My First Adventure in Book Design

I’ve recently moved into a new apartment and am slowly starting to settle into my new space. After three attempts I finally have a couch - I literally lived the pivot scene from friends on my second attempt - and my guests can finally sit back and relax in style. I had camp chairs in my living room for longer than I’d care to admit, but hey, it was like being outside in the comfort of my living room!

Moving is a great opportunity to purge. I’m really trying to move towards a minimalist lifestyle but it’s difficult when you want that favourite shirt in every colour! I’ve been keeping a lot of things at my parents’ house and my mother not-so-subtly asked me to come pick up some boxes I’ve been storing there. Most of it was papers and books from university but I stumbled on my very first book design project. When I was about 4 or 5 my mum’s friend gave me a kit to make my own book. You wrote a story, drew pictures and then sent it off in the mail to be bound. I remember being so excited to work on this book. I came up with a gripping story about a Christmas tree that finally fulfills its Christmas destiny when our main character, Sara Loos - yes, full name drop - with the help of her parents and aunt’s dog Brady, decide to bring it back to their home in Cambridge and decorate it for the holidays. Clearly, I like to draw on personal experiences when I write. My illustrations could be described as edgy-minimalist with a pop of colour and I’ve hopefully improved significantly since this was published 24 years ago. I think the creators of the Walking Dead modeled Negan’s bat off my characters’ hands. Here is a look at my first adventure in book design!