My Path to Book Design

2024 marks five years of designing books. To celebrate, I thought I’d take a look back at how all this madness got started.

One sunny Ann Arbor day in 2014, my mother bought me a copy of Cover by Peter Mendelsund from Literati Bookstore, and my life changed forever.

Cover by Peter Mendelsund

At the time, I was a graphic design student at Central Michigan University, a few years away from graduating. I knew that books were designed—but until that moment I had never thought about it as a possibility for my own life. The book, still one of my all-time favorites, was fantastic. Mendelsund became a hero, and I was bitten by the book design bug.

Fast forward several years. After a self-initiated CMU book design project, a reinvigorated reading life, and several years as a newspaper layout designer, I found myself back in Ann Arbor, trying to decide what was next for my life and career. I hadn’t designed any published books, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about it, either.

In November of 2018, I went to an author event at the Ann Arbor District Library where Susan Orlean was giving a reading from The Library Book (another incredible book). At the library, I stumbled across a promotion for the library’s publishing imprint called Fifth Avenue Press. A publishing imprint? Run by the local library in my town? What are the chances? I emailed them immediately, from my seat, waiting for Orlean to take the stage.

I received the now all-too-familiar “thanks but no thanks” email, offering the standard courtesy of keeping my information on file. Well, that was that.

Except that it wasn’t.

In a move that I now know is indicative of AADL’s awesomeness, they reached out a few months later asking if I was interested in working on a few of their 2019 titles. The stakes were small, but for the first time, I was being paid to design books.

•••

2019 was a big year. I bagged my first freelance book design gig, I was actually hired by AADL as a part-time designer (where I still work, now full-time), and I got married. Entering 2020, I was also falling face first into the world of collage. The freedom, accessibility, and tactility of the medium was a revelation to someone who always thought he was “bad at art.” Using figures cut from a vintage National Geographic and some colored paper, I created a collage that immediately yet unintentionally reminded me of The Great Gatsby. So, like any millenial designer would do, I mocked it up and posted it to Instagram.

To my standards, the post did incredibly well, garnering 44 likes and 12 comments. Somehow, it also attracted the attention of book designer Derek Thornton, who had just left his position at Faceout Studio to strike out on his own with his own studio, Notch Design. Through a series of DMs, I probably asked to “pick his brain” or something equally awful, but he was gracious, and generously asked if I wanted to help his new business by contributing a few comps here and there to his university press clients. Despite only getting paid if my designs were chosen, I leapt at the chance to learn from Derek and design for some slightly larger presses. Rhetoric, Inc., the first Notch Design book with my name on it, was published in 2020. It’s still one of my favorites.

Rhetoric, Inc. by Timothy Johnson. Published by Penn State University Press.

I did more covers for both Derek and AADL over the next few years, but around that time, thanks to my recent Notch Design portfolio boost, I also started freelancing for Scribe Media, a hybrid publisher out of Austin, Texas. Say and think what you will about hybrid publishers in general, and Scribe Media in particular, but Scribe became my book design training gym. Though many of those covers do not grace my portfolio (but plenty do!), the process of designing front covers and jacket mechanicals for them was like lifting weights. Book design reps. I became proficient—and quicker—in some of the technical aspects of book design that I had previously lacked. Also, I was getting paid better than I ever had for designing books. Sure, the topics were not always my favorite, but I was officially a freelance book designer.

•••

During this era of my freelance career, I was also an employee of the Ann Arbor District Library, designing library promo and books for Fifth Avenue Press. After the birth of my son in 2021, I was promoted to full-time, and an interesting book submission came through the library’s doors: the article-turned-book about a century of University of Michigan film culture that would become Cinema Ann Arbor. Co-published in 2023 with University of Michigan Press, with layout assistance from my co-workers Amanda Szot and Amy Arendts, Cinema Ann Arbor is a 344-page coffee table book with over 400 illustrations and exhaustive research. Shortlisted for the 2023 Alice Award, and named a 2024 Michigan Notable book, it is also my favorite—and probably best—project I have ever worked on. A coalescence of collage, movies, and history, it was the perfect project at the perfect time.

Cinema Ann Arbor by Frank Uhle. Published by Fifth Avenue Press and University of Michigan Press.

That brings us to today. What is next for Nathaniel Roy Design? While Cinema Ann Arbor was my so-far crowning achievement, I am nowhere near a household name in the book design scene and I have no intention of resting on whatever wimpy laurels I may have. In this, my fifth year of book design, (and coincidentally the year I turn 30), I am more aggressive and organized than ever before. I’m growing my business and targeting the organizations and projects I want to work on— namely local, independent, and nonprofit. I’m designing books, making collages, and trying to help people help people with my design.

•••

Thanks for reading. Interested in working together? Click here to fill out a form and get the process started!