Before I was a graphic designer, I was a reader. This is, ultimately, why I design books—it sure ain’t the money.

There are few greater joys for me than when A) I love a book, and B) I also love its cover. This isn’t necessarily rare, but it’s easy to be disappointed by a book with a great cover and some books I adore have just fine, or even bad, book jackets.

Here is a list of books I love, in no particular order, with covers I also love.1

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Cover designer: Paul Bacon

Book description: Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

Know the Mother: Stories by Desiree Cooper

Cover designer: Bryce Schimanski

Book description: Short, searing glimpses of how race and gender shadow even the most intimate moments of women’s lives.

While a mother can be defined as a creator, a nurturer, a protector—at the center of each mother is an individual who is attempting to manage her own fears, desires, and responsibilities in different and sometimes unexpected ways. In Know the Mother, author Desiree Cooper explores the complex archetype of the mother in all of her incarnations. In a collage of meditative stories, women—both black and white—find themselves wedged between their own yearnings and their roles as daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and wives.

In this heart-wrenching collection, Cooper reveals that gender and race are often unanticipated interlopers in family life. An anxious mother reflects on her prenatal fantasies of suicide while waiting for her daughter to come home late one night. A lawyer miscarries during a conference call and must proceed as though nothing has happened. On a rare night out with her husband, a new mother tries convincing herself that everything is still the same. A politician's wife's thoughts turn to slavery as she contemplates her own escape: "Even Harriet Tubman had realized that freedom wasn't worth the price of abandoning her family, so she'd come back home. She'd risked it all for love." With her lyrical and carefully crafted prose, Cooper's stories provide truths without sermon and invite empathy without sentimentality.

Know the Mother explores the intersection of race and gender in vignettes that pull you in and then are gone in an instant. Readers of short fiction will appreciate this deeply felt collection.

Cinema Ann Arbor by Frank Uhle

Cover designer: Nathaniel Roy

Okay, I designed this one. Is that tacky? Probably. I don’t care. I love this cover and I love this book.

Book description: Ann Arbor, long known for its political and cultural activism, has an equally compelling history of engagement with film and media. In their quest to show art and independent films and in their efforts to raise money in the name of artistic freedom, local and campus societies pushed the boundaries of conformity. Delving into almost one hundred years of rarely glimpsed history, Cinema Ann Arbor melds interviews, deep archival research, and over four hundred images into a vivid history of film in one extraordinary town. These stories, told with urgency and exquisite detail, are firsthand accounts of the unforgettable people who created Ann Arbor’s magnificent twentieth-century film scene.

Featuring interviews with filmmaker Ken Burns, Oscar-nominated editor Jay Cassidy, producer John Sloss, and more, this masterpiece provides insights into how a Midwestern college town developed a robust underground art film community that inspired those across the country. Variety’s Owen Glieberman says, “Frank Uhle has captured the moment when cinema became, for a new generation, a kind of religion, with its own rituals and sacred texts and a spirit of exploratory mystery that has all but vanished from the culture.”

This is a must-have book for cinema and media aficionados, film archivists, and anyone interested in the cultural history of Ann Arbor.

This book was published in collaboration with Fifth Avenue Press at Ann Arbor District Library. Learn more about their publishing program here. You can also see their collection, including vintage flyers, photos, film schedules, here.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Cover artist: Joseph Mugnaini (First edition)

Cover designer: Matt Owen (60th anniversary edition)

For the 60th Anniversary Edition, Simon & Schuster held a competition for the cover. Matt Owen, of Little Rock, Arkansas, won.

Book description: Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Cover designer: Lauren Peters-Collaer

Book description: On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.

“A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

Cover designer: David High

Book description: Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Boom Town by Sam Anderson

Cover designer: Michael Morris

Book description: Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed.

Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City’s would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.

