In January 2025, I launched the Author-Oddity Newsletter. After about eight months, as things started to gel, I decided to invest in a logo. Is branding crucial for a good author newsletter? Nope. But I figured, would it feel cool? Would it boost my confidence for a reasonable price? Would it be a whole bunch of fun? Yes!
So I found an artist and went for it.
The experience turned into a big reminder of why connecting with other creatives is so important.
Working with other creative humans is a great exercise in communicating your vision . . . and in understanding how it’s perceived.
Especially with the rise of Gen-AI, I’ve been thinking a lot about how crucial human collaboration is to the creative process (see my blog about Why People Hate AI Book Covers). Not all art needs to be a “product” or “content” online. It’s valid to do art just for fun. But when you’re ready to grow, you need to start connecting with other creative people. And part of connecting is the simple act of explaining what you’re trying to do—what your “vision” is.
That “explaining” bit? It benefits you too.
Adriana, my logo designer, opened our project with a discovery form. I knew the vibe I wanted. But several questions forced me to wrestle into words ideas that were still sort of nebulous. Why did I want to do this? What’s driving me? I had a rough sense of my “why.” But once I had to write it down for someone else, I realized it was squishier than I thought.
On top of that, when we discussed my responses, I got to hear Adriana’s reactions. It was like getting a glimpse of my content through another prism of experience, a whole different lens from my own. “Oh,” I realized, “so that’s what this looks like from her eyes.”
As a writer, I give and receive feedback on my writing all the time. This discussion with an artist felt a little different. More emotional, more vulnerable. We weren’t just talking about how to accomplish something on a technical level (not at this early point). We were playing with ideas together, considering how we’d like the finished “product” to make us feel.
Working with another artist is also about learning to trust, listen, and appreciate other kinds of expertise.
You don’t know what you don’t know. But sometimes, you can trust an expert to know what you need to know . . . ya know?
Over the years, I’ve tried making my own logo. And tried, and tried. At first glance, they’re not . . . the worst? Eh, they served their purpose at the moment.
What Adriana generated, though, was a whole book of guidance. A brand “bible.” She helped me understand that a logo is just one part of an integrated whole. Just one piece of the story. Colors, fonts, presentation. Everything has to work together across platforms to create a cohesive atmosphere and tone.
Of course, on top of all that, she also nailed the logo itself. Instead of another generic “hand-with-pencil,” she designed a skeletal flower—an open Queen of the Night blended with an entranced eye. The eye’s iris has an egg yolk quality, melting into the petals. The spidery appendages look prickly, risky, a little dangerous. It’s eerie, uncanny, memorable. Odd in just the right way.
I’m delighted with how this turned out. It’s exactly what I asked for and (crucially) more. She took my creative input and expanded it, breathed her own vision and style into mine.
For years, as an editor, I’ve done this for others. I’ve helped clients turn their ideas and early drafts into finished writing pieces. But it’s been ages since I’ve been so fully on the other side of that equation. I was nervous about trusting another person with helping me bring my idea to life. In the end, though, it was a joy to relax into somebody else’s hard-won skills.
The “lone artistic genius” is a myth.
Creative genius never happens in perfect isolation.
Look, I get it. You can’t list every beta reader, critique parter, and editor (let alone every source of inspiration) on every book cover. It’s just not practical. And I’m not calling my baby-newsletter “artistic genius.”
My point is, however things are packaged, behind the scenes, as creatives, we need a network. Not in the dry, business-cards-and-golfing sense (“to network”). But in the way that mushrooms flourish because of a vast underground mycelial web. That kind of network. A nourishing one. We need to nurture our creative ecosystems. Enrich our soil. Invite diversity.
It’s impossible right now not to situate these thoughts in the context of GenAI. For some time, I’ve believed the greatest cost of leaning on GenAI tools to replace human artists and professionals won’t necessarily be quality. (Although if you count substance as part of quality, quality will likely always be an issue.) The greatest cost will be the loss of human connection.
I’m still fiddling with how exactly to put this concern into words. It’s a layered thing. But I do feel, as always throughout human history, we’re strongest when we’re being creative together. I’d like to do what I can to keep cultivating that side of the connection.
Interested in the newsletter?
Check out some past issues! MERMAIDS, EYES, and CATS were a few recent themes that led to awesome book recs and art. I’m always trying to capture that late-1990s/early-2000s-era internet energy: a slightly jumbled but still curated collection of uncanny content, all human-made.
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