriting fonts have ligatures and alternate glyphs built in, but they will often still repeat glyphs.

Look at the “N”s here—they are exactly the same. Some might not notice, but this gives it away as a font and not real handwriting. When you trace letters, they cannot help but be imperfect and slightly different. This is a good thing!

Isolating the Handwriting

The next step is isolating the handwritten type. This can be a little tricky to do right. You want to select it so that you’re not just grabbing the shape of the letters, but making sure you get all of the texture that gets “bites” into the letters. I do this by selecting using Photoshop’s Select>Color Range menu.

This gets a little technical, and is difficult to write about clearly. So for those interested, here’s a little video demo I made:

After all that, here’s what the final cover looks like:

I felt it was important to use real handwriting on this cover, not just a font, because of the personal aspects of this book blended with its science. If you’re interested, you can preorder The Grassland Queen here. I get a little kickback.

I hope you enjoyed this exploration of handwriting on book covers!

What I’m Reading (links)

Galley Brag #25 by . A great interview with book cover designers Joanne O’Neill and Olivia McGiff.

On Collecting Reference & Inspiration by

A Pocket Notebook Can Change Your Life by

Why My Simple Book Cover Wasn’t Simple by

The Camera as a Social Shield: Robert Rauschenberg on Why We Photograph by

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

Later this month, I will climb the stairs to my studio, as it currently exists, for the last time. I’ll pass the neighboring strip club, fight with the back door lock, ascend with the aroma of hot Italian sandwiches, and enter my little room.

I started renting office space above a local restaurant in September 2023. I needed a place to work, and the 960-square foot house I was also renting increasingly lacked available space as the number of children in our home went from zero, to one, to two. My office space—my little room, as I tend to call it—became a 130-square foot refuge where I could focus and knew the mess was mine. Here I designed, collaged, photographed, read, and practiced my shooting form below the room’s tall ceilings.

In December, my wife and I bought a house with more and much needed space. Enough for a home office. My dad and I—okay, mostly my dad—are building it right now. The money I once spent on rent will go toward the mortgage and childcare and the myriad things an adult life and homeownership require a person to spend money on. I’m excited! But I am also sad, and a little nervous that bringing my refuge into my home will remove part of what made it special. “Bittersweet” doesn’t quite do the feeling justice. There’s probably a German word for it.

The closer we get to finishing, the more excited I become. I bought white paint samples from Lowe’s the other day1 and gleefully poured over the chart of oak-patterned vinyl flooring my dad sent me. I’m daydreaming about where to put my reading chair and bookshelves and my Hamilton flat file cabinet. The sadness, and the worry that this new little room won’t be as special, has dulled—but not gone away completely.

I’ve never had these kind of emotions for a single little room before. It’s weird! This room is special to me because, in addition to being a much-needed retreat, it is also where I started taking my freelance book design business more seriously and started working my ass off. It’s a tangible symbol of that shift in my life.

Since my daughter was born 18 months ago, I don’t go to my studio nearly as often as I would like to. I’m home a lot, taking care of her and her older brother. An office in the basement means I can go whenever I like and I don’t need any amount of time to make the trip “worth it.” Kids are in bed and there’s a deadline? Down the stairs I go. But it also means the boundary between my new studio and the rest of my life threatens to be more porous. Just on the other side of the wall, there lies all of the boxes filled with crap from the move I don’t know what to do with. However, porous boundaries or not, what good is a refuge if you can never get to it? As much as I will miss my studio, the tradeoff is undoubtedly worth it.

I’m grateful for my little room. I hope its next occupant can feel how special it was, if just for a time.

What I’m Reading (books)

I just finished American Bulk: Essays on Excess by Emily Mester. Loved it. One of my favorite kinds of books: A broad topic filtered through an extremely personal lens. Lots of underlining. I recommend it. Thanks, Matt!

I started reading The Likeness by Tana French for my book club with my mom. I don’t often read mysteries, but when I do, I really enjoy them.

I started reading Tomb Sweeping: Stories via Libby and the Kindle app on my phone for when I am getting my daughter down to sleep in her dark room. I love a good novel, but man, I really think the short story is the optimal fiction format.

What I’m Working On

Here’s a recent cover I designed for Simon & Schuster:

Here’s a recent one for Princeton University Press:

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

Have you ever read a book made out of cheese? What about one made from 6,000 dandelions collected from Mount Auburn Cemetery? How about a book made from 222 two dollar bills?

