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 […]
Creativity—You Are Absolutely Unique
I’m getting ready to publish a new book on creativity called Meeting the Muse: 28 Ways to Unlock the Pleasures & Avoid the Pitfalls of Your Creative Life. This book is not about book publishing, but more about the motives that move us to be creative, as all writers and authors are. Over my life […]
Book Construction Blueprint, Creativity, WriteWell Writer’s Journals–An Update
An update on projects including the WriteWell Writer’s Journal, Book Construction Blueprint, and Creativity
Self-Publishing Case Study: Serious Nonfiction
Self-Publishing Case Study: Unmaking War, Remaking Men by Kathleen Barry is the first self-published book from an author with traditionally published titles.
Self-Publishing Case Study: Personal Memoir
Self-Publishing Case Study: Personal Memoir The Andrew Street Mob by Brian Marais, a great example of personal self-publishing. Designed for the purposes of the author, it presents a useful model.
Project Focus: Exotic Life by Lisa Alpine
Travel writing, never out of fashion, seems to be pretty popular at the moment. And when you get great travel writing imbued with personality, you’ve got something special. That’s why I was really pleased to be called on by Lisa Alpine to design the interior of her new book, Exotic Life: Laughing Rivers, Dancing Drums […]
Project Focus: Cover Design with Supplied Artwork for The “And” Principle
This is the second article about dealing with a cover design project with artwork supplied by the client. In the first, I looked at the book cover design process for Chris Finlan’s Not A Fire Exit. This time I’m going to look at the designs prepared for Bill Goldberg’s The “And” Principle. Here is the […]
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 […]
Project Focus: 2-Color Cover Design for Trade Publishers
For offset printing, 2-color covers can be much more economical than 4-color covers, particularly for short-run books. I discussed two 2-color covers for self-published books in a previous article and explained why these covers are often preferred by publishers. Here I look at two covers done for trade publishers. This first cover was designed for […]
Project Focus: 2-color Cover Design for Self-Publishers
Before the advent of digital printing and print-on-demand production, publishers had no choice but to print on offset presses, and most books today continue to be printed by offset. Book presses are large, noisy, oily pieces of heavy machinery. There are separate parts of the press for each color that will be printed, with separate […]