New Editions
Reimagined Book Covers
Graphic Design
New York, NY, USA
New Editions is a personal project undertaken in Winter 2026 as a way to engage myself creatively outside of client work. The project has also served as an opportunity to explore typefaces I'd kept on the backburner — ones I'd noted as interesting but had not yet had the right professional context to use. I gave myself a day for each cover.
This project is ongoing.
This project is ongoing.
How Should a Person Be? explores the identity crisis of its protagonist, Sheila — consumed by confusion about what defines her, and what qualities constitute that of a person worth embodying. Sheila uses her relationships to carve out the edges of her own form, constantly measuring herself against others.
I sourced a vintage photograph, cropping out the faces and mirror reflection to suggest the blank canvas Sheila sees identity as. The red connotes urgency, set against green — evoking the contrast with others through which she attempts to define herself.
The millennial setting called for a modern feel: a minimalist layout with two contrasting contemporary typefaces. Cooper Hewitt (Open Sans) is a slightly rounded sans-serif with fairly uniform strokes, open and friendly against the ornate, angular extremes of thicks and thins in Weird Serif (Off Type) — which almost feels like a caricature of a classic, polished serif, resonating with Sheila's tendency to parody the people in her life.
I sourced a vintage photograph, cropping out the faces and mirror reflection to suggest the blank canvas Sheila sees identity as. The red connotes urgency, set against green — evoking the contrast with others through which she attempts to define herself.
The millennial setting called for a modern feel: a minimalist layout with two contrasting contemporary typefaces. Cooper Hewitt (Open Sans) is a slightly rounded sans-serif with fairly uniform strokes, open and friendly against the ornate, angular extremes of thicks and thins in Weird Serif (Off Type) — which almost feels like a caricature of a classic, polished serif, resonating with Sheila's tendency to parody the people in her life.
Men Explain Things To Me explores the silencing of women through the over-vocalization of men — from something as innocuous as a scholar explaining Solnit's own ideas back to her, unaware she was the author, to the ways the same mechanism underlies the dismissal of women's testimony, domestic abuse, and their systemic erasure from public life.
I chose GT Plantar (Grilli Type), a superfamily including italics and "ritalics" extending at increasingly extreme angles — stacked to evoke the repetitive explanations Solnit describes, creating a push/pull motion representing the power of men's words to mold narratives. The first and last lines are upright, with "Men" and "Me" highlighted at opposite ends of the page: their mirroring suggests that both the presence of men and Solnit's sense of self as a woman are irrevocable facts, with everything in between up for debate. The yellow background evokes a highlighter — Solnit using one small, personal interaction (with the aforementioned scholar) as an entrypoint to a universal experience.
I chose GT Plantar (Grilli Type), a superfamily including italics and "ritalics" extending at increasingly extreme angles — stacked to evoke the repetitive explanations Solnit describes, creating a push/pull motion representing the power of men's words to mold narratives. The first and last lines are upright, with "Men" and "Me" highlighted at opposite ends of the page: their mirroring suggests that both the presence of men and Solnit's sense of self as a woman are irrevocable facts, with everything in between up for debate. The yellow background evokes a highlighter — Solnit using one small, personal interaction (with the aforementioned scholar) as an entrypoint to a universal experience.
Beautiful World, Where Are You? explores the relationships of four millennials in Ireland, present day. Underlying the ups and downs of their relationships is a quiet but urgent hope for meaning and connection, which they understand is the only thing worth living for in a world that seems to be falling apart. One of the characters at one point wonders if they are in the "last lighted room, before the world goes dark."
I created an illustration that picks up on that line, lending urgency to the title — as if it's a question that keeps one up at night. Since the illustration is somewhat somber in its portrayal of the world as enveloped in darkness, a tone which contrasts with the characters, who are more dreamers than brooding, I chose Scotch Display (Neil Summerour, Adobe Fonts) to counteract that. Its curled serifs feel romantic — their curves reminiscent of the motion of someone twirling their hair as they wonder, “beautiful world, where are you?”