Bonus: Here are some unused covers featured on Michael Morris’s website:

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Cover designer: Carol Devine Carson

Book description: Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later—the night before New Year’s Eve—the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion’ s attempt to make sense of the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness … about marriage and children and memory … about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

Dry by Augusten Burroughs

Cover designer: Chip Kidd

Book description: You may not know it, but you’ve met Augusten Burroughs. You’ve seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twentysomething guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had two drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn’t really a request) of his employers, Augusten lands in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are immediately dashed by grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life—and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that’s as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is true. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a Higher Power.

Rattlebone by Maxine Clair

Cover designer: Peter Mendelsund

This cover is part of an editorial series from McNally Editions, but I love this one in particular. The section of the cover with images is a 3/4 book jacket and the yellow-brown portion is a plain-looking paperback underneath.

Book description: Irene Wilson knows that a “no-name invisible something” has settled over her parents’ marriage and suspects her glamorous new teacher is to blame. Irene is not alone in her suspicions. In the town of Rattlebone, a small Black neighborhood of Kansas City, secrets are hard to keep and growing up is a community affair.

As Irene is initiated into adult passion and loss, her family story takes its place in a tightly woven tapestry of neighbors whose griefs and joys are as vivid as her own. Rattlebone is a one-of-a-kind triumph of American fiction, one that captures an entire world through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson

Cover designer: Peter Mendelsund

Book description: Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Cover designer(s): Henry Sene Yee, Will Staehle

I read the Staehle version, and I really like that cover. But it’s far sleeker than the original Henry Sene Yee version, which feels pulpier and grittier. It’s perfect.

Book description: A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.

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 became an artist at the same time I became a father. At least, that is, according to Beth Pickens’ definition of the term.

Irrespective of medium, skill, or money-making ability, Pickens writes1 that artists are “people who are profoundly compelled to make their creative work, and when they are distanced from their practice, their life quality suffers.” If this is true—and it feels true to me—then I am an artist. However, this was not always the case. I’ve enjoyed making creative work for a long time, but I cannot say I felt “profoundly compelled” to make it until I became a father. To be more specific, I think the compulsion truly kicked in upon the birth of my second child. To be even more specific, it reached a fever pitch when that second child began to walk.

This is, in many ways, unfortunate. My time has never been so fractured, nor felt so little like my own. My librarian wife works nights and weekends regularly, and I too have a day job in addition to my freelance and personal work. The job is extremely flexible, and quite often creatively fulfilling, but requires 40 hours from me nonetheless. Like so many parents these days, my wife and I cannot afford full-time childcare for both kids, so as the one who is most often home, I am, by default, the primary caretaker. I understand these are choices I have made, or at the very least ones I have participated in, and I can hear the echoes of mothers throughout history, shouting, “welcome to the club, man!” But that’s the thing about compulsions, as any recovering alcoholic will tell you: they don’t give a fuck.

If time is a resource, then my limited quantity becomes fuel. I have a few, uninterrupted chunks of time throughout any given week—I am writing this sentence in the middle of one such chunk—but, generally speaking, my time for creative work is sporadic, inconsistent, and almost always at the cost of something like laundry, dishes, or exercise. And yet I must do it. The great irony is this: I would not need to be an artist had I not had children, yet the children are my primary obstacle to making creative work.

I do not feel good about calling my children an obstacle! But I also do not feel good when I cannot work. To be honest, I do not feel good much of the time. My life, as I currently know it, exists in a state of persistent friction.

In her relatably titled 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write, Sarah Ruhl writes beautifully and humorously about this friction:

There was a time, when I first found out I was pregnant with twins, that I saw only a state of conflict. When I looked at theater and parenthood, I only saw war, competing loyalties, and I thought my writing life was over. There were times when it felt as though my children were annihilating me (truly you have not lived until you have changed one baby’s diaper while another baby quietly vomits on your shin), and finally came to the thought, All right, then, annihilate me; that other self was a fiction anyhow. And then I could breathe. I could investigate the pauses.

