Hello hello! :)

Reader, we are getting dangerously close to the finish line! I have some cool things to show you today, but before that, I hope you had a lovely week with your loved ones (or friends!) ❤️

Let's jump in!

Vox populi, vox dei

In case you missed it, last week I finished all the illustrations of my book (finally!).

That was a big event, but we started work on the cover right away: I asked you which sketch you liked the most, and the results were very surprising!

First off, I really appreciate every person who left a comment explaining their choice. They were all very insightful (or funny) and gave me way more clarity beyond a simple like/dislike. So much so that you convinced me!

I was biased towards a specific illustration, but another one got the vast majority of votes; and I now agree with you that this sketch better represents the story and the vibe.

And so I went to work! Here’s what the cover looks like now:

My goal this weekend was to at least get the ink done, but you can see that I went a bit overboard and even did the base color! There is little left to do now, I should be done with it early during the week.

What will be left to do then? Well, not much honestly! I only need to polish the inside of the book further, for example, incorporating the valuable feedback some of you provided during our beta reading session.

But after that, nothing will be in the way for me to send the PDF to the printer, and finally have the book available! Stay tuned for next week :))

A little nerdy story about fonts

As you saw on the work-in-progress cover, I have also started working on the title for the book!

And I cannot pass up the opportunity to share with you one of my special interests: fonts.

I don't have a formal education on the subject (really, this topic goes so deep), but I'm always very interested in figuring out what fonts are used around me and for which reasons. And what a delight when I can actually name a typeface in the wild!

This nerdy interest intensified recently when I received a MacBook for my work. In case you don't know, Apple licenses a lot of professional fonts for their users; and this includes one of my favorites: Futura.

While you might not know Futura by name, you've definitely seen this font before: it's used in the Supreme logo (and by extension Barbara Kruger's work, since they copied from hers), Nike, Gillette, Lufthansa, and even Domino's Pizza (yes).

But perhaps most fascinating of all: it was the typeface chosen for the Apollo moon landing. Not only was it used on the mission equipment, but it's also part of the plaque the astronauts left behind - making Futura the only font currently sitting on the moon 🌙

But sadly, the license to use it is very expensive, and not easy to access without paying a subscription to Adobe; so it was a nerdy dream of mine to finally use it legally!

I'm no graphic designer, but I like how the geometric font contrasts well with the one used for the Witch.

Thank you for listening to my rambling!

I encourage you to pay more attention to the letters around you; I was totally blind to them before, but it gives more colors to the world when you can finally see this hidden layer of language beyond the words themselves.

There we go, thank you for following this journey with me! I'm super excited by the progress, we are so close :) And I'll have a lot more art to show once the book is over.

Have a great rest of your day, and as always,

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Take care,
- Nighten