People see the final book cover and assume everything happens smoothly. Clean typography. Beautiful layout. Perfect colors. Very professional.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, one designer has 15 tabs open looking for “inspiration,” another has completely rearranged the layout instead of fixing one small issue, and somebody else is saying “I’m almost done” while starting the design from scratch.
Designers are generally just dramatic people with laptops.
Take Opeyemi, for example. This man downloads fonts like they are limited edition collectibles. Every week, there’s a new font pack somewhere on his system. Nobody even knows where he keeps finding them. The fact that he also always has at least 15 tabs open for inspiration is just wild, and I’m sure that’s why his laptop always sounds like it’s fighting for survival.
Then there’s Kenny.
Kenny has a special talent for turning a five-minute adjustment into a complete redesign. You’ll hear him say, “Let me just fix this one thing quickly,” and the next thing you know, the entire layout has changed. Different spacing. Different hierarchies. Different everything. The funniest part is that he still did it today. Nobody asked for a redesign. Not even Kenny. But somehow everybody got one anyway.
And then we have John, who might actually represent every creative person surviving on vibes and sleep deprivation.
John says, “I’m almost done,” while actively starting from scratch, not revising or editing, but starting over completely. He’ll also randomly pause and say, “Something feels off,” but the moment you ask what exactly feels off, suddenly nobody knows again. He works best at night, complains about being tired every morning, and cannot function without music or headphones. If the headphones stop working, productivity has officially ended for the day.
The funny thing is that almost every designer behaves like this, in one way or another. Creative work is mostly chaos that leads to surprisingly good results. There’s always overthinking, random bursts of inspiration, deleting things that were perfectly fine five minutes ago, and staring at a screen hoping the design somehow fixes itself.
But somehow, in the middle of all the chaos, the work still comes out beautifully.
So yes, our designers have issues, serious ones, honestly. But if the final book cover makes people stop scrolling, click a link, or pick up the book twice at a store, then maybe the chaos is worth it after all.