|
bindings | bleeds
| book components | colour
| covers | font issues
| interior book design | images
and resolution | measurements
multiple spaces | page
count | paper | paragraph
indents | print-on-demand | punctuation
| software | spelling
| text alignment
|
Build it yourself
If you have decided that you simply must do the design
yourself then you need some of the books
on the recommended list. The learning curve can be steep
but it's worth it for those so inclined.
Ready for ISBN-13?
The book industry has begun using 13 digits to identify
books in global trade.
The Book Industry
Study Group's Web site provides all the information
you will need about ISBN-13.
|
|
More than you wanted
to know
about book design
was driving my daughter and her friend one day
when they announced they were going to play the
'punch buggy' game. They were talking about looking
for Volkswagen Beetles the old variety.
The first to see one got to give the other a punch
on the arm. I thought this should be good fun.
It would keep them quiet and I could enjoy the
drive since there can't be that many Beetles still
on the road.
It is outrageous just how many of those things
are still moving! It seemed that not a block went
by that they weren't screaming and punching one
another. They had a wonderful time, probably got
bruised, and drove me nuts. I couldn't remember
seeing a Beetle in years, yet there they were
everywhere. Just like Volkswagen Beetles you probably
don't remember noticing the design of any books
lately but once you finish this little treatise
you should see design (or lack of) in every book
you pick up.
The title says this is more than you ever wanted
to know about book design, but don't think for
a moment this is all there is. Should you have
a masochistic bent, take a look at the books listed
in the recommended
books page. For new authors reading this,
take it as an example of why you need your work
edited. I'm a designer not a writer so please
bear with me.
Should you have a question not answered here please
contact me and I will
do my best to answer it for you.
Bindings
Books are divided into two very general categories hard
cover and soft cover. Hard covers usually use a Smyth sewn binding
and soft covers are typically perfect bound. There are two commonly
used hard cover methods, casewrap and dust jacket. Novels usually
use a dust jacket for an attractive colourful imprint on the bookstore
shelf and the fabric covered cover underneath will usually use
gilt lettering on the spine. Casewrap covers are full colour,
glossy and don't usually come with jackets. This cover type is
commonly used on text or coffee table books but lately is becoming
more common on novels.
Here are the standard binding options (and there are additional
variations).
Side stitched The pages are trimmed on all sides and held
together staples on the left side. This is a common binding for
low circulation reports. It is inexpensive and often used by law
firms and medium to large companies. This type of binding cannot
be opened flat and doesn't work on books thicker than 1/2 inch.
Sometimes the book will be drilled on the left side and held together
with twine or other decorative stitching. This is the original
method and is still used today for very small run decorative or
art books.
Saddle stitched For very small books (less than 64 pages)
this is the binding of choice. For books of this size it is difficult
to glue the pages together. The book is printed in a two-up format
(4 pages on one sheet of paper 2 front and 2 back) and
stitched or more commonly stapled in the centre.
Perfect bound The most common type of binding used today.
The pages are trimmed on all sides and then glued onto the cover,
either hard or soft. This is an economical binding and all manner
of books today use it, even some high quality coffee table books.
Notch bound This is essentially a modified perfect binding.
The paper is trimmed on only three sides. On the untrimmed inside
margin several notches are cut. Sometimes twine is glued into
the notches. When the cover is glued onto the pages it forms a
very good bond eliminating the problem of the pages starting to
fall out as can happen with regular perfect bindings.
Spiral Bound If your book needs to lie flat like a recipe
book, or be folded back to back to be useful then this is the
binding for you. The pages are cut on all four sides with holes
punched in the margin so a metal or plastic spiral holds the pages
together. With this binding the thickness of the book is limited.
Comb bound This is very similar to spiral binding except
the book can not be folded back to back but can lie flat. Some
of you will recognise this as a Cerlox binding. The advantage
of the comb bound book is a cleaner look where the title can be
printed on the spine and pages can be added at a later date (not
as easy as it sounds as anyone who has tried to do this without
the proper equipment can attest). This binding will also limit
the thickness of the book.
Smyth sewn (rhymes with blithe) This is the traditional
binding. The book is divided into several smaller booklets which
are saddle stitched together (always with thread not staples)
and then glued to the cover. This method is generally reserved
for hard cover books and is available in several grades. But don't
confuse this type of binding with a hand sewn binding.
Hand sewn You may be able to find someone in your area
that hand binds books. Smyth sewn books are done by machine and
the process is based on the system used to hand bind a book but
there are distinct differences. The main difference is, of course,
that hand binding is done by hand. The pages are folded in signatures
the same as Smyth sewn but are hand sewn to heavy cords or ribbons.
The cords and ribbons are used to attach the cover boards and
using cords result in the ridges that you see on the book spine.
Leather is the material of choice for the cover but there are
many variations. The resulting book is costly but lovely and a
pleasure to own, particularly if you are the author. You might
want to have a couple of copies of your book hand bound so have
your printer reserve several pre-bound book copies that you can
use for special binding.
I have listed the bindings in their order of cost. The Smyth
sewn binding will be on the order of five times more costly than
the least expensive bindings (a hand binding can be five times
more costly again). It should all come down to use and price.