These are but a few of the books from Catalog Press, the weird and wonderful publishing imprint from artist and designer Ben Denzer.

Catalog Press—and indeed, much of Denzer’s work—originates from one question: “What can a book be?”

“They are both content and object;” Denzer told It’s Nice That in 2019, “simultaneously sculpture and catalog, singular contained multitudes.” The work is funny, unexpected, and—if you buy into this sort of thing —profound. Denzer has made books out of pictures of “accidental vanity plates,” 12,000 skin cells from people with schizophrenia, 77 Lucky 7’s, 20 slices of mortadella, newspaper headlines with the word “die” in them, five ketchup packets, 200 fortune cookie fortunes, and many, many, more.

What’s profound about a book made from 285 sheets of Charmin Ultra Strong Toilet Paper, you ask? Fair question. Maybe nothing. But I think there is something special to the act of binding, and in turn elevating, mundane materials that make up our lives.

These books could easily be dismissed as ridiculous. But I think that, should the viewer move past this initial reaction, Denzer’s work encourages consideration for objects, materials, and images we might not pay close attention to. In short: You might think more, if not differently, about toilet paper and how we interact with it. Seeing a book made from headlines about people dying might encourage you to think about death, news, and our relationship with both. A book made of slices of American cheese makes me think about preservatives and “cheese products” and what we consider food.

I don’t know that Denzer has such lofty ideological ambitions for this project—I think the man just likes playing with materials. But even in a world where fewer people read, books are still special objects. And so turning anything into a book demands a new kind of attention.

I am drawn to projects that ask what a book can be.

Years ago, near the entrance of The Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, there was a hardcover book on display that consisted solely of the word “Jew” six million times. It’s called And Every Single One Was Someone.

I was extremely moved by this object! It was a new way to visualize the sheer magnitude of death in the Holocaust. I also thought about how each three letter word was the reduction of a full and complex life, and how this stripping of human complexity was inherently necessary for those evil actions to ensue.

I have a few project ideas in this vein I hope to one day complete. One such project is a collection of obituaries for people that share my name, as a sort of bookish memento mori.

What do you think about these kinds of projects? Are they gimmicks, or something more? I’d love to hear what you think and if you know of any similar book projects.

Leave a comment

What I’m Reading (books)

I just finished Shark Heart by Emily Habeck for my book club with my mom. I loved it!

I am currently reading American Bulk by Emily Mester, one of the books gave me on my episode of Books on the Bed podcast.

What I’m Working On

Boy am I busy. I’ve gotten 4 new covers in the last 9 days and I have a Zoom meeting with a publisher next week about cover design.

I’ve wrapped a few front covers this year that I can’t share yet, but here is the jacket mechanical I designed for We Interrupt This Broadcast by Gregory Orr, a book of poems available for preorder now.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

I’m on a podcast!

My friend Matt has a show called Books on the Bed. It’s really good! And I am not just saying that because I designed its logo or helped Matt refine the idea. Well, maybe I am—I can’t help it—but all the same, I think it is good.

Here’s the show’s logline:

Inspired by a visit to Tuskegee, Alabama in April of 2021, I’m traveling through the country asking our hosts, ”If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?” Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life.

As we go, we’ll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.

Matt has had some amazing writers on his show, and I’m honored to join them.

You can listen to my episode of Books on the Bed here. We get into some stuff I’ve written for this newsletter.

To perhaps pique your interest, here are the books I chose:

The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding... Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson

Thanks for listening!

—Nathaniel

One thing I love about contemporary book cover design is the ability to see and share unused designs. The jackets that, for whatever reason—and there are myriad—were deemed the wrong fit for a particular book. Sometimes, it seems there are as many reasons not to choose a cover as there are atoms that make one up. Each feels like a little glimpse into an alternate reality.1

Most of the time, these unused covers are shared via social media. But occasionally, if a designer becomes a big enough deal, they publish a book—what we in the biz call a “monograph.”

Peter Mendelsund is one such designer. His 2014 monograph, Cover, is one of my favorite books and one of the reasons I got into this business in the first place. In his tenure at Alfred A. Knopf, Mendelsund designed the jackets for hundreds of books, many iconic, and none more so than the one for Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish crime thriller. It was first published posthumously in 2005 under the title Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women) and translated to English in 2008.

