Better than Sex, Drugs, or Christmas
This Week in Being a Book Designer
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 Austin Kleon’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.
Shane Bzdok 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, Jillian Hess’s Noted features Kleon’s notebooks in a recent post.
Thanks for Reading!
Thank you for reading! I mean it.
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Until next time,
—Nathaniel
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