The price that you will be marketing your book will probably limit
you to two or three of the binding choices. The nature of your
work, how long the information will be useful and who will buy
it, should give you the final clue.
back to top
Print-on-demand
This method of printing offers a number of advantages to the
self-publish author. It is more costly per book than traditional
printing but you need only print a very small number. For example
offset printing 2000 books may give you a cost per book half that
of print-on-demand. This sounds great but will you sell all the
books? If three quarters of them end up in your garage collecting
dust (sorry to be so negative) then the economy offered by offset
printing isn't worth it. Print-on-demand allows you to print 500
or 200 or 100 books and hopefully sell them all. You've made less
money per book but you don't have any in your garage. Your car
will thank you.
As a general rule if you want to print less than 20 books, any
of the better POD publishers should be fine. As with any purchase
try to get the best value and do some research, these companies
are not all the same and some have a decidedly unsavoury reputation.
If you want to print in larger quantities and perhaps make a little
money POD is still the way to go but with a printer rather than
a publisher. It's beyond my purview to make a recommendation here
but I do list a couple of alternatives on my
links page. If you are considering printing 500 copies or
more then you should definitely get some quotes from offset printers,
you might be surprised at how competitive they are.
Although
not really new technology POD is relatively new
to the print industry. POD uses photocopy or laser
printing then some form of perfect binding. Some
companies also offer a hard cover variant of a
perfect binding. If analogue photocopy is used
it creates a second generation print that is poor
at best. Laser printing is much better but still
not up to the quality of offset printing. Photocopy
and laser printing are essentially the same technology,
both using heat-set toner. Text from a high quality
laser printer looks quite good but greyscale photographs
are only slightly better than newspaper quality.
The improved quality is mainly due to the colour
of the paper (laser printing paper being much
whiter than newsprint) rather than the actual
print quality. If your printer is using a colour
printer for your book photos the quality can be
startlingly good but still not quite the same
as high quality offset, the cost however will
skyrocket. The reasons why laser printing isn't
as good as offset are a little complex. A short
explanation can be seen below.
Another problem with print-on-demand is getting archival paper.
It seems to be difficult to find archival paper suitable for photocopying
or laser printing. Perhaps largely due to cost, very few print-on-demand
printers offer archival paper. As a result your book will have
a limited life span (see paper below). Ironically
the toner itself is very stable and as long as it properly adheres
to the paper it's life span may be as long or longer than archival
ink. There have been some reports that the binding glue used for
print-on-demand is more brittle and pages falling out of the book
are more common. I haven't noticed this to be the case but it
stands to reason that if overall quality is poor it is likely
that the glue quality could suffer. With some of the equipment
I've seen it is difficult to set the amount of glue applied to
the spine so the printer may err on the side of caution and the
result is too little glue.
In the future as the technology improves print-on-demand may rival
offset printing but at the moment, from a quality standpoint,
offset is the method of choice. You will have to decide what is
more important, quality and longevity or small print run economics.
If you want your book to be hardcover and last for generations
then you want offset on archival paper with Smyth sewn bindings.
If your book is timely but not long lived (a computer manual for
instance) print-on-demand may be the perfect choice.
Back to top
Paper
The paper that you use has a big impact on the
price of the book. In fact the single greatest
cost in printing a book is the paper. There are
a great many types of paper. Some are acid free
archival quality. Some are made in part
of recycled paper. Some reproduce photographs
better than others due to the coatings applied.
Here is where you might save a little money. If
you are publishing a novel or other book with
few illustrations consider an uncoated archival
paper. It might also be a little heavier which
will add thickness to your book and reduce show-through.
(If the paper is not opaque enough the text on
the other side can show through.) Unless you've
written a modern War and Peace, a little extra
thickness can be a good thing.
Your paper decision will depend to a great extent
on the printer and his presses since some presses
work best with specific types of papers. Graphic
designers will talk endlessly about lovely paper
that they have seen and used. As a group we like
to think of ourselves as paper experts, but the
truth is, very few of us are. For novels I like
paper that has an interesting texture. Paper for
colour printing needs to be smoother to take the
ink properly. I usually ask the printer for several
samples that meet the project requirements and
that she is familiar with. This way I'm not married
to any particular paper and the printer will know
what to expect from the paper on her press. Make
your concerns known to the printer when she does
the quote and listen to her recommendations.
Now it will make life much simpler to go with
whatever the printer recommends but it's also
nice to know what your printer is talking about.
So lets take a quick tour of common terms in the
paper industry.
Paper comes in seemingly unending, confusing variety.
Not only is the paper coated, uncoated, sized
on one or both sides it is matt, cover,
offset, text or newsprint and comes in a cacophony
of weights and measures. Let's try to make things
a little simpler.
Paper in North America is usually divided into
four broad types, newsprint, offset, matt and
gloss. Newsprint is the paper used in newspapers
cheap, thin and short-lived. It does come
in a variety of grades depending on how white
it is and how heavy (thick). Offset is an average
quality paper commonly used for printing of all
sorts. Matt is a higher quality paper, usually
smoother so it will take the ink more consistently.
Gloss is exactly what it says. The very smooth
surface takes ink very accurately and produces
more vibrant colours. Each type is subdivided
into grades normally referred to as book, coated
and cover, depending on quality and thickness.
There is quite a bit of overlap in these terms
and you could easily find an offset-gloss that
is better for your project than a matt coated.
The industry isn't consistent in using the terms
and often dispense with the terms entirely in
order to market the paper with a more or less
descriptive brand name. You won't find all grades
in each type, for example there is no point in
a cover stock for newsprint.
