This is a brief short story from a larger design-career related memoir I’m in the process of writing. This excerpt may be slightly varied from what is published in the future.
Shortly that fall (2011), I started working on another book in my spare time. Recently inspired by type, I decided to make a lyric book for Needtobreathe’s latest album at the time, The Reckoning.
This book was a bit of a slow process as I had to work during the day and only worked on this during my spare time and on my 11” MacBook Pro. I was much too afraid of working on personal work at work in fear of being caught even if I was bored and not busy.
I didn’t like breaking the rules much.
Despite it being a spare time project, I took it seriously. I even took my computer on a weekend trip to Charlottesville, VA to see a Needtobreathe show for some reason even though I had zero time to actually work on it aside from maybe 15 minutes in an airport on the way there. I was far too exhausted on the way home.
Similar to the Sk6ers tour book, I coordinated a couple fans/photographers together and had them send me some photos for it with the clear expectation that this was unpaid and a for-fun project only. One of these photographers happened to be one of the Command X designers I met in Phoenix — you never know who you’ll meet when you put yourself out there to network and when you may need them, right?
This book had some variations and I really played with type in this book. By that, I mean I totally f*cked with the letters. Most pages turned out great, a few pages turned out hideous. I knew this at the time and I definitely accept this in hindsight. They can’t all be winners.
I was experimenting. In that, I learned a few things about myself throughout this process:
- I really wasn’t good at Adobe Illustrator (yet).
- I really wasn’t good at hand drawn type and transferring that to a computer (yet).
- I was good at layout and composition with display type. But I knew I could do it better.
- I was creative beyond what I thought and some pages are still some of my favourite type explorations I’ve ever made.
- I had good ideas and they were 100% mine.
These lessons alone were worth the effort.
I finished the book at the bitter end of 2011 — exactly at my self-inflicted deadline. I had it printed once, hated the size of it, so I made some necessary changes and had it printed again. It was good…enough. I printed it, self published it to lulu.com, and told a few fans I knew on social media about it. It was far from viral and all, but I did sell some copies, and I did donate whatever revenue I made from it to Needtobreathe’s chosen charity. I wasn’t doing it for the money or even experience; I was doing it to explore my style.
I didn’t see Needtobreathe between that Charlottesville show and the following October in Texas and since I was still proud of this book, I decided to order a copy and gift it to Bo Rinehart (guitarist at the time) at the show. He said he loved it, told me to sign it as if I was some kind of famous designer, and the following day when I went to meet them at the meet and greet booth at Austin City Limits, Seth Bolt (bassist) asked where his copy was.
I was flattered, really.
He made a good point. As soon as I got home from Texas, I ordered two more: One for Bear Rinehart (lead) and one for Seth. I signed them both, wrote excessively long messages on each inside front cover, and blindly shipped them off to some address in South Carolina.
I just sent my favourite band a piece of my soul.
This was my favourite project I had done at the time I think because I had learned so much about who I was as a designer from it. So when someone says “creating your own work isn’t the same as real experience” — don’t listen to them.
Play. Explore. Be curious. Create. Find who you are.
Afterall, any project is real if you treat it as such — especially if it helps you grow and helps you develop your personal style just a little bit more.
