A 52-week journal of Jamaican sayings and what they mean, by K.L. Craigie, my mother.

Words of Wisdom

RoleEditing, design, and the doctor bird illustration
Timeline2026
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The book

Words of Wisdom: Jamaican Sayings, Their Meanings, and the Lessons of a Lifetime, by K.L. Craigie — my mother. Fifty-five sayings she grew up hearing in Jamaica, spoken by the grandfather who raised her, by aunts, uncles, and neighbors: fifty-two for the weeks of a year, plus three bonus ones. Each is set down with its plain-English meaning, the patois as she says it where there is one, and a facing page to reflect and write on. Part proverb collection, part guided journal, part family heirloom. It comes in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle.

What I did

Editing, design, and the doctor bird illustration. The real problem was structural: fifty-five entries, each needing a quoted saying, a meaning, and room to write, had to feel consistent across the whole book without ever feeling like a template stamped fifty-five times. Editing meant shaping her voice into that same repeatable structure without flattening it.

The Week 1 spread: the saying, the patois and what it means on the left, a question and a lined page on the right.
Week 1 as printed. Every week follows this shape: the saying, the patois as she says it, what it means, and a question on the facing page with room to answer it.
The introduction on the left, and on the right how to use the journal and a short list of patois words.
The front of the book: her introduction, how to use the journal, and a short glossary of the patois words that come up.

The doctor bird

I drew the doctor bird by hand first: poses, an eye, a circle for where it would sit, a few variations, and some ideas that went nowhere. Then I redrew and refined the one I kept in Figma and exported it as a vector.

Left, a notebook page of pen sketches: hummingbirds perched and in flight, an eye, a circle and a small boxy variation. Right, a close pencil sketch of one bird with its wing raised and its long tail streaming down.
The first pass, by hand: a notebook page of poses, variations, and scratch ideas, and the pose I kept.
The finished doctor bird mark: a cream disc with a hummingbird cut out of it, wing raised and a long tail streaming down, on the deep green of the cover.
Redrawn and refined in Figma, then exported as a vector. The bird is cut out of the disc, so on the cover it takes the green behind it.

The cover

I explored four front-cover directions in Claude Design and adjusted them there. The green and gold one went forward, with the doctor bird in the circle.

Four book-cover designs side by side: a cream cover with a woven plaid band, a cream keepsake cover with a botanical placeholder, a deep green and gold cover with a striped border and a placeholder circle, and a black cover in tall condensed type.
Four front-cover directions, explored with Claude Design and adjusted by me. The placeholder author name and art are part of the exploration.

Outcome

Published and available now in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle: fifty-two weekly sayings plus three bonus ones, each with its meaning and a page to write on.

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Got a hard problem? I’d like to hear about it.