OK so you should now be thoroughly confused, but
at least you have heard some of the terms used
in the industry even if they don't have the meaning
you might expect. Here are some examples of paper
that might be used for various projects.
Letterhead: 50 lb offset (approximately the same
as 20 LB bond, commonly referred to as book weight)
Flyer printed on one side in 4 colour: 45 LB gloss
Flyer printed on both sides in 4 colour: 60 LB
gloss
Book jacket printed one side in 4 colour: 60 -
70 LB gloss
These
examples also show weight in pounds, unfortunately
in North America each type of paper is weighed
differently. For example, a manufacturer might
have an 80 LB text and an 80 LB cover stock. The
cover stock is much thicker than the text because
the standard quantity that is being weighed is
different. Some manufacturers now show European
measurements in addition to North American, so
the 80 LB text has a weight of 118 grams per square
meter and the 80 LB cover weighs 216 g/m2. It's
obvious from the European weights that the cover
stock must be almost double the thickness of the
text stock.
Don't get stuck on a particular make of paper.
A printer might quote a particular make of paper
for a job because she knows it will work and has
the stock or knows it's available. It's quite
possible that another printer would have to special
order the same paper and be unable to get it in
a reasonable time. Printers are the paper experts
and unless you have something very special in
mind, go with your printers recommendation.
I've said earlier that gloss paper takes ink more
accurately and gives more vibrant colours, but
don't discount using a non-glossy paper for your
book cover. I've seen some wonderful colour work
done on uncoated and matt paper and it might give
you the perfect feel for your book.
I strongly recommend that you use archival acid
free paper. There is a greater variety of this
type of paper available today than at any time
in the last 50 years. Books made in the late 19th
century and onward are generally poor in paper
quality. This is one area where technology has
failed us. While supplying enormous quantities
of inexpensive paper to feed the information age,
we limited the information's life span to a few
years. Books made two and three hundred years
ago can be in wonderful shape where books made
just 50 to 80 years ago are almost universally
yellowing and growing brittle with age. Many books
printed from 1850 1900 are beyond repair.
Back to top
Software
Many people have asked and argued with me about what software
to use for book design. I'll give my recommendations here but
instructions on how to use the applications is way beyond this
article. There is no shortage of manuals for these applications,
however if you have a specific problem e-mail me and I will give
you my thoughts.
I use InDesign
for page layout, Photoshop
for pictures and Illustrator
for vector art. Although I'm no longer a fan of
Quark, it will do the page layout job OK. Quark
definitely does not handle long documents as well
as InDesign. For long text heavy documents it's
hard to beat FrameMaker
particularly if you're working with XML text mark-up.
This is also an Adobe product and they seem to
be continuing to support it as separate from InDesign.
If you're building a thousand page computer manual
FrameMaker might be the best tool. However if
your project is a full colour text book with lots
of graphics then InDesign is the way to go.
In the past I've used Corel extensively for vector art. It's a
good application and always worked fine for me. I switched to
Illustrator because of its integration with the other Adobe applications.
Photoshop is simply the top of the heap of photo applications
by a wide margin.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of applications and I can
hear TeX
users fuming. TeX will produce excellent text and excels at mathematical
equations. It's also true that InDesign uses the same or similar
text formatting kernel. TeX however does not have a good graphic
user model so you don't see the actual result until the page is
printed. I haven't used it extensively but I've seen it used to
good effect. It's not for me but the final result can be very
nice with an operator who knows what he/she is doing. The big
thing going for this software is that it is free!
Don't use Microsoft Word to layout your book! This includes any
other word processor that you happen to be using. I know there
is lots of information about how to use these applications for
books but the results just don't measure up. I'm writing this
in Word because it is the best tool I have for putting my ideas
into words. But Word's ability to handle text for print just doesn't
measure up to any of the page layout applications and it shows
in the final product. Given two pages, one laid out in Word and
the other in InDesign, the type structure will be different. Text
lines will not be as even and word spacing will not compare. If
you want your book to look professional you need to use professional
tools.
|
 |

Illustration 1

Illustration 2

Illustration 3
|
back to top
Interior book design
The size of your book will depend on what type of book it is
and what you want to say. Most printers consider 5.5" x 8.5",
6" x 9", 7" x 10" and 8.5" x 11" to be standard book sizes and
there may be some price benefit to choosing a standard size. Many
gardening books are square or landscape format (sometimes called
oblong).
Illustration
1 at left shows a method of determining the text areas on a book
spread. Pages are designed as the book is viewed, with both verso
and recto (left and right) pages as a set or spread. The two red
rectangles are the live text area. The blue circle graphically
shows how the text height is the same as the page width. Jan Tschichold
gives a much lengthier description in The
Form of the Book and ascribes the technique to Raúl
Rosarivo (Gutenberg's time) and J. A. van de Graaf. Early hand
scribed books may have been done more by eye, eventually evolving
into the geometric technique shown here. Illustration 2 shows
a different way of determining the same text area. The page is
divided into a nine space grid, 81 spaces in total. The resulting
ratio between the margins is 1 : 1-1/2 : 2 : 3 starting from the
inside margin. This ratio can be altered to suit any book. If
your book is 6" x 9" and the centre margin is 5/8"
then the top margin is 15/16", the outside margin is 1-1/4"
and the bottom margin is 1-7/8". Illustration 3 shows the
page divided into a twelve space grid with the resulting text
area. Notice that the margins still have the same ratio.
