The Book of Trivialities

During our initial discussions about the cover for The Book of Trivialities with the wonderful Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe of Skein Press, there were two recurring ideas: a rose motif, and an overarching theme of The Journey. The latter can be viewed as both the personal and even psychogeographical journey of Mujed as the author, but also that of the partially removed voice of the work’s narrator that offers a reflection and meditation on journeys past and present, often from the confines of the writer’s room. As such, this thread of a line of verse, both continuous in thought or meaning—yet truncated at intervals by both the imposition and expression of punctuation and convention—became the third element we wanted to convey.

Our final cover represents this journey’s thread via geometric, perpendicular strokes, with its destination or origin disappearing off the page’s edge, but emanating from (or to) the rose motif itself—again composed in a geometric form as a subtle nod to Arabic design. We had worked initially on honing the internal typography for the book, and having chosen the elegant Calluna alongside Lara’s own refined Falak OTL, the cover’s own typeface needed to complement both the existing typography as well the geometric forms of the cover motifs themselves. In the literary yet characterful Spirits Sharp, with its suitably pointed ‘finials’ (the tapered or curved ends of a letterform) we found the right commonality, whilst its characters also offered stems and descenders that lent themselves to extending upwards or downwards—this too being a decisive factor in how the cover’s own story is tied together!