After my work on his personal identity, Joshua David Watson invited me to collaborate on a new project for Alex Potter: a book of diary entires and photographs to chronicle her time as a medic during the battle for the liberation of Mosul.
Alex’s work is captivating. After looking through a sample of her photographs and writing, I knew I wanted to be involved.
Copy Editing
Alex sent hundreds of photos and journal entries for us to consider. While Joshua sorted and labelled the photos, I began editing and curating the journal entries.
In order to get the entries down to a size that would fit in the book without overwhelming it, yet would still feel complete and satisfying, I started to look in the entries themselves for some organizing curatorial principles. How would I pick one entry over another, all else being equal?
I became interested in the way Alex’s experience of Mosul had changed her. She arrived as an idealist, but her ideals were tested, eroded, and finally all but destroyed by her experiences of wartime cruelty. By the time her mission to Mosul ended, she was listless. Finally, for the next months back in the US, she slowly taught herself to synthesize her ideals with the things she had experienced, and she became a wiser, stronger woman.
I also latched onto three narrative threads that ran through that psychological arc. First, I saw the romance that began early in her mission, that strengthened through their shared trauma, and that became a point of solid ground for her when she came home. Second, I saw the isolating toll of sexist microaggressions, the sometimes futile labor of coping with them or resisting them, and the power of her resolution to use them to build formidable self-reliance instead of mere bitterness. Third, I saw the overwhelming power of memory and reflection, both to wound her and to heal her.
By focusing on these three threads — romance, sexism, and the act of memory – as they interacted with a psychological arc from idealism to despair to synthesis, in the context of her experience of war, I could make decisions about which journal entries we should include in the book and which to cut.
Now I had a succinct set of raw journal entries. After one final edit for grammar, style, and clarity, the text was ready.
Book Concept
When we compared my work in the text to what Joshua had discovered while going through the photographs, we saw how well they could work together to offer a visceral, visual experience. We decided to divide the book into three sections: 1) pre-Mosul journal entries with clear, context-setting images, 2) journal entries written during the mission to Mosul with disturbing images, and 3) post-Mosul entries, juxtaposing beautiful and disturbing images.
Since some of her most powerful and unsettling photographs were shot at night, we saw that we could print the second section on black, while the first and third sections remained on white.
Next, Joshua and I became interested in a visual motif in Alex’s photographs: doors and portals. She had photo after photo of exits and entryways with a huge emotional and aesthetic range. We decided to use portals to set off the three sections of the book, and to open and close the work.
Finally, Alex suggested that the book should feel like a personal journal, like something you could grab out of a bag, not like a coffee table book. We settled on a small overall size with a softbound cover and (since the overwhelming majority of her photographs were in landscape orientation) bound on the short side.
With these decisions in place, we had a complete book concept.
Title
It was time to give the book a title. We considered descriptive titles like A Mosul Self-Portrait and Alex Potter: The Mosul Year, but ultimately felt that a more evocative title would suit the project better. I began combing through the journal entries for phrases that had taut energy, and that could serve as metaphors for the whole project. After considering options like how I couldn’t put him back together again, I found the jaw still speaking. It gives an innocent first impression, but becomes sinister on reflection. It contains both a violent, sudden death, and (considered in a completely different way) an assertion of resilience.
Curation and Sequencing
By far the most complicated part of the process, curating and sequencing photographs with the edited journal entries took months of revisions and conversations.
We had a few things in mind. First, we wanted to make sure that the photos were complementary to the journal entries without functioning as mere illustration. They should each stand on their own, as a distinct, valuable contribution to the experience of the book. Second, we wanted the images to flow from one to another in a way that matched the emotional tone of the journal articles, whatever that was. If Alex’s writing suggested jarring emotions, for example, we wanted the transition from one photograph to the next to be jarring too. Third, we wanted to give pride of place to the set of photographs that Alex was most proud of.
I think the end result provides a music-like flow of emotion that deepens and illuminates the reader’s understanding of Alex’s year on mission.
Cover Design
I’m not sure why, but this was one of the most difficult parts of the whole process for me. Draft after draft just didn’t feel right. But this combination of an image of a girl having shrapnel removed from her jaw and the tight, stacked typography on a simple black field won the day.
Typography
The title on the cover was set in Landa, a simple, semi-angular serif typeface. I like its chiseled and relaxed-but-assertive feel. After experimenting with a number of options, I decided the most unobtrusive, effective solution was to continue using Landa exclusively throughout the book.
I made a detailed grid to decide font sizes and line spacing, adopted conventions like using all caps for initial phrases and metainformation, and began to load the journal entries into it.
Layouts
Finally, I designed a flexible grid system to accommodate full-page photos, small photos, and text in one, two, or three columns. It allows for an orderly, lilting rhythm as you turn each page. Once the layouts were done and all the selected photos and journal entries were loaded in, I delivered the digital files to Joshua so he could work with a printer to bring the book into the world with the perfect materials.
Summary
Alex, Joshua, and I made a book that honors her service and gives its readers a glimpse into her experiences. It engages important questions like, –What is the cost of saving a life? –When faced with violence and hate, should one respond in kind? –How can one process the physical and moral casualties of war? –And is it really possible to find love in a time of war? I’m proud of our work and grateful for the chance to be involved.
Preview and purchase the book on Alex’s website.