Using this method gives the same space between the text frames
as the outside margin. If the margins are left identical as you
see in many books the text has a rather unsightly gap between
pages that weakens the connection with the text on the opposite
page and sometimes looks like the printer made a cutting error
and took too much off the outside edge. If the top and bottom
margins are equal the text seems to be settling to the bottom
as if it were too heavy for the page. Not all books are designed
with these specifications. Some are poor designs and some are
good. I believe the good ones started with this format and the
designer made changes he or she felt would benefit the books message.
Once the page design is established and the text flowed into the
pages they must be checked carefully for problems like widows
and orphans. These are beginnings and ends of paragraphs left
at the top and bottom of a page and cause confusion for the reader.
Getting rid of them requires looking at each page and pulling
text back or moving it forward to balance the text. Many books
are set in word processing applications that don't handle this
kind of adjustment well. This is best handled with a page layout
application like Quark or InDesign
Chapter title pages can fall anywhere, or always on a new page,
or always on the right page. There is a lot of variation here
and anything goes so long as it is consistent and not distracting.
I like chapter titles to fall on a right (recto) page. Chapter
titles on left (verso) pages seem jarring and somehow out of place.
With page numbering there is also plenty of variation but some
locations don't work well. Page numbers close to the spine just
aren't very visible. I find that page numbers centred at the top
of the page are not where I expect to find them. On a recto page
upper right, bottom right, or bottom centred is fine. On a verso
page it's upper left, bottom left or bottom centred. I've seen
page numbers large and vertically centred in the outside margin
and it worked with that particular design.
Back to top
Components of a book
There are a number components found in any book. Some are relicts
of an earlier era and some are necessary. Some are in every book
and some are only found in specific types of books. A reference
or scholarly work will have different requirements than a novel.
The copyrights page, for example, is found in virtually every
book. But you may not find it in some specialty books sold on-line
or perhaps your family's history distributed only to family members.
An index is usually only found in reference works. Let's look
at the common components in the order in which they usually appear.
The endpaper is the first thing you see when you open a hardcover
book. This is part of the binding rather than the printed part
of the book. I include it in this list of components because sometimes
it has a photo or map that is important to the text. The endpaper
attaches to the signatures and to the inside of the cover helping
to hold both together. Using a coloured paper or specialty paper
can add a touch of elegance to your book. A plain coloured endpaper
works well and also leaves a good place for you to sign your books
during your world wide book tour (it always pays to think positive).
The half title or bastard title consists of the title only without
author or secondary title information. Originally books were sold
unbound so the owner could have them bound to match other books
in his or her library. The half title was the top page and made
it easy to locate the book amongst the stacks of other unbound
material. Being just the title and nothing else hence half title.
This page was commonly lost during the binding process and really
doesn't have a purpose today but you still see many books with
the half title diligently inserted. This is also a good place
for a signature which is perhaps the only good reason today for
the half title page.
Often the publisher inserts a page after the half title page listing
other books by the same author. This is sometimes on the back
of the half title but more often on its own.
Since the title page always falls on the right, the left page
is sometimes adorned with an illustration. This page is referred
to as the frontispiece. Originally that was the name for the illustration
but we now refer to the page itself rather than what is on it.
The frontispiece can be an illustration of some kind or the title
can cover the entire spread. I recommend this page be left blank
unless you have a particularly meaningful illustration that doesn't
overpower the title.
The title page includes the title, expanded title or secondary
title, author, publisher and the city where published. Originally
this was supposed to be the first page you saw after the end paper.
The copyright page includes the publisher and address, any disclaimers,
year of copyright, trademark information, where manufactured and
designed, library of congress information, and ISBN. This is really
a catchall page for anything that you don't have a place for but
should include. This is almost always a single page and usually
placed on the back of the title page. Commonly the information
is centred but contrary to some opinions there is no prescribed
way to format the information. Some designers insist on formatting
the Library of Congress information exactly as sent but it truly
doesn't matter.
The copyright itself is usually in the form:
©2006 John Doe. All rights reserved.
Copyright laws have changed in recent years and it is no longer
essential to put this on your book. Copyright is granted by default
regardless of the notice. However I see no reason not to include
the notice, if for no other reason than to avoid confusion. Many
publishers add another statement expressly forbidding photocopying
or using any part of the book in an electronic format. I believe
it is also still worth registering your copyright. In Canada through
the Canadian
Intellectual Properties Office and in the USA through the
United States
Copyright Office.
A number of things can go on the dedication page such as a quote,
dedication or thank-you's. This is entirely up to you, and it's
worth thinking carefully about.
The table of contents is usually only found in non-fiction works.
It can also be the most difficult page to design. Large spaces
between the listings and the pages numbers make it next to impossible
to tell which goes with what. Leaders in-between are often not
much better as your eye helplessly jumps from one line to the
next making it necessary to use your finger to follow them. At
the other extreme some contents pages are so jam-packed that finding
any one listing takes longer than thumbing thorough the text.
This is a page where communication is paramount and there is little
room for extraneous design that does not facilitate use.
If your book requires an index it can be done as notations in
the manuscript or on a book proof copy. Either way the index entries
are copied into the layout application which builds the index.
This way any last minute changes made to the text after the indexing
is complete will be reflected when the index is built or rebuilt.
