A Soupy Notebook
Creative Practice Soup; Dreyer's English; So-Bad-They're Good Movies; Killed Book Covers; A Public Domain Field Guide, and more
Dear Reader,
This is A Book Designer’s Notebook, a newsletter about books, design, and creative practice from the desk of Nathaniel Roy. I’m getting the dreaded “post too long for email message”—click here to read this in your browser.
I keep tinkering with that strapline every few weeks as this newsletter evolves and tells me what it wants to be. It’s got a big job—in a little over two months I’ve written about reading books with my mom during chemo, taking pictures of tourists, ugly but great book covers, a public library’s publishing imprint, imposter syndrome, creativity when you’re sad, and all of these “notebooks” updating you on what I’m up to. Some business bros1 might advise I “niche down” but for me, it’s all part of the soup. 🥣
What I’m Reading and Watching
Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. Both my wife and my mother, upon seeing me read this book—on two separate occasions—laughed because of how dry (or is it Drey?) the book seems at first glance. But with a closer look, you’ll see that the apostrophe and tittle (yes, that is what the dot in the “i” is called) have been switched. A subtle but appropriate choice by designer Jamie Keenan for an entertaining and clever book about some nitty-gritty details on how to write better.
I’m also reading The Unreality of Memory by Elisa Gabbert with my mom and Several Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg, which is like a weird-but-good poetry book about sentences. I just cannot read one book at a time.
The Letterform Archive Instagram page recently shared this video about Scope, a mid-century magazine from Upjohn Pharmaceuticals in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Holy crap is this magazine beautiful.
We’ve discovered the show Go! Go! Cory Carson on Netflix and my almost 3-year-old is obsessed. So naturally I’ve been watching a lot of it. It’s not bad for a show based on a line of toys from Vtech. The animation is of that sort in which everything looks like clay that you could just squeeze.
What makes a bad movie so bad it’s good? Robert Walrod investigates.
What I’m Up To
ICYMI: I wrote about great, ugly book covers and how to stay creative in the midst of summer depression. I am large, I contain multitudes.
Next week: A Big Red Book About the Movies and the People Who Love Them.
Book covers, as usual. To use industry jargon, here’s a “killed” cover on a recent project. I’m sad to see this one get buried, but that’s how it goes in this business. On to the next one.
Graphics for the library. One of the recurring parts of my job at the Ann Arbor District Library is promotional graphics. The library hosts many events. I also design graphics for the library’s staff picks newsletter. These graphics aren’t revolutionary design or anything, but I have fun with them. For each themed staff picks blog post, I choose a book (or other media) cover to pluck an element from and use on the newsletter’s cover image.
I made a collage this week that I’m really digging. I haven’t sat down and worked with the materials like this in a little while. I don’t usually use this many layers so it was a fun tactical challenge to think about what to glue when.
Some Housekeeping
I’m thinking about perks to offer potential paid subscribers. The main idea I have is something I’ve been tinkering with for a while, long before I started this newsletter:
Searching the Commons: A Public Domain Field Guide
Here’s the pitch: Searching the Commons would be a newsletter-within-a-newsletter in which I send a curated selection of public domain resources based on a theme. Say, adorable cat images. Posters. Books. Fonts. Classes. Movies. If applicable to the assets, you’ll get a link to download the curated files. If not, a link to where it lives on the internet. Additionally, you’ll get walkthroughs on how and where I find materials so that you might be able to better find your own. I also plan to write several essay-like things about various aspects of copyright and the public domain. This will likely (but maybe not, don’t know yet) be a separate Substack section that requires you to opt in once you’ve upgraded.
Here’s an imaginary Q&A:
Dear Reader: Why should I pay for that? Isn’t stuff in the public domain, uh, free?
Yep! It sure is. And I don’t blame you for thinking that. But you might want to pay for it the same reason you might pay a little extra on pizza night: the convenience of delivery. And, in this case, curation. But, of course, you’re welcome to search the commons on your own!
I’m not a designer. Why should I care?
The public domain is useful for everyone. While one of the main reasons I dip into it is to find images for design projects, there are literally billions of original works in the commons to draw from. The public domain is enriching for book lovers and writers, collage artists, teachers, movie lovers, researchers, musicians and music lovers, entrepreneurs, and more.
If you’re not sold, there will also be the occasional free post on A Book Designer’s Notebook.
Please be honest! You will not hurt my feelings if you say no—you may even be saving me time, energy, and heartache :) If your answer is “maybe,” I’d love to hear why.
As always, thanks for reading. There is much to read in this world and I am grateful you’ve given me some of your time and attention.
Until next time,
—Nathaniel
“Bro” here is gender neutral, lest you think I’m not talking about you!
I like the "buy me a coffee" button/banner. Good idea!
Hey Nathaniel, thanks for sharing all the goodies. I am a graphic designer with an unhealthy obsession for vintage pubs—my collection mostly consists of graphic design-specific material like Avant Garde, Push Pin Graphic, and Gebrauchsgraphik, but as long as a publication is well-designed, I do not discriminate. I had never heard of Scope until reading about it here so thank you for calling it to my attention. I was excited to learn that design legend Lester Beall was the magazine's design director for seven years. Now I must head over to eBay to see if I can snag an issue or two.