I bet, like me, you’ve been using Microsoft Word for years. One of the most common complaints you hear from professional book designers, cover designers, typographers, and some self-publishers is that you can’t create a “real” book in a word...
When you start to design your book, one of the first things you might realize is that the chapter opening pages have the greatest potential for design elements, including drop caps and ornamentation. The rest of the book has to do the duty of conveying the meaning in...
Let me tell you a story. One day long ago a couple of engineers sat around putting together the first piece of software that would help people lay out documents and do the work of graphic designers, right from their own desktop computer. Do you think these engineers...
Everybody’s formatting, but nobody’s styling. And that’s my problem. You see, I get files from authors all the time. I get the files while the book’s being editing, and I use those to make estimates and do design samples. After editing is...
A few years ago we took a family trip to Australia. It was a great adventure but what impressed me at the time was how long it took to get ready for the trip. Passports, itineraries, housing arrangements, plans to take care of our house, dogs and cat while we were...