The index is created by the layout program using codes inserted
in the text so page numbers are being included by the application
rather than done by hand. This is a much more effective method
than trying to do an index manually. The index may be the most
used part of your book so it needs to be at the very back so it
is immediately available. For indexing as well as editing, it
pays to have a professional do the work.
The authors note page is often placed at the back of the book
but sometimes in the front. It depends on how much importance
the author gives it. The same can be said for the acknowledgments
page.
Often the last page in the book talks about the author. This is
where you can give yourself a little credit and advertise your
Web site and other books you've written. If you feel a little
reticent you might have someone else write it for you.
Back to top
Spelling
Get it right! Heaven knows I'm a terrible speller so I own many
dictionaries (I'm told it doesn't help much). Most of the world's
dictionaries are also available online which I find enormously
convenient. Unfortunately your spell check won't catch improperly
used words, i.e., you for your, there for their, etc. A grammar
check will catch some of these but don't count on it. Every time
I look at this text I catch an error. Here again is where a good
editor can be invaluable.
Decide if you will use American or British spelling. There may
be such a thing as Canadian spelling but I choose British because
as Canadians we can't seem to make up our minds about it. Use
the spelling that suits your market. If you believe that your
book will sell well in England then don't use American spelling.
Regardless choose a single dictionary and use the first spelling
option offered if there is more than one.
Back to top
How many pages or castoff (shudder)
Your book can have as many pages as you like but there are some
constraints, not all of which are monetary. Books
are usually printed on medium sized presses on
sheets of paper large enough to hold 8 or 16 pages
on one side of the sheet. The act of arranging
the pages on this sheet, so that when it folds
the page numbers are in sequence, is called imposition
and the printed sheet itself, both before and
after folding, is called a signature. When the
sheet is folded it contains 16 or 32 pages. So
your book is being printed in chunks of pages.
When you look at the top or bottom of a Smyth
Sewn hard cover book right at the binding you
can usually see these signatures. If you divide
the final page count by the number of pages in
the signature and you come out with one extra
page, the printer would have to print an additional
signature and you'd have a number of extra blank
pages. This is where typesetting and castoff comes
in.
Having
a few blank pages in a book isn't necessarily
bad. It can leave room for notes, personal dedications
and autographs, however too many is wasteful and
give your book an unprofessional look. The number
of pages in your manuscript isn't a good indication
of how many pages your book will have. It needs
to be typeset with the correct font and design
before you know for sure and then some adjustments
can be made to increase or decrease the size by
a page or two.
Deciding the page count is often hotly contested.
This process is known as castoff and large publishers
often decide the page count before the book ever
gets to a designer. The result is based on manufacturing
costs that require the text to be shoehorned in
without regard to font, text size, line length
or leading requirements. Before computer typesetting
it was necessary to have an accurate character
count and then calculate the number of pages based
on page size and font. Now it is usually simpler
to reflow the text with different font parameters
and choices until it fits. This doesn't work as
well with complex layouts but here the page count
is also less dependent on the font chosen. Remember
also that the page count includes the other book
components like the title and copyright pages,
not just the main text.
When I reflow the text using various fonts and
sizes I'm looking for several things. Does the
text read easily? Is there a good number of characters
per line? (About 70 +- is considered about right.)
Does the text have enough leading so your eye
can easily follow the lines? And of course is
the text dense enough to get the book in the required
number of pages? Sometimes I just fiddle with
the font size and leading and sometimes I have
to abandon the chosen font entirely.
The page count is always a balancing act for the
designer and within reason they will try to fit
your book within a signature page count.
Print on demand printers don't have the same constraints
as offset printers. Their presses can be much
smaller and are basically large laser printers.
If your book is to be photocopied and perfect
bound with a print on demand printer the signature
may only be 2 or 4 pages.
Children's books, a special case
The number of pages in a children's book is critical.
The typical method uses a 12 or 16 page signature
on press producing 24 or 36 pages. If the first
and last pages are used as end papers to attach
the cover the result is 22 or 34 pages. If separate
end papers are used it's possible to add a page
or two by printing on the end papers.
I have also seen books constructed with 20 page
signatures and soft covers with a variety of pages.
This all depends on the size of the book and the
type of equipment that it is printed on.
It is critical that you decide on a printer before
the design process begins, and be very clear as
to the books construction and final number of
printable pages.
Back to top
Measurements
Like any industry the print industry has its own technical foibles,
measurement being one. Page and book size are given in inches
and sometimes centimetres. Design measurements like margin and
gutter size are usually the same. Text is measured in points and
picas. Column width is sometimes also in points and picas. There
are 12 points in a pica and 72 points in an inch.
This is the traditional type measurement, so when we talk about
type being 12 points it is the distance from the top of an ascender
to the bottom of the descender. Type is usually referred to as
10/12 (10 on 12) or 12/14 (12 on 14) this means the type size
is 12 points and the leading (space between lines) is 2 points
so the distance from baseline to baseline is 14 points.
|
|

 |
Back to top
Fonts
A font is simply a set of characters that have the same design.
If we want to get picky a font set only includes characters of
the same size, a set of multiple sizes of the same design is a
typeface. When moveable type was still being set by hand a printer
would buy a typeface that included several sizes of metal type.
You needed at least enough letters to set one page of whatever
you were printing including body text and headlines. Typefaces
were expensive so small printers would rarely own many of them.
