CASE STUDY / BOOK DESIGN
Turning the Metaphor into the Design
RYAN ROGHAAR • THE LID • PRINTRyan Roghaar is a graphic designer, an author, and a friend. When he set out to publish The Lid, a business book built from his podcast conversations about the invisible barrier that stalls capable people in business, leadership, and identity, he ran into the problem every designer knows too well: designing your own cover is close to impossible. He handed us the manuscript and the metaphor, and asked for a cover that would be credible as a business book without falling into the expected corporate look.
THE PROBLEM
We developed three original cover concepts, each a different visual take on the metaphor: a stacked-line system, a rising bar chart breaking through a ceiling, and a topographic map with a route past the lid. Ryan chose the stacked-line system, and we refined it from there. Stacked horizontal lines stand in for the recurring barriers a reader confronts as they grow. The bottom line is the thickest, and each row above thins, so the stack visualizes the book's argument: the lid becomes less limiting as clarity and confidence build. An orange dot represents the reader breaking through, and a dotted arrow marks upward movement. We paired dark navy typography with warm cream space, and chose a saturated bright orange rather than a corporate tone: warm on the cover, and unmistakable as a spine on a business-book shelf. Inside, the InDesign template carries one signature move: each chapter opener has one fewer lid line than the one before, so by the last chapter the lids are gone.
THE APPROACH
A business book that carries a single idea from spine to final chapter without ever looking like a business book. Ryan was instantly drawn to the winning direction. We delivered the InDesign template and he flowed his manuscript in himself, keeping his self-publishing scope efficient.
THE OUTCOME
The winning cover. Navy typography on warm cream, an orange dot breaking through a stack of thinning horizontal lines: the book's central metaphor drawn as one image.
3 Directions
CONCEPTS EXPLORED BEFORE NARROWING TO ONE FINISHED COVER COMPS
One Less Line Per Chapter
INTERIOR MOTIF THAT ENACTS THE BOOK'S CENTRAL IDEA
Bright Orange Spine
WRAPS ONTO THE BACK COVER FOR SHELF PRESENCE IN A CATEGORY OF DEFAULTS
Template Built to Flow
INDESIGN SYSTEM SO THE AUTHOR COULD POUR IN HIS OWN MANUSCRIPT
Scope also included: cover design, interior template design, concept development, and creative direction.
The opening spread. Slanted background, slanted columns, and one climber's red-orange pack setting the palette: the mountain analogy carried into the typography itself.
Eos isn't a boutique print run. Each issue mails to roughly 60,000 scientists, researchers, and policymakers as a core AGU member benefit, eleven times a year. At that scale there are no reprints and no second chances: the cover had to be right before press, and the layered type treatment had to hold up everywhere the issue would live, from a mailbox across the room to a thumbnail on screen.
How I Work With Editors And Publications
Print publications run on hard dates, and we design accordingly. Give us the headline, the manuscript length, and whatever art you have, and we will bring back a cover and layout concept that serves the story, not just the page. And if the art doesn't exist yet, that's not a blocker: we research it, source it, or create it, from photo curation to original photography and illustration. Behind every layout is two decades of editorial design, an eye trained in photography, and thousands of pieces sent to press, so a concept carries from cover to folio under deadline pressure without cutting corners on craft. When the issue closes, it closes with the design intact.
Planning a cover story?
Thirty minutes, no obligations. We'll talk about your publication, your deadline, and what the story needs from its design.
< Previous case study Next case study >