From the Zone to the Vault: my creative journey through the 5th dimension.

Notes on writing and designing for “The Substack Zone” and “The Midnight Vault.”

On the afternoon of October 3rd, 2024, I received a brief DM from J. Curtis stating he and Sean Thomas McDonnell were “kicking around an idea.” They were looking for Substack writers interested in writing a Twilight Zone-inspired story as part of a collection to celebrate the show’s upcoming 66th anniversary.

I didn’t even finish reading the message before replying with, “Count me in!”

The project turned out to be everything I could have hoped for. At its core, it gave me a reason to write the type of fiction I enjoy most and in the spirit of a show that I admire. Even better, it came with a deadline that would ensure my story’s completion. I like deadlines, that’s how stories get written.

But the thing I enjoyed the most? For this introvert? Well, I have to say it was the shared experience. I’m relatively new to the writing crowd, so slinging words alongside nearly three dozen other writers was something I’d never done before.

A Discord group was established so we could check in with each other during the eight weeks leading up to the Substack release. It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the writers as we discussed progress, asked questions, and shaped things as we went.

The chats were filled with dynamic personalities (that Jon T, I tell ya) who were all coming at this from wildly different perspectives but with equal excitement and passion to make something great—together. It was inspiring, to say the least.

That said, writing alongside 29 other writers also generated a special kind of motivational stress. Said differently, the pressure of submitting something worthy enough to hold up against the talent on the project’s roster was palpable, my friends. 😅

When the dust settled, J and Sean’s nifty idea resulted in a unique collection of strange tales from 30 writers across six countries and original music from composer and musician Nolan Green. Collectively referred to as The Substack Zone, all 30 stories—over 100,000 words worth—and Nolan’s music were simultaneously published on Substack at the stroke of Midnight on November 24th, 2024.

By all measures, The Substack Zone was a resounding success. The stories were liked and shared, subscriptions climbed, and the project brought The Twilight Zone into focus for readers, young and old, who knew little to nothing about the show. One of the highlights was seeing the collection featured by the Rod Serling Foundation, an organization honoring the genius of The Twilight Zone’s creator, head writer, and signature narrator.

The Substack Zone logo and era-inspired Substack “network” logo (bottom-right) I designed for the project.

When One Dimensional Door Closes…

The Substack Zone was wrapped, but it was far from over. The success of the project prompted J and Sean to consider publishing the stories as an anthology in print and ebook editions.

Now, a little over three months after that decision, I sit here with a 404-page printed anthology on my desk, a book that I was lucky enough to design, a book that anyone in the world can purchase today from all major online book retailers.

🤯

For the remainder of this article, I want to talk about this book, share some early sketches, and highlight some of the details that appear throughout the pages.

But first, a Little Background

I am an aspiring writer, yes, but a designer first. I graduated from university with a degree in Design and Communications in 1998 and have been working on improving my craft ever since. In 2017, I co-founded The Graphic Standard, a design studio in Austin, Texas, where I am lucky to work with incredible partners and employees who are not only exceptionally talented but also exceptional human beings. We have managed to make our crazy experiment work, and I do not take for granted one bit that I am able to do what I love every day.

I have created countless design artifacts in my 27-year career, both small and large, some of which are seen by millions of people every day. But when I held this book in my hand for the first time, I seriously did not have words to describe all the feels. I’ve never been so proud of an object.

Now, let’s talk about that object.

What’s In a Name?

The Substack Zone title was intentionally esoteric; an instant get for the Substack initiated. The stories were written by Substack writers and intended, for the most part, for stack subscribers and other members of the platform.

We all love it here, but believe it or not, there are some folks out there who don’t even know what here is. I KNOW! But seriously, I talk to people all the time who have never heard of Substack, and if they have, they often respond with, “Sure, I’ve heard of it. Isn’t it that email newsletter thing?” with no understanding of the depth of writing happening here.

The truth is that platforms come and go, and these books would be intended for a much broader audience. Once printed, they would be lasting artifacts that will hopefully be read, shared, and lovingly displayed on bookshelves for a very long time to come.

