The post continues the series begun in an earlier post, and is Part of the Book Construction Blueprint, which provides reliable guidance to anyone taking on the construction of a book that must conform to generally accepted practice. Having looked at the Parts of the Book, we have already imposed a sequence or order on […]
Interior Design
Project Focus: Interior Design for Business Mensch by Noah Alper
Books come in all different shapes and sizes and with many different purposes. Book design takes these diverse uses into account. Recently we designed Noah Alper’s Business Mensch, which combines memoir with business advice drawn from the author’s career as an entrepreneur. Along the way Noah tells numerous fascinating stories about the ups and downs […]
Self-Publishing Basics: An Unabridged List of the Parts of a Book
The history of book printing goes back to the first Bibles pulled sheet by sheet off Johannes Gutenberg’s presses in Mainz, Germany in the late fifteenth century. The first books were attempts to replicate the handwritten books of the time, which varied widely. Over the centuries publishers have gradually established conventions about the way books […]
Does Book Design Really Matter?
Did you ever see the movie “Deception” that came out in 2008? No? It starred Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams. The cast alone should have made it a hit, but it bombed, critics hated it and audiences ignored it in spectacular numbers. Despite Hollywood’s addiction to stars and hype over content, the dirty […]
Self-Publishing Basics: 5 Layout Mistakes that Make You Look Unprofessional
Years ago my wife and I went to a wedding at a very prestigious “club” here in San Francisco. My wife looked gorgeous as always, and I wore a very nice light gray English wool suit that seemed suitably low-key. When we walked in the door I realized that I “hadn’t received the memo” because […]
Project Focus: Interior Design for The Age of Participation
One of the first books I produced for Berrett-Koehler Publishers in San Francisco was The Age of Participation by Patricia McLagan and Christo Nel. The overarching framework of the story of the movement of politics toward participative governance required a theme to hold the parts together yet show their relationship to the whole. These part-opening […]
5 Favorite Fonts for Interior Book Design
There’s no bigger decision you make in designing a book than picking the body typeface. A book by its nature is a long reading experience, and as book publishers we want our books to be as easy to read as possible while communicating the author’s intent.