I do a huge amount of collaboration in my work, so every once in a while its nice to take stock of where my design-head is at with a full solo effort... something fully mine. With the Vitae series, I see the root of this style I’m employing in the ornamental spines that I created for the 26 Drop Caps books; except here I’m paring it down to far fewer notes. Like those spines, in an abstract way I’m exploring hinting at the content of the book purely through typography, color and ornamentation. I have had plenty of people ask me how I got away with the sideways template, and man I bet you had to fight for that .. but they went unchallenged and was one of those wonderful moments in publishing when a bunch of cover options are put to Elda and co., and they immediately saw that this sideways nature is exactly what made these stand apart.