I created an illustration that picks up on that line, lending urgency to the title — as if it's a question that keeps one up at night. Since the illustration is somewhat somber in its portrayal of the world as enveloped in darkness, a tone which contrasts with the characters, who are more dreamers than brooding, I chose Scotch Display (Neil Summerour, Adobe Fonts) to counteract that. Its curled serifs feel romantic — their curves reminiscent of the motion of someone twirling their hair as they wonder, “beautiful world, where are you?”
The Idiot explores the inner workings of Selin Karadağ, a first-generation Turkish-American freshman at Harvard studying linguistics. As she struggles to make sense of Russian, she begins a confusing relationship with her Russian classmate, largely via email. Her bewilderment over the mechanics of the language mirrors her bewilderment about him, becoming the catalyst for a period of self-exploration marked by a certain unresolved plotlessness — one event leads to another, seemingly without much meaning.
The format of a word search nods to the navigation of linguistics. The notion of "the idiot" is conveyed through mistakes etched in pen. The background is a photograph of a horizon line — travel is a recurring theme in the book, representing both the broadening of one's understanding of the world and a growing existential disorientation in the face of cultural differences. I chose a monospaced typeface — Zeitung Mono (Underware) — as a reference to Selin's email correspondence, which takes place in the mid-nineties, when email was brand new.
The format of a word search nods to the navigation of linguistics. The notion of "the idiot" is conveyed through mistakes etched in pen. The background is a photograph of a horizon line — travel is a recurring theme in the book, representing both the broadening of one's understanding of the world and a growing existential disorientation in the face of cultural differences. I chose a monospaced typeface — Zeitung Mono (Underware) — as a reference to Selin's email correspondence, which takes place in the mid-nineties, when email was brand new.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames is a collection of essays by David Sedaris. The book takes its title from his essay on quitting smoking, which he decides necessitates a move to Japan — where, in his signature comedic voice, he finds the utterly ridiculous in the mundane.
I wanted to illustrate the idea of being engulfed in flames without a literal illustration of fire, instead using negative space to convey a swath of orange overtaking Edward Hopper's clown in his painting, Soir Bleu. The image of a clown with a cigarette, caught in an unremarkable moment at a café, felt like the perfect encapsulation of Sedaris' unmistakably absurd humor. In keeping with Sedaris' status as a literary icon, I chose classic serif typefaces — Editorial (Pangram Pangram) and Caslon — to lend the design a sense of timeless literary weight.
I wanted to illustrate the idea of being engulfed in flames without a literal illustration of fire, instead using negative space to convey a swath of orange overtaking Edward Hopper's clown in his painting, Soir Bleu. The image of a clown with a cigarette, caught in an unremarkable moment at a café, felt like the perfect encapsulation of Sedaris' unmistakably absurd humor. In keeping with Sedaris' status as a literary icon, I chose classic serif typefaces — Editorial (Pangram Pangram) and Caslon — to lend the design a sense of timeless literary weight.
Health and Safety tells the real-life story of journalist Emily Witt's dive into the world of raves in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Spanning 2016 to 2021, she paints vivid pictures of her experiences at warehouses, clubs, and other makeshift venues: the throb of the music, the strobe of the lights, and the sensations in her body.
I wanted to capture the hard edge of techno music, so I chose a stark layout with a lot of sharp geometry and VTC Spike (Vocal Type) — a typeface made entirely of angular strokes. The disco ball and dilated pupil point to the book's subject matter, anchored by a neon green that nods to the lights of the raves she attended while also situating the composition in a synthetic space — evoking the heightened, vividly unreal quality of the experiences she was engaging in at hours most people were asleep, or even on their way to work.
I wanted to capture the hard edge of techno music, so I chose a stark layout with a lot of sharp geometry and VTC Spike (Vocal Type) — a typeface made entirely of angular strokes. The disco ball and dilated pupil point to the book's subject matter, anchored by a neon green that nods to the lights of the raves she attended while also situating the composition in a synthetic space — evoking the heightened, vividly unreal quality of the experiences she was engaging in at hours most people were asleep, or even on their way to work.