At first glance, Get High Now – a small, two-color, $14.95 book – looks like a simple design project. But the dense, research-jammed content, combination of humor and seriousness, and mixed visuals made it an exciting design challenge. Below is the book proposal we received from the author (on the left) and the actual book.

Get High Now contains over 175 ways to self-induce altered states of consciousness, without drugs or alcohol. It’s filled with step-by-step directions for meditation and breathing exercises that actually work, some fascinating audio and visual illusions, and some just plain weird (and gross!) anthropological “highs” like giraffe liver and schizophrenic’s blood. Though the writing is pretty funny, all the “highs” are real.

The illustrations are combinations of mind-bending patterns, dictionary-style images, and sumi-e ink paintings by fine artist Nancy Chan. When author James Nestor mentioned he wanted his book to have some soul and character – not just be filled with typical vector graphics – I immediately thought of The Joy of Sex. The display typeface, Springfied, has a slightly retro vibe, and all of the poses illustrated by Nancy were based on photographs we took with some of our friends as models.

Below is a photo of the unbound book proofs.

We didn’t get to see the book bound and trimmed until it was done, so there was no way to check that printing on the page edges created the effect we wanted. I was thrilled when the final book arrived: everything worked out!

We got the title to read on the book block – one of the many details that made designing this book so fun. Other highlights were getting to commission a pattern illustrator to render rotating snakes and Satan’s head, and taking pictures of our friends (I mean models) doing Primaling, Florentine Self-Flagellation, and Oral Chakra Stimulation poses.

But the best high never made it into the book: when a book you design comes from the printer exactly the way you hoped it would. I can’t wait to get back to touching the spot gloss on the smooth, matte, bendy, paperback cover… after I stop hallucinating from my session of Holotropic Breathing.

Suzanne LaGasa
Designer

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