Computers have blurred these terms so that typeface and font are
now used interchangeably. Any of the fonts on your computer can
be set at any size you want.
I have several hundred fonts available for proofing but only a
few are suitable for extensive text. Don't get stuck on a particular
font because the books castoff can severely limit your font choice.
Much
can be said (and a great deal has) about various fonts and where
they should be used. Typographers sometimes go to great lengths
to specify rules that they feel should be rigorously adhered to.
Many of these rules make perfect sense but I have seen just about
every one broken and the result used to good effect in a design.
So don't consider the rules to be sacrosanct but only break them
with good reason. Here are a few that I try to live by:
Don't use all caps. It is difficult to read all caps because we
recognise words using outlines or shapes more than letter combinations.
This is an easy one to test. Look at the following lines with
the top or bottom of the letters removed. Which is easier to read?
Notice how difficult 'nutshell' is to read with the top of the
word removed but with the bottom removed it's pretty obvious.
Using all caps effectively does the same thing by eliminating
the shape of the word and slowing the reader down. I might amend
the rule to; don't use all caps in body text. I don't like their
use in subheads either but I don't see a problem in titles. If
you feel you must use them make sure to try it both with all caps
and standard case. Take a good look and see which one you prefer.
With a book be careful of compressed fonts like
Times. This font was designed specifically for
the London Times newspaper so they could get more
words on a page and use thinner columns of text.
It works well for what it was designed for but
can be tiring in a novel format. Fonts with very
small x-height can also be tiring.
Many designers feel that the body text font needs to be a serif
font and the subheads sans-serif. I don't agree but I do feel
that a sans-serif font looks and reads better in a non fiction
setting and I like novels in a serif font. This may have more
to do with convention than anything else. Look at a few pages
in two or three font choices and decide which you like.
Computers are amazing. Tell a computer to bold
a word and voila it's bold. But wait, you don't
actually have that bold font in your machine so
how did it happen. Early computers simply double
struck the letters to get bolding. The letter
was duplicated and overlapped slightly offset.
This is the same method that advanced typewriters
use, hence the term 'double struck'. Modern computer
applications will do the same thing if the bold
version of the font isn't available. It seems
OK unless the letter is large enough to see the
problems. Correct bold, italic and small cap typefaces
are different than the roman version. If you view
the created versions to the real bold, italic
and small caps the difference is obvious. So don't
use bold in large titles unless you have the correct
font on your machine. If the bold font is installed
on your machine the application should use the
correct font whenever you ask for bold lettering.
Back to top
Text alignment
This simply refers to where the text lines up. Left aligned text
lines up on the left side, right aligned text to the right side.
Justified text lines up on both sides creating a solid block of
text. When text is left aligned it creates a ragged edge on the
right hence 'ragged right' or 'rag'. Text with a ragged right
edge feels less formal than justified text. This doesn't mean
that you won't see justified text in every type of book. It's
a personal preference.
One thing to remember is hyphenation. With ragged right text you
can get away without hyphenation. I don't recommend this because
the look of the text is greatly improved by hyphenation. Notice
that the text on this page is left aligned, ragged right and no
hyphenation. The Web hasn't come to grips with hyphenation and
some of the other intricacies of typography that we now take for
granted. Justified text on the other hand must use hyphenation.
If you don't, some lines will end up with few words and large
spaces in between that are obvious and very unsightly.
Multiple spaces
Even today when many young people don't know what a typewriter
is, the habit of double spacing between sentences is widespread.
The double space started because a typewriter uses monospaced
fonts. Each letter and punctuation mark had exactly the same horizontal
space assigned to it. The result was a period that seemed to float
between the last letter of a sentence and the first letter of
the next. The fix was to double space after the period. Computers
don't use monospaced fonts and printers never have. Periods now
sit comfortably close to the last letter in the sentence and there
is no need to double space. In fact the double space looks decidedly
out of place. Your designer should strip all the double spaces
out of your text so if you notice don't be surprised.
If you have used multiple spaces to format any tables in your
text you might give your designer a heads up. That way he/she
will format the tables with tabs before stripping out the multiple
spaces.
Back to top
Paragraph indents
Paragraph indentations are supposed to separate paragraphs and
make the text easier to understand. Separating the paragraphs
with a line space has the same function. It is completely unnecessary
to have both a paragraph indent and a line separation. Paragraphs
that start a chapter or fall after a headline should not be indented.
The reader knows that this is the start of a paragraph because
it is the beginning of the text and a headline is a bigger break
in the text than the indent.
Should your work be scholarly and you want to defer to the MLA
Style Manual (which says that all paragraphs must be indented,
without alluding to any exceptions), remember that the MLA Style
Manual is for submitting manuscripts. The publications themselves
don't indent first paragraphs and the MLA Style Manual book does
not indent them either.
Unnecessary punctuation
Punctuation in headlines is usually unnecessary. If you take
out the punctuation and it doesn't affect the
meaning then it is unnecessary and should be left
off. In footnotes, endnotes and bibliographies
sometimes the punctuation can seem unnecessary
but there are likely some instances where it is
needed for clarity. So if your work is scholarly,
and for the sake of consistency, it is best to
defer to the MLA or Chicago Style Manuals exactly.
There is also a legitimacy issue here. It would
be sad if an otherwise relevant work was compromised
by the removal of colons in the bibliography.
You may think this a silly example, and so did
I when I heard it from a very legitimate source.
