The concept for Subtext was to create a seemingly straightforward critical reader, but engage with ideas explored within its chapters. A proposed alternative title and excessive notes contextualise and reframe critical or reflective essays, whilst design responses interspersed throughout draw attention to the book’s construction, and allude to the availability, circulation and use of books. These many and varied (gently) subversive interventions within Subtext’s designed spaces explore what it means to read and to design a book, drawing on familiar and innately understood conventions, parts of the book, and paratextual elements that structure and frame our encounter with the book.