You deserve a new book design.

I recently rereleased You Deserve a Tech Union as a self-published title, featuring a brand new design. For those who didn’t catch the announcement, here’s how the book looks now:

I’m just so happy with how it came out. I hope you like it, too.

As I mentioned in the announcement, redesigning the book was part of the agreement I made when I reacquired the rights to my books: basically, if I wanted to keep selling any of my books, they’d need to look like my books. Easy enough, right?

Well, there’s a terrible trick here. You see, Jason Santa Maria created the design for my former publisher’s titles, and I just loved the visual language he came up with. I’ll never forget opening my box of Responsive Web Design, picking up one of the copies, and thinking just how right everything felt as I leafed through its pages. Frankly, there was no chance I’d improve on Jason’s work; but just as importantly, I didn’t want to erase it.

This new version of You Deserve a Tech Union attempts to split that difference. If I’ve done my job right, this design should feel like a noticeable refresh, while still connecting with where the book began. The color is the primary carryover, and the interior layouts haven’t changed too much.¹ The biggest departures were on the cover and — most importantly — the type. Here’s a short excerpt from the book’s colophon:

The text is set in Tiempos Text and Untitled Sans, both by Klim Type Foundry. The headlines and book cover use Cambon Condensed by General Type Studio, as well as Klim Type Foundry’s Söhne.

Longtime readers will be unsurprised to see some of those names — heck, maybe some of you are rolling your eyes a bit. But, hey, look: if someone told me that I could only use Klim typefaces for the rest of my days, I’d die happy. Tiempos Text, Söhne, and Untitled Sans are all old favorites of mine, and they’re often starting points for me when I’m doing type exploration. And together, I think they made the book’s new interior shine.

Here’s how the text of You Deserve a Tech Union used to look, and how it looks now:

Want a closer look? Well, here you go.

Ron Bilodeau and I spent a couple rounds finessing the text, but we were making small adjustments around the edges. The new type just felt solid from the very first pass.

But! We still needed a display face. Enter General Type’s Cambon, whose flared terminals I always feel I could get lost in. For the book’s more prominent numbers, like those in the lead-in for every chapter, Cambon’s condensed family felt like a natural fit — especially after seeing how well it sidled up to the Söhne-set chapter titles.

Cambon Condensed worked a treat on the table of contents, too. I really do love how it sits alongside Tiempos and Untitled Sans.

And of course, Cambon and Söhne felt like such a good pairing on You Deserve a Tech Union’s new cover. This is the one area of the book where the departure’s more radical than what came before — but if you squint, I think you can see where it all started.

I still deeply love the original design, and always will: after all, it’s my first memory of the finished book. But I feel like this new design’s something that still stands on its own, while still feeling like it’s of a part with what came before.

If you’re interested, you can read more about this new refreshed version, or buy your copy of You Deserve a Tech Union anywhere books are sold.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

This has been “You deserve a new book design.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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