Micheal V. Smith is a poet and also a filmmaker and performer, so he understands the editing process involved in creating graphics. When I asked him for handlettering to use for all the titles, he responded with exactly what I needed: multiple versions of each word, so I could select the ones that worked best.

Soundtrack

From award-winning writer Michael V. Smith comes a poetic memoir about growing up gay in the shadow of AIDS. Embodying an elusive part of queer history, these song- and album-inspired poems capture the last three decades of the millennium and reveal how music has an uncanny ability to remind us not just where we were at a given moment in time but who we were.

This cover was the author’s idea — a mixtape. Thinking about Product Red , a company that seeks to raise awareness and eliminate AIDS in eight African countries, I found a red cassette tape via stock and added a rainbow label. I also coloured the tape red and used a mass of tangled red cassette tape for the frontispiece to symbolize the confusion of the time. The entire book design is inspired by cassette tape labels, using a Helvetica-similar typeface from in the 80s, Neue Haas, which was digitalized in 2010. All poem titles, which are also titles of contemporaneous songs, were hand-lettered by the author.

Michael was very happy: “This book is turning sooooo gorgeous. I love the new cover. Yes, picking up on Gareth’s [red] ribbon idea. It’s so amazing I have tears in my eyes. It’s really moving.”

Publisher: Bookhug Press, Toronto, 2025
Author: Michael V. Smith