Back to top
Images and resolution
As far as publishing goes this is perhaps the least understood
aspect. At one time what you needed was a photograph which you
sent to the printer or publisher who did their magic and voilà
the picture appeared in your book. Now in the computer era the
picture can be in a variety of digital formats.
So you've taken some lovely pictures with your digital camera
and there is one area of an image that you would like cropped
out and used for your book cover. Sadly the designer has said
that it is too small so can't be used. What happened?
An original photograph is referred to as a continuous tone image.
The tones move seamlessly from white through grey to black and
through the colour spectrum. A photograph does have a grain structure
but it is microscopic and contains orders of magnitude more information
than a digital image. Digital images also have a grain structure
called pixels. Each pixel can have many values (in the millions
for a colour image) but the entire pixel has the same value. When
we take a picture with a digital camera (or scan a photograph)
we do it at a particular resolution. This refers to the number
of pixels in the image and is usually given as number of pixels
width and pixels height. This is referred to as a raster image
due to the way it is imaged on screen from left to right
and top to bottom. This is also the order in which the pixels
values are given in the image file.
To
get the illusion of continuous tone when a photograph is printed
we use ink dots. Don't confuse ink dots with pixels, they are
not the same. These dots are usually printed in a rectangular
grid called a screen, measured in ink dots per inch and the dots
themselves vary in size. (Screens are often described as lines,
of ink dots, per inch.) So as the tone in an image gets darker
the ink dots get larger but the screen, dots (lines) per inch,
remain the same. You would think that the higher the number of
dots per inch the better the resulting picture and you would be
mostly correct, but this is dependent on the printing press, the
type of paper and the chemistry of the ink. It turns out that
we need about 300 pixels per inch to give a good quality image
at 130 line screen (130 ink dots per inch).
We talked earlier about laser printers not being able to deliver
as good an image as offset. Printing houses today also use laser
technology but they call them image setters not laser printers
and they produce much higher resolution images. To produce the
130 line screen, the image setter needs to be capable of over
2000 pixels per inch where your laser printer is only capable
of 600. A very thorough explanation of this can be found in the
book Real
World Scanning and Halftones.
So the digital image you sent was perhaps 3,456 pixels x 2,304
pixels. This is the top resolution you might get from an 8 megapixel
camera. This could print a cover image about 12 inches across.
The salesman may have told you that you could print a poster with
these images but he is talking about printing on an ink jet printer
not a printing press different technologies with different
requirements. The 12 inches sounds good as far as printing your
cover but you only want a small crop of the image. It turns out
that the crop you want is only 1,000 pixels wide and 1,600 pixels
high. The minimum you need for your cover is 1,800 pixels wide
by 2700 high (6 inches multiplied by 300 pixels per inch, and
9 inches multiplied by 300 pixels per inch). So the designer tells
you the image is too small or more correctly, isn't high enough
resolution.
If you provide original photographs or negatives the designer
or printer will scan them at the required resolution (providing
of course that the pictures are of reasonable size, don't have
to be cropped too much and are in focus). If you provide digital
images they must be of a high enough resolution.
Just a quick word about original photographs: They do need to
be reasonably good quality. I have tried to scan 8" x 10" portraits
that were so poorly done that it was almost impossible to get
a good image. I have also scanned an 1880 era carte-de-visite
photo that is only about 2.5" x 3.5" that has fabulous detail.
At the risk of confusing you, lets discus a different technology:
stochastic screening. Stochastic is simply a fancy word meaning
random. (If you are a mathematician you are now jumping up and
down, incensed that I would use such a simplistic definition.
It's a little like a fashion designer telling you that aubergine
isn't purple. If this doesn't mean anything to you believe me
when I say that it doesn't matter, so please don't loose any sleep
over it. ;-) Conventional printing uses lines of varying sizes
of ink dots, stochastic printing uses random patterns of small
ink dots that don't change in size but vary in number or density.
This is roughly the technology your ink jet printer uses. The
benefit is that you might be able to get away with a smaller (lower
resolution) image using stochastic printing. Don't take this as
a licence to crop your digital images to death, there is still
a great benefit to using high resolution images and stochastic
printing will benefit more from very high resolution than conventional
printing will.
Although this technology isn't really new its adoption has been
slow in the print industry. If your printer happens to use this
type of screening it can be a plus and your designer will make
any necessary adjustments to take advantage of it.
Back to top
Colour
Colour is a very complex subject. Ask any three graphic designers
about colour theory and you will likely get four explanations,
ask three colour technologists and you will get five explanations.
I'll do my best to make this as simple as possible.
When printers talk about colour they are referring to ink. The
inks used in full colour printing are usually 4 cyan, magenta,
yellow and black (CMYK). These 4 colours make up all the colours
you see on the printed page and all images that you send for printing
must be in CMYK format. The colours you see on your monitor are
created differently using red green and blue (RGB) luminous colour
dots and they can display a more varied range (a larger gamut)
of colour than the printed page.
Why is it that a monitor only uses three colours and ink printing
uses four? Well in theory they should both only use three but
neither system is 100% efficient and ink is by far the least efficient.
Let's talk about RGB first.
Black on a monitor is actually a dark grey. The monitor can only
be as black as the screen when turned off, but we see it as black
in comparison to white with all RGB dots turned on. The RGB colour
method is called additive because the more red, green or blue
you add the more saturated the final colour with the end result
being white.
