Book Design 101

Pete Masterson

t its most basic, the publishing process entails the following steps: 1. Write Book 2. Print Book 3. Sell Books Our talk is about what happens between #1 and #2. It has three parts: Editing and proofing; Page design (size and arrangement); and Typography. The latter two parts are often combined under Typography.

In fiction, the medium edit tracks continuity of plot, setting, and character traits. In a multi-author manuscript, the medium copy editor will enforce a consistent style and tone. The medium copy edit should identify ambiguous and/or incorrect statements for correction by the author.
Substantive Edit (or Heavy Copy Edit) A substantive edit includes all the tasks performed in the light and medium copy edit levels, and will: Eliminate wordiness, triteness, and inappropriate jargon. Ensure smooth transition and improve readability. Check heads for appropriatenessnew or changed levels of head will be applied to achieve a logical structure. The substantive editor will suggest additions and deletions to improve the flow and coverage of the manuscript. The difference between the various levels of copy editing is the amount of judgment and rewriting involved. The substantive edit may involve rewriting rather than simply flagging problems and may involve enforcing a uniform level, tone and focus as specified by the publisher or developmental editor. Proofreading After the editor is finished with the manuscript, it then goes to the designer and compositor (who can be the same person). The proofreader checks the typeset copy word for word against the final edited manuscript and identifies errors for correction or marks queries for editorial errors. Proofreaders may also review copy for conformity to type and design specifications, check against (or create) a style sheet, and check the typography for good kerning, margins, word spacing, stacked hyphenations, bad word spacing or breaks, etc.

Edit Manuscript
Do you need to edit your book? Yes! Editing is much more than simply an exercise to grade the paper. If thats all an editor does for you, then you should probably find another editor. Editing comes in several types: Light copy edit A light or baseline edit will: Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Correct incorrect usage. Verify specific cross-references. Ensure consistency in spelling, capitalization, etc. Check for proper sequencing of material. A light copy edit does not involve rewriting, changing heads or text to ensure parallel structure, or fact checking. Medium Edit In addition to all the tasks performed in a light copy edit, the medium copy edit will include: Changing text and headings for parallel structure. Style (e.g. Chicago Manual of Style) and word usage are verified. Consistency is checked to ensure proper handling of key terms and