A staid, conservative design inside and out was the right choice for the client, an academic from a family of academics. The bulk of the book consisted of letters between a husband and wife. The challenge was to differentiate the two letter writers by using a different font for each. A common approach is to use roman for one and italic for the other. But the standard italic font in a typeface is often the weaker design, and it would have been unfortunate to make one spouse appear weaker than the other just by making that default font choice. The solution was to choose a much stronger italic from a different but compatible typeface family.
The cover is a simulacrum of a foil-stamped, leather-bound academic book.