Joe Walsh

I came to Raphaël for a reimagining of The Great Gatsby with many art and typographic elements that needed to be woven into the text. I had a very specific, maximalist design vision, but was new to typesetting and unaware of many of the principles of good book design. Raphaël was able to flawlessly balance beautiful design with the practical necessities of the reader, and walked me through every step of the process with patience, clarity, and trust.

Whether it was learning about layout design, comparing reference texts, or revising complex elements with numerous fonts and images, Raphaël’s immense experience, instructional resources, and easy markup process taught me how to better communicate my ideas and see things from the reader’s perspective. He is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom on both the technical and literary sides, and an all-around fantastic collaborator.