With that in mind, we knew we needed a title that spoke more to the essence of the collected stories rather than the platform on which they were born. Simply put, The Substack Zone needed a new name. So, we opened up submissions from the authors and voted down to the final title. The Midnight Vault it would be.

Have Name, Will Design

With the title in hand, I was able to approach the design in earnest. I had never designed an entire book before, but I’m old enough to have plenty of experience designing for print. And hey, the way I see it, regardless of the medium or format, design is design is design, am I right? You just have to understand the limitations of what you’re designing for.

At its most basic level, a book has two fundamental parts—the cover and the interior—each with its own considerations and challenges. I viewed the cover as a place to be more conceptual, and should ideally:

• Be visually impactful to allow the book to stand out in a sea of other book covers

• Set the tone or vibe of the book

• Hint at the subject matter within

While the interior can be equally conceptual, I saw it more as an exercise in layout and craft that prioritized legibility while checking the box on looking sophisticated and extending the visual theme established on the cover.

Process and Sketches

As real-deal book designers like Nathaniel Roy can tell you, designing a book is a meticulous process requiring countless decisions to be made along the way. I like to say the role of a designer is maybe more curator than creator. A big part of our job is using honed sensibilities (aka taste) to narrow down and make selections from a vast spectrum of choices for elements such as color, typography, pattern, and so much more.

I begin every design project by gathering inspiration. I’m looking for themes, treatments, typography, and other expressions that might spark ideas I can fold into my own exploration. From there, I use a combination of hand sketching and working directly in creative applications like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to start transcribing the thoughts in my mind to something more real that I can begin to shape.

The cream rises? Survival of the fittest? However you describe it, through the process of exploration and curation (there’s that word again), the bad ideas naturally wither and fall away while I continue to push on and refine the directions that show the most promise. During this time, I’m constantly evaluating different typefaces, color palettes, and more, looking for things that resonate and feel more aligned with the visual story I’m attempting to convey. Some edits are big moves, while many are minute nudges.

I place a lot of value on concept, so I’m always striving to go deeper than just surface decoration. The ultimate satisfaction for me is when I can design something that creates an “ah-ha!” moment with the viewer. I’m constantly searching for that gem.

For our first design review, I presented a total of six options. I put each design into a mockup to simulate the look of a real book.

One theme I explored heavily was playing off the number of writers and stories in the collection. In the design below, the main visual presents a collection of 30 keys circling a keyhole, with each key meant to represent one of the stories within. Granted, the suggestion of unlocking the vault is a little on the nose (okay, straight-up punching the nose), but I thought the visual was interesting and liked the idea of including each unique key at the beginning of its respective story.

The concept is fairly literal, but I thought the visual was interesting and especially liked the idea of a unique key associated with each story to thread the cover concept through the entire book.

Another direction playing off the number of authors and stories was the design below, where I created a lineart illustration of a vault door. The outer ring of the door contains 30 pictograms, with each pictogram representing one of the stories. The idea for this was to have the illustration reappear with each story title and have the skull turned toward the appropriate pictogram. It was a fun idea, but I could not argue with J that it looked a bit too much like the helm of a pirate ship. Arrrrgh!

What do you see? A vault door, or the helm of a ship?

Here are all six options that were presented. You can see the first expression of the final cover design in the bottom-center mockup.

All six cover designs presented in the first round.

After some discussion, we agreed the crescent moon option was the winning concept. It was simple, elegant, mysterious, and had a nice double meaning in the image. At first glance, you will likely see the thin sliver of a waning crescent moon, underscoring “Midnight.” It is also meant to appear as the opening of a vault door. There it is, that “ah-ha” thing. Woo!

I ended up removing the stars and any suggestion of a sky as it more literally suggested a moon and left little interpretation for the opening of the vault door. Here is the final cover design:

Refined cover showcasing the Orpheus typeface.

Typography

For any given project, I browse through a ton of typefaces, always in search of something that will best reflect the feel I’m attempting to create, as well as something with distinctive characteristics and personality that will make it feel more unique.

