ghostofamerica book design

1— No Stupid Hats

Spread showing a loose, crayon-textured line drawing of a lemon hanging from a leafy branch, set in the upper right of an otherwise wide-open white spread
The cover art here is an example of ekphrastic inspiration. I asked my friend, Marla Allison, to read an early draft of the manuscript. She fell in love with the story and asked to paint a cover for it. Her painting is titled: "He Ate the Coyote".
Spread with the same lemon-branch motif rendered in reverse — white linework on a black ground on the left page — facing the chapter title '1— No Stupid Hats' set small in a blunt geometric sans on an otherwise empty white right page
The first edition of the book did not include these lemon motifs. I spent five years studying creative writing and art at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and when I decided to reissue the book, adding motifs felt like a creative expansion of the story.
Opening spread of the chapter's text, with a tall black slab-serif drop cap 'I' and several lines of matching display capitals giving way to a warmer serif body face, set against generous margins on a mostly empty left page
The story is a type of hallucinatory literary fiction. I was inspired to style the opening of each chapter with a bold san-serif drop cap and a few lines rendered in display font after reading "Panic Blood" by Catherine Texier. I liked how the format contributed to the rhythm of the prose and felt like a throwback to a time when more readers anticipated releases in print.
Pages 12 and 13, set in a single restrained serif with running heads carrying the book and chapter titles and centered folios at the foot
The body font in the second edition is Sitka. It has a clean look, but also some character.
Pages 14 and 15, continuing the chapter in the same serif and grid as the previous spread
The headers and footers are bolded. They stand apart from the body and give subtle anchoring for a reader who may get lost in the surreal story on the page.
Pages 16 and 17, the closing spread of the excerpt, set in the same serif and grid as the rest of the chapter
The full text of the chapter is available in the PDF sample download at the top of the page.