Notebook: Let Them Print Cake

Non-traditional publishing, Hell and its discontent(ed worker)s, and an 84-inch wide cake.

Hello, dear reader. Welcome back to A Book Designer’s Notebook. At last, our first proper “notebook” post!

What I’m writing

Recently, I wrote about publishing from two Midwestern angles.

My Path to Book Design

A short, autobiographical essay charting my non-traditional, non-New York City entrée to the world of publishing and book design.

A Public Library’s Publishing Imprint

An inside look at Fifth Avenue Press, the publishing imprint of the Ann Arbor District Library with a publishing model unlike any other that I know of.

What I’m “reading”

This week, I started Sign Here by Claudia Lux, a novel about Hell and its office workers. I needed something fun and page-turner-y and so far it fits the bill. From the jacket flap:

A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.

Some books I’ve finished recently:

Know the Mother by Desiree Cooper: An incredible collection of short short stories (flash fiction) that, in myriad ways, intersect with motherhood in its many forms. Beautiful, short, and often melancholic.

Erasure by Percival Everett: Like many, I bought and read Erasure after the success of its recent film adaptation, American Fiction (though I still need to watch). Part publishing-industry satire, part (largely, actually) family drama, I loved every bit—even when Everett forces you to read the entirety of his protagonist Monk’s parody novel, My Pafology, as well as his very dense academic paper.

I turn 30 in a few weeks. So, naturally, I’ve been listening (and singing, randomly) 30 by Bo Burnham.

What I’m working on

A Giant Paper Cake

This week at the Ann Arbor District Library, we are hard at work preparing for the annual Summer Game. This year, I was asked if I could figure out how to get the game’s artwork on a giant, printed cake to put behind the youth desk in order for patrons to attach paper candles. Always up for the challenge, I said of course. With a little math and a Photoshop mockup of cake, I printed the illustration on 4 pieces (slices!) of 42-inch wide paper. Behold!

The author and his giant, paper cake.

The Letter from Prison

Last month, I completed the cover design for The Letter from Prison by W. Clark Gilpin, to be published in July by Penn State University Press. The book surveys these letters as a form of literature, drawing from a large collection of printed prison letters written from the reign of Henry VIII to the closing decades of the seventeenth century.

My mom, upon seeing this cover option: “That’s the FRONT cover?” Everyone’s a critic. Anyways, I was happy to get away with something a little weird like this. I may create a case study for this one to show how we got here in a separate post, so stay tuned for that.

That’s all for this time. Thanks for reading! If you liked this, please consider subscribing or sharing with a friend.

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