I struck pay dirt when I found Orpheus. It had all the elements I was looking for, came in several different weights and styles, and was packed with an insane amount of alternate characters. This afforded a lot of flexibility in how I used the typeface throughout the book. Finding Orpheus was truly clutch in the overall success of the design.

Orpheus comes with a remarkable amount of alternate characters. As shown above, the A alone has 24 variations. Wow.

I went all-in on Orpheus (thanks for the perfect piece of feedback Jon T ), from the cover to story titles to page headers and more. I played with size, case, spacing, weight, and style to create variation in the design while maintaining a cohesive look and feel throughout. I also made use of Orpheus to do things like highlight unique titles mentioned in stories, such as the mystical book at the center of Halcyonium, by Clancy Steadwell.

For the main body text, I wasn’t interested in being overly stylistic or unique. I wanted something that was highly legible and a pleasure to read, so I went with tried-and-true Caslon. Designed in 1722 by William Caslon, the typeface is a popular go-to for many book designers for the reasons I mentioned. And here’s a fun fact for ya; the first printed copies of the American Declaration of Independence were printed using Caslon—a typeface designed by a British typographer. 🤔

Designing 29 Unique Voices

For the interior, I was faced with formatting 29 individual stories. While it’s important for the anthology to feel like a singular body of work, I was super interested in highlighting unique aspects of each story if I could. Below are a few examples of how I used custom design elements or formatting to give each story the love it deserved.

Several of the stories included direct message conversations so I created a style that would mimic text dialogue as you might see on your smartphone. Here’s an example from Off Switch, by Honeygloom.

From Off Switch, by Honeygloom.

In Vote Control by Andy Futuro, the story is presented in the format of a graphic novel, divided into pages and panels that include direction for an artist.

A page from Vote Control by Andy Futuro.

In Soma’s Reflection by Edith Bow, the character finds a collection of handwritten notes.

A page from Soma’s Reflection by Edith Bow.

There are many more bespoke elements sprinkled throughout, but you’ll just have to see them for yourself.

Oh, and remember that healthy stress thing? Well, I will tell you from experience that designing a book that represents 28 other authors comes with a fair amount of motivational stress. But as they say, what doesn’t kill you…

Opportunity + Effort

My role in all of this, both as a participating writer and the printed book’s designer, highlights the extraordinary opportunities this platform affords to everyone here. And, as with anything in life, the best opportunities often involve the greatest amount of effort. After all, books don’t design themselves, right? Oof, I suppose that is all changing with AI, but we’ll save that discussion for another time.

We should also recognize the success of this endeavor as a powerful proof-of-concept, demonstrating what can be achieved when we come together as a community of different voices who share our stories through words, music, and design.

I am looking forward to more writing, more designing, and more collaboration—as a writer or designer—with the talented folks here on Substack. Who knows, maybe the next big project will be with you.

Count me in!

---

---

Acknowledgments

Thanks to J. Curtis and Sean Thomas McDonnell for inviting me to this epic project, and trusting me with the design of The Midnight Vault.

Mad respect and high fives to J. Curtis for being an extraordinary partner throughout the entire process of creating The Midnight Vault. He is a black belt project manager who wrangled three dozen writers, navigated and produced the entire ebook, and was a go-to on gut checks for a zillion different details as I designed the printed book. I can’t ask for anything more in a partner than a strong point of view and meaningful feedback. This guy delivered in spades.

Much love to Erica Drayton who did so much to support and promote the project in so many ways.

Finally, my gratitude and massive respect for the other writers/musician involved in The Substack Zone and The Midnight Vault. Thank you for your inspiration, your humor, and your friendship.

William Pauley III
Clancy Steadwell
Annie Hendrix
Bryan Pirolli
Author Michele Bardsley
Jason Thompson
Bridget Riley
EJ Trask
Will Boucher
Honeygloom
𝐂𝐁 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧
Lisa Kuznak
Sean Thomas McDonnell
Andy Futuro
Edith Bow
Miguel S.
A.P. Murphy
Sean Archer
Adam Rockwell
Shaina Read
NJ
J. Curtis
Stephen Duffy
K.C. Knouse
Hanna Delaney
Jon T
Bob Graham
Liz Zimmers
John Ward
Nolan Green

---