Publishing has changed in so many ways during my time as a book designer, but one thing remains the same: the basics of good book design and layout.
Book Design
Book Anatomy: Revisiting Your Book’s Back Matter
I’ve recently been writing a series on Book Anatomy for the BookWorks site, and the most recent article just went live last week. In taking the opportunity to revise my own work of about 10 years ago on the Parts of a Book I found a number of places where the list could be updated […]
Grammar, a Marketing Idea, Helvetica Now, and Pitching Junk
A bit of miscellany today: Get the “Out” Out When did the word “out” invade the rest of our verbs? It’s everywhere, and deserves to be eliminated. Some examples: Tweet out Report out When did this sneak in? “Out” in these contexts adds nothing, since the idea of “sending it out” is inherent in both […]
Samples of 2-Column Book Layout
Here’s a question from reader Pat B.: Hi Joel, Are there any rules of thumb for deciding whether text on a wide-format page should be printed in one or two columns? And if you go with two, are there guidelines for determining the optimal space between the columns? Thanks, Pat I’m not sure if there […]
5 Questions on the Book Production and Marketing Matrix
It can be a challenge to explain to new authors that they need to consider their marketing plans before making arrangements for book design and production. They want to know why they can’t just publish the book they want to publish and worry about the rest of it later? After all, many new authors have […]
110 Type Ornaments to Use in Your Book (Plus a Free Download)
Using type ornaments in your book design can add a pleasing pictorial element to your typographic pages. Depending on the tone you’re trying to establish with your design, there’s likely to be a choice of ornaments that will complement the other choices you’ve made when selecting fonts and the overall design direction for the book. […]
Project Focus: Long and Complex Books Demand Attention to Detail
Two recent projects have reminded me of just how much attention book designers have to pay to details. With a complex book, every detail counts. What makes a book “complex”? It could be very long manuscripts, books with footnotes, endnotes, annotations, massive amounts of front matter and back matter, separate text streams, lots of tabular […]
“I Hate That!” Book Design Pet Peeves
This is a story about bad book design decisions, and how to avoid them. Jill and I visited Copperfield’s Books in Sebastapol this afternoon. Copperfield’s is a small chain of independent bookstores here in California, and a favorite place to browse their curated selection. As an aside, when you consider all the books that are […]
New! The Book Blueprint: Expert Advice for Creating Industry-Standard Print Books
Announcing the publication of The Book Blueprint, Expert Advice for Creating Industry-Standard Print Books
Learn About the Color of Type Pages in Book Design
Examples of book pages typeset in various fonts to demonstrate the variations in the overall color of your book page.