I’m trying to investigate my own pauses. I understand the inverse relationship between time (or the lack thereof) and action. A goldfish grows to fill the bowl in which it finds itself. But what I did not fully understand until recently was why I must use this limited time for making creative work. Why not read, or take a walk? Clean or spend more time with my wife? Why not other, worthwhile activities important to me and in support of a fulfilling life?

Creative work has become a way to stake a claim for selfhood. A raft to cling to in the sea of childrearing, at one moment sparkling in the sun and the next threatening to capsize. I love my children fiercely, but parenthood, at least at these young ages, often feels like something to survive. Designing, writing, collaging, photo taking—it is all a way for this parent to say “See? I made this. I may be perpetually sleep-deprived and a bit depressed but I exist, goddammit.” It is not lost on me that the particular creative work I have oriented my life around, designing book covers, is work upon which I get to print my name.

I want to validate my feelings and what I am in search of here, but I think that I, and any other parent-artist, must be careful. We must be careful in our longing for the time and space to make creative work—to replenish our souls, if I may be grandiose about it—that resentment does not take root. The children may stop us from doing our work at any given moment, but “parent” and “artist” need not be in opposition to each other. Together they can be a way of life; they can be an example for my offspring. They are, if we allow them be, two sides of the same coin. And the quarter has no value without both Washington and the eagle.

In that same, short essay, Ruhl goes on to say, “I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is also a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”

Once more, for both you and I, for both parent and not: Life is not an intrusion.

Addendum

Here’s another relevant quote from later in Ruhl’s book that I read after I was mostly finished with this essay:

I appear to need to be alone in order to make things; it appears necessary to my survival. And yet my children appear to need me, always; it appears to be necessary for their survival. And yet for me to feel my sanity, these two practices, of motherhood and making things, so primary, need to feel as though they are compatriots.

New Work

I recently designed this book cover for Princeton University Press:

Here’s an unused cover for the same project:

In Case You Missed It

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.

Making Art and Making A Living by Mason Currey

I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

What I’m Reading (links)

A Plague of Tigers

Stop Following Allan Peters

Some of what is below is adapted from writing that first appeared as multiple slides on my Instagram Story. It’s been greatly expanded upon from there…

Read more

14 days ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · A Plague of Tigers

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

When I go to bookstores, I am obsessed with looking at books’ back flap to see who designed the jacket.

If I particularly like it, I look them up. I usually follow them on Instagram. I add them to my little mental Rolodex of designers whom I am jealous of. They become famous to me like the world’s most niche celebrities. Yes, I am very normal.

Now, I subject you share my obsession with you. Lucky you!

Here is a designer I think you should know: John Gall.

The Book

Title: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Cover Designer: John Gall

Publisher: Knopf

Publication Date: April 7, 2026

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

Yesteryear sits next to Theo of Golden and a Fourth Wing sequel on Barnes & Noble’s homepage, so you know it’s popular. Hopefully it’s written better.1

The Designer

The book’s cover was designed by one of the greats working today: John Gall.

John Gall is a designer, artist, author, editor, and professor. He is currently the creative director of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. His design and illustration work for Knopf, Vintage Books, Abrams Books, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Criterion Collection, and Nonesuch Records has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Art Directors Club, Print, Graphis, and American Illustration.

He’s also a great collage artist. Gall is one of my favorite book cover designers and a guy who’s work frequently makes me say “I wish I did that.”

Links

• Website

• Instagram

• I Need A Book Cover Page

• Interview with The Great Discontent

• John Gall and the Art of Collage

Other Covers

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Voices of the Fallen Heroes by Yukio Misima

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Weather by Jenny Offill

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq

Red Pill by Hari Kunzru

The Red Arrow by William Brewer

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 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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2 months 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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a month 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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3 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

3 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

3 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

3 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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2 months 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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3 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…

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4 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

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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?

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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.