This post will be the first in a series about our new children’s books subscription service, Bobbledy Books. We’ve learned a lot in the process of getting Idiots’Books up and running—or, if not running, at least hobbling along with a gimpy left foot (that’s me) and a frenetic right foot (Matthew). Regardless, we feel slightly more equipped to be starting this new press than we did with Idiots’Books (frankly, at the time, we didn’t even realize we were “starting a new press”).
The idea for starting a children’s book press came when we were at AWP last year. A smart and handsome gentleman came into our booth and, after browsing our wares, said, “If you guys did children’s books, I would buy 8 subscriptions right now.” In our small enterprise, 8 subscriptions is like a room full of gold ingots. We were smitten with the idea. And so the gears started turning.
We thought that the new press would just work as an imprint of Idiots’Books, but for kids. Same subscription model and everything (this evolves over time, more later). And so we wanted it to somehow feel tied to Idiots’Books, us, and the barn. A bunch of names were tossed around in a furious brainstorming session with our dear friend and editor Matt over plates of delicious indian food enjoyed between days of AWP madness. We came up with the name “Haywire Books.” Pleasing in so many ways. First, the sense that these books would be “not quite right” in the same way that Idiots’Books can’t quite be right. Second, the sense of connection to the barn, barn-type stuff, barny-ness. Third, the sense of fun that we hoped the name could telegraph to kids. We were excited. This was great. We checked online to see if the url “haywirebooks.com” was taken. It wasn’t. We considered this the greenest of green lights. We bought the domain. We even told our agent, while secretly worrying that she would hate it and tell us to pick a new name. But – she loved it! But also warned us to keep hush-hush about it until we trademarked it, because the publishing world is full of backstabbing thieves who wouldn’t think twice about stealing the name (she didn’t actually say that, but it was implied).
And so with all our ducks in place, we decided to try to see what a logo for Haywire would look like. (And here’s where it gets a little embarrassing.)
As much as I do a lot of design around here, I’m actually not a designer. I do a lot of faking. Matthew gives me a ton of art direction (he’s actually really quite good at it). (“Art direction,” for those of you not in the know, is basically when someone tells you what to do, visually. Like “make it more colorful, and spread the letters out more because it’s hard to read, and while you’re at it, see if you can make it look “strong” rather than “anemic and pathetic” like it does now.” That sort of thing.)
So – first attempt:
One of the great things about the name “Haywire Books” turned out to be that it has an “i” in it, which, when turned upside-down, makes an exclamation point. Which adds to the idea that there is something a little off about these books. I liked this general idea, but it was a little confusing when reading it – it trips you up a little bit, so you’re reading “Hayw! Re Books,” which makes no sense at all.
So, instead of an inverted “i” to make an exclamation point, I tried using an inverted exclamation point to make the i.
Yech. The exclamation point in that font was too ugly. And since all of the other letters are capitalized, it still trips you up. Perhaps a different font was in order. When looking for another font, I wanted to also find an exclamation point that didn’t just look like a lower case i – so it was clear that the inversion was happening.
This one felt less loud, more elegant, but that exclamation point was super anemic. So I tried to make it match the height of the other letters, and have the dot rise above everything else.
Moderately satisfied with this type treatment (but admittedly, not that excited about it) I tried to add a visual element to it. We knew we wanted a small image, like our frying pan for Idiots’Books, that could stand alone as a recognizeable logo (for, you know, when our books are on bookstore shelves demanding the attention of the general public). In my mind, I had a sort of tumbleweed of wire with a sproing or two headed off in another direction to suggest “haywire”.
Ugh. That “ball of wire” just looked like a vomity hairball. So unexciting, especially when combined with the really-not-very-much-fun type treatment. Back to the drawing board. Matthew and I hashed out some more ideas. He came up with the idea of using a pitchfork – a reference to “devilishness” that still holds the connection to “barny-ness.” I have to say, from the start, I didn’t really like this idea. It seemed to refer more to “haystack” than to “haywire” and I didn’t want to turn away people who might feel it suggested “badness” more than “oddness.” But thought I’d give it a try. It turns out the problem with pitchforks is that they’re very long. And 3/4 of a pitchfork is basically just a pole. So you can’t have it on the vertical, but if you have it on the horizontal, you have to deal with the fact that the head of the pitchfork is 10 times as wide as the rest of it. We finally settled on just doing the head, in some sort of badge shape.
No, no and no. I hated it. Matthew wasn’t quite willing to give up. “Try it with the words,” he suggested.
Oh boy. We realized we had the added problem of “Haywire” being much longer than “Books” – so the circular badge in the middle just made everything look off-balance. None of these ideas worked. Things were looking uglier and uglier and less and less fun. Sometimes – oftentimes – the longer and harder you work on something, the more things spiral out into just plain awfulness.
And so, we cried ourselves to sleep.
Stay tuned for our next installment, “What a Couple of Jackasses!”