Ink printing uses reflected light. Cyan ink absorbs all frequencies
of visible light except cyan, thus the cyan colour. So it is subtracting
the other frequencies of visible light and reflecting cyan. Any
system that creates colour by reflected light is called subtractive.
White is no ink at all so you get whatever colour the paper is.
Paper is never completely white but good paper comes reasonably
close. Compare different papers and you will see a pretty wide
disparity in the paper colour, some are much whiter than others.
The less white the paper is the less efficient the printing will
be, at least as far as printing accurate colours. In order to
create colours we mix the three main ink colours (cyan, magenta
and yellow). The more colour you add, the darker the result, and
the final result should be black. Ink however is very inefficient,
particularly cyan, so when all three colours are mixed together
at 100% coverage the result is a dark reddish brown. Printers
add black ink in order to get a good black and often use a mix
of black plus some of cyan, magenta and yellow to get a better
black or 'rich black'.
Printers go farther than just adding black ink. They also substitute
black ink for equal quantities of the other three colours. Equal
amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow should make some shade of
grey so black ink can take its place. This process is called grey
component replacement and the chief benefit is less ink on paper
thus lower cost. Luckily we don't have to worry too much about
this process because modern publishing software handles most of
the work.
You can get along without knowing much at all about colour theory.
But it's useful to know why your printer charged you extra for
converting your RGB images to CMYK and it's nice to know how to
keep that black border from looking grey on press.
It's also useful to know that the colours you see on your monitor
are not the colours you will get on final printing. Oh they will
be close but not exact. Your monitor is capable of producing colours
that your printer can't. You can also see colours that your monitor
can't reproduce. That's why you can't get the colour right on
that picture of your hot pink jump suit, even though you tried
scanning the material itself. At best you will get a fair approximation
but side by side the difference will be obvious.
If you have a very specific colour of red that you must get on
final printing, the only way is to use spot colours. This is simply
another ink of the specified colour used only for that colour
on paper. This means you are now using five colours for the print
job (CMYK and a special colour ink). More colours mean more money.
Printing presses are set up to use different numbers of inks.
Each ink requires its own set of rollers and ink fountain. When
you look at a picture of a press you can see that the fountains
are divided on the press so they can be worked on separately.
When you add a spot colour the job will have to be printed on
a press that has at least five fountains. Presses are commonly
set up with four, six and eight fountains depending on the type
of jobs that the printer does most often. It is fairly common
to run print jobs that require six inks and sometimes a spot colour
(cyan, magenta, yellow, black, gloss varnish, matt varnish and
a spot colour).
Back to top
Bleeds
Images going right to the very edge of the page are said to bleed.
Images can bleed off any or all edges but there are some limitations.
In order to get an image to bleed off an edge it must be printed
overlapping the edge and then when the page is trimmed you have
a bleed. If you have chosen a standard book size there may not
be anything to trim. The pages are printed onto large sheets or
signatures, folded then trimmed. If your book is a standard size
the trim area is very small and may not be enough to reliably
do a bleed. If you only have one or two pages that you feel need
a bleed the printer may be able to adjust the pages to compensate,
otherwise you may need to alter the page size of your book to
make the bleeds work. Usually a printer needs 1/16 to 1/8 of an
inch overlap to do a bleed properly.
Back to top
Covers and jackets
I've left this to last not because it is the least important
but rather it has the least design restrictions. The cover is
not the same as the dust jacket. The cover can be highly embellished
or supremely simple. Usually the title, often in gold leaf, on
the front with perhaps a small embossed graphic. The spine has
the authors name, book title and the publisher. The spine text
is oriented so it reads correctly when the book is standing upright
or when on it's side with the title page uppermost. Text on the
spine should be readable from 6 to 10 feet away. If your book
is very thin the spine may only be wide enough for the title and
authors name. If the spine is so thin that it can't hold text
large enough to be easily read, a graphic that is recognisable
even on the thin spine can sometimes be used to try to make up
for the lack of readability.
For the dust jacket anything goes. This is your sales tool. You
have the two inside flaps and the back to say what you need to
interest people in the book. I always look at the front inside
flap first after picking up the book but many people turn first
to the back page. The back inside flap is the least important
and is most often used to continue what is said on the front flap.
If your book is soft cover then it won't have a dust jacket. But
everything you'd put on the jacket goes on the cover. You can
even have flaps on the cover to simulate the front and back flaps
on a dust jacket. Some hard cover books have a full colour paper
overlay bonded to the cover boards, thus eliminating the dust
jacket. This is called case wrap and is common on text books.
If your book is a high quality coffee table book you might want
to do both a jacket and a full colour bonded cover. This way your
book looks the same after the jacket is removed, any shelf wear
should be limited to the jacket, and you can limit all the sales
stuff to the jacket leaving the book cover pristine.
Take your time picking an image for the cover. If you have just
the right photograph you are in luck. Often front covers use several
pictures in a montage that can be quite effective. If you can't
find an image use the title and colour to attract your reader.
This is where a designer can be a big help. Regardless of how
you decide to do your cover it must communicate the nature of
your book.
OK there you are; a very quick introduction to book design. Hopefully
it will help you in choosing designers and printers and it should
give a little more insight into how your book goes together. Please
check out the bibliography
page and take a look at some of the books. They do a much more
complete job of this than I have.
|
|
|