For my money, whether you like it or not (and I do), this is one of the most iconic jackets of the 21st Century. But like any book ever published, this book might have gotten a different jacket—and, who knows, may have never become a sensation as a result.

Here are some of the unused covers as shown in Cover.

“My first comp. We came very close to using this white-on-white jacket. This design did a better job of representing the narrative than the final, though, perhaps, would have done a poorer job of selling thee book.”

“There was a moment, early on, where this was the book’s title. Thank god it changed.”

“Almost final. My first inclination was to use the colors of a tattoo … but brighter colors won the day.”

I don’t think these are necessarily unsuccessful designs, and I agree that the first comp is a strong, conceptual design, but none of these feel right. This is most likely a product of such a well-known cover feeling inevitable when viewed in retrospect. Especially because I really like the book itself. I feel the same way about Catch-22.

What do you think? Do you prefer any of these unused covers to the published version? How does something becoming iconic affect someone’s perception of “good” design?

Leave a comment

That’s all for this time. Thanks for reading!

P.S. While Googling around, I found this parody book called The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo. Enjoy.

Happy new year, y’all.

I am alive!

We closed on our house on the 22nd. Movers came on the 23rd. Drove to the west side of Michigan on the 24th for Christmas Eve with the in-laws. Extended family Christmas on the 25th. Wrangled the 4-year-old and 1-year-old all the while. Tried to find where we packed any damn thing every day since.

Life is crazy right now. But I hope to find time to write more soon!

In the meantime, please enjoy this old favorite of mine about why I think you should keep a notebook in the new year:

Thanks for reading this newsletter. That’s crazy and it means the world to me.

—Nathaniel

A few months ago, someone shared an early newsletter of mine, about my ability to tell your book was self-published, with this comment:

Trying to make your book appear more mainstream is one choice

I’m looking to make mine appear more indie not less

My initial response to this comment was one of annoyance—“OK buddy, good luck with that”—but the more I sat with it, the more curious and thoughtful I became.

The advice in that earlier newsletter can be distilled into two categories:

1. Quality Design Choices

2. Adhering to Publishing Conventions

The latter, I assume, is what this “more indie not less” commenter was referring to, despite this category’s relatively smaller presence compared to the former. I will be generous and assume this person was not advocating for poor typographic hierarchy and excessive drop shadows in an effort to look more “indie.”

Whatever their intention, the comment raised some questions in my mind:

• What exactly does “indie” mean?

• Where is the line between indie and mainstream?

• What does indie, yet professional, look like?

• What, if anything, constitutes a book that appears too indie?

• What role does design play in this discussion?

What Does “Indie” Mean?

While I don’t think this comment means nothing, I do think it means less than what its author thinks it means. “Indie,” of course, here means independent. But independent publishing is a broad umbrella that can and does mean many different things. The great may correct me if I am wrong, but “independent” really just means any publishing operation that is not conglomerate owned.1 W. W. Norton, a publishing company with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in revenue,2 is technically independent. So is Hub City Press, a small, non-profit press in Spartanburg, South Carolina, helmed by Meg Reid. So are writers like Brandon Sanderson and crowdfunding the financial support for their latest books, CEOs hiring hybrid publishers to help them publish books, or your weird uncle selling copies of the memoir he produced at Kinko’s out of the trunk of his wood-paneled hatchback.

Lately, I have noticed a push to specifically label self-publishing as “indie” publishing. This is not necessarily wrong, but this both interesting and, in context of our friend’s comment, somewhat ironic. It seems to me that this push to label self-published books as indie comes from a desire to do away with the stigma or cultural baggage of the term “self-published.” One writer on Substack even admitted as much in an interview they re-published to their newsletter last year (emphasis mine):

Let’s call it mainstream vs indie. I know I’m being pedantic, but a) I’m a writer, and b) it matters. The publishing industry is way behind the curve of every other creative sphere when it comes to valuing independent artists. The word indie is revered in music, food, beauty, hotels, festivals; you name it. Stick the word independent on the front, you can charge double and everyone thinks it’s cool.

But publishing? It works for indie bookstores, it even works for indie publishers, but for indie authors, which is exactly what a self-published author is, forget it. It’s slapped with the denigration vanity publishing. Look too closely and you’ll see embedded into the title self-published is the notion that the contents will be a step down from anything published by a mainstream publishing house, that the production values will be a bit rubbish, that it just won’t be as good.

