Meet Derek Thornton

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Derek Thornton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Derek, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My parents were a huge inspiration for me growing up. I was lucky to grow up around two parents that worked hard and cared about how they represented themselves in the world, but even more so how they taught me and my younger brother to do the same. We were expected to do chores throughout the week, clean up after ourselves, and do Saturday chores before hanging out with friends on the weekend. If we wanted something we waited and saved our own money. My mother worked full time at the University of Michigan hospital, and my dad worked most of his life as an architect, bring home blue prints and drawings on the weekends. I remember him watching football on Sundays with blue prints spread across the coffee table. I learned that I could do something I liked for a living, and that if I worked hard at something I was good at it would fulfill me.

In my own career as a book cover designer I’ve learned from that determination and time spent are more important than natural talent. I don’t have a college degree, but I’m tenacious and a hard worker…and I care about my work! I’m not saying that college isn’t important, but I am saying that working hard and caring about what you do is more important.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a graphic designer, and most of my professional career has been spent as a book cover designer. I love designing and creating things you can hold and feel. There’s nothing cooler than designing a book jacket, finding it in the store, and feeling the textures, seeing custom ink colors, and smelling that fresh book smell. A huge part of our society is about moving fast…social media, fast food, same day shipping…but books are still slow. Books still allow us to self reflect and breathe. It’s very humbling to get to be apart of an industry that helps people share and explore new ideas, but in a way that also helps them slow down.

The things I love to focus on the most while designing are breaking outside the box and doing something unique and new, and creating things by hand. I love pushing the limits and boundaries, and I love adding a personal touch to my work. It’s exciting to add my name to the crediting on a jacket flap…not out of arrogance, but out of pride and ownership.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The first one would be getting involved with the print industry early and figuring out what I liked. I pursued art and was apart of a print shop class in high school. I then considered running print presses for a living, going to Ferris State University to become a pressman, and then worked at multiple presses as summer jobs and after high school. In the end all that experience really helped me decide that I wanted to work int he print industry, but that I wanted to design more than I wanted to be in the world of production.

Second, I worked my ass off to get where I was. I don’t say that to be arrogant, but it’s true. I worked multiple jobs for years honing my craft and practicing. In 2009 I moved across the country from Michigan (where I grew up) to Oregon. I got a job making coffee full time at Starbucks, I got a second job working late shifts, and then I freelance designed at night. I worked like this 4-6 days a week for about 5-6 years before I got a full time design job at Faceout Studio. That season was VERY difficult, but it really shaped and molded me. It also set me up to be extremely thankful when I finally landed a job as a full time designer in the industry I was pursuing.

Third and finally, I worked in house and learned more there the first few months than I ever learned in college classes (I did take design college classes…I just never graduated) or freelancing. I’m very much a hands on learner, and having Charles Brock, Time Green, and Jeff Miller teaching me in real time, on real projects really accelerated my skills as a designer.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I would love to collaborate with others. I’m always looking to design covers for new publishers, so if you haven’t worked with me before I would love you to check out my portfolio and give me a shot on a project.

I also work as a full time associate art director at W. W. Norton, and I’m always looking to connect with designers and hire them for projects. I would love to work with some new, inspired designers that want to put their back into a project with me at Norton.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://notchdesign.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/notch_design
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/derek-thornton-ad

Image Credits

These covers were designed for W. W. Norton, Pegasus Books, and HarperCollins. In the Footsteps of Dracula was designed and illustrated while I was at Faceout Studio.