The point being made here is solid, and I don’t even really disagree, but this use of the term “indie” to refer to self-published books is, ironically, using language to make your book appear more mainstream. The indiest thing you can do is call your book self-published. And, I think, the most impressive thing someone can do is create a terrific looking book that they are unafraid to call self-published.

I know, I know, I am getting caught in the semantic weeds here and another writer is getting dragged into this before I even begin to talk about the role of book design in all of this. But we’re writers—if we cannot talk semantics, who will?

My point is that this “indie” of which we want more of does not mean just one thing. Indie and mainstream publishing exists upon a continuum on which the way your book looks is just a single factor.

Why Look Indie?

Now that we’ve established “indie” is more than one thing, and that “appearing more indie” might mean different things to different books and people, why might anyone want to look more indie in the first place?

The Impact of Book Design on the Indie-Mainstream Continuum

Whether a book is mainstream or indie, attention to design is integral to establishing the credibility of both the work and its author. A well-designed book signals the author or publishing house invested time, attention, and resources into a book. “Good” design, to a degree, is subject to individual tastes, but unless you are targeting the least discerning audience imaginable—hey, I’m not here to judge—you do not want your book to be typeset in 12 point Times New Roman. This choice is certainly “more indie,” yet in this instance I don’t know anyone who would call “indie” a desirable trait.

So then where is the line? How do you make your book look more indie without also looking like shit?

Ways to Look More Indie

One way might be to abandon some of the industry conventions not necessarily in and of themselves necessary for good design. For example, you might decide to do away with blurbs on the back of your book. Here are some creative ideas from for what you might do instead. You might decide not to care about whether or not there is a spine logo (AKA colophon). These can be fun, but in self-publishing, these are largely virtue signaling or camouflage.

Another approach might be to hire a designer who, while professional, is not necessarily a publishing industry veteran. I offer this with a grain—or several—of salt, because your designer(s) need(s) to be up to the technical task of typesetting and/or designing a cover mechanical, but hiring a professional outside of the industry might be a way to insert a fresh take on the medium. One of the best self-published books I have ever seen in the wild was designed by the head of a branding agency. , my internet friend and co-founder of a multi-disciplinary studio, designed both The Midnight Vault anthology and J. Curtis’s latest output Tiny Worlds. Every time I read a book written by a graphic designer who also designed it, the book often diverts from tradition in a way that is both compelling and beautiful.3 My point is this: A pro is a pro.

A tactic I think works well, but is difficult to achieve and depends on the subject and style of the book, is merging strong design principles with a DIY or handmade aesthetic.

Small and University Presses

If it is in your interest for your book to not look “mainstream,” i.e. as if it were from The Big Five, yet you still would like a competent, professionally-designed book, I recommend looking to small and university presses for examples.

These publishers would still like to sell books, of course, but the numbers are not to the scale of the big boys, and in the case of university presses, the mission is often more about the work existing than selling. Small houses are often able and willing to take some risks with design—to produce something professional, but distinctly non-mainstream.

Speaking of Anne Trubek again, I think Belt Publishing is a good example of this approach. If you look at their covers, they are clearly professional. But they don’t look like a Penguin bestseller. There’s a cohesion to Belt’s titles, thanks in large part to the majority of covers being designed by one designer: David Wilson. I’d love to do a cover for Belt, but I don’t think my work would fit.

Here’s another example off my shelf: Abbott Awaits by Chris Bacheldor from Louisiana State University Press. This one is from 2011.

I think this cover is fine. Not amazing, but not bad. It captures the mundanity that is a major through line in the novel. I think it looks fairly “indie.” But it is still professionally typeset on both the back cover and interior. Care is taken with margins, hierarchy, and type choice. There are blurbs and a spine colophon. I think this book sits comfortably in the middle of that indie-mainstream continuum.

I do a lot of work for university presses, so I may be biased. But I think they generally do a good job of straddling that line.

Subjectivity and Irony

I think this comment has been stuck in my craw because of how goddamn subjective the indie-mainstream framework is. The author of this original comment just released a premium, slipcase hardcover version of one of their books with custom illustrations priced at $95. There’s no dust jacket with marketing copy, sure, but I would hardly call that looking “indie.” They’re marketing this premium object via via interviews with well-known YouTubers. Absolutely nothing wrong with that—PR and marketing are essential to selling books—I just find it ironic based on their comment at the beginning of this newsletter.

Maybe this whole newsletter could have been one line: “Looking ‘indie’ is subjective.” Maybe I’m bothered by a comment whose writer probably doesn’t even remember writing it. Maybe this discussion doesn’t even really matter—but, like with so many things, I needed to write about it to be able to approach that conclusion.

I’m spinning my wheels a bit on this, so I’d like to turn this over to you. What does looking “indie” mean to you? “Mainstream”? Where’s the line between the two, and what do you want your book to look like?

Leave a comment

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for reading! I mean it.

If you’d like to keep this newsletter going and help me say no to designing soul-sucking books about corporate events, email marketing, and raising capital, consider buying me a coffee.

Until next time,
Nathaniel

I bought a new camera recently, so I am on a photography kick.1

I’ve been a hobbyist photographer for a decade. In the fall of 2015, I flew to Florence, Italy, for a semester abroad with my father’s ten-year-old Nikon D200 in tow. Among my classes was an introductory photography class. Should you ever be so lucky, I recommend learning to take pictures in Florence. Easier said than done, I know.

After a panicky, anxious start to the semester, I fell in love with both the city and photography. How could I not? Both together and separately, they felt like magic. I couldn’t believe the images I was getting with my lens. Even my crappiest photos felt magical because of where I was. Taking pictures calmed my mind, helped me learn the city, and gave me something to be excited about every day.

Part and parcel of this budding photographic romance was, thanks to several assignments from my Italian instructor,2 an infatuation with a specific genre of photography: street photography. My god, what a thrill! I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anything like what it feels like to get a good photo in the street. To this day, some of my favorite photos are ones I took of Italians (and Londoners) that fall ten years ago.

Despite my infatuation, I don’t shoot street terribly often. Too many nerves, not enough time, etc., etc. But I’ve been thinking about it for a decade and with increasing frequency. Last year, I took the opportunity to take pictures of other tourists also taking pictures in New York City. Since getting my new camera, I have watched many, many, walking interviews with street photographers on YouTube and checked out several books from the library. I haven’t shot anything that good yet, but I’ve started taking my camera with me everywhere I go. I’m frankly annoying myself with how much I am obsessing over street photography.

Connections between Street Photography, Collage, and Book Design

Why have I been obsessing? What draws me to it so much, and compels me to make it part of my creative practice?

There are several reasons, with nostalgia and a rosy view of my time spent traveling chief among them, but I made another connection the other day as I made my first collage in several weeks: my favorite parts of street photography are also my favorite parts of collage and book cover design: serendipity and juxtaposition.

To my mind, good street photos capture a serendipitous moment—a head on a shoulder, the wind blowing someone’s hair just the right way, a split-second facial expression, a leap over the puddle. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment.” The most memorable images pair this serendipity with juxtaposition, showing us something often unexpected, ironic, or humorous.

Juxtaposition is the very nature of collage: putting seemingly unrelated things together to make a new whole. And, at least with analog collage, the serendipity of materials is what allows for that juxtaposition to take place. Look at the collage above. What are the chances that two pieces, from two different magazines, fit together so well? This is serendipity. The contrasting color and texture within that serendipitous alignment is juxtaposition. This is not to say I think this is the best collage ever made—far from it—but it illustrates my point.

My favorite book covers I have ever designed are brimming with serendipity, or, as I have referred to it, play. Instinctual things happen inside those Photoshop files and on my desk that I was not planning on. And the covers—mine, or others—I get most excited about almost always feature juxtaposition of some sort: between materials, ideas, text and image, aesthetic styles, and more. You name it. This is probably why I am so into collage on book covers, though collage is by no means a requirement for juxtaposition to occur.

I would take juxtaposition over pretty on a book cover any day.

A Conceptual Framework for Future Work

I would probably love and (try to) make this kind of work no matter what. So this realization is a little obvious in hindsight, as many of them tend to be. But it is still incredibly important to me! It feels wonderful to distill and name what it is I am after in creative work. It is enlightening to see the thread tying my creative interests together, and I am excited to use serendipity and juxtaposition as an intentional and conceptual framework for future work, no matter what medium that work happens to be in.

Not that I must use serendipity and juxtaposition in my work. Not every assignment calls for such a conceptual framework. But I think it is good to find words for what you’re after creatively. I find it freeing. It means I don’t need to be a book designer, collage artist, or street photographer, but there will still be creative target no matter what creative work I do in this life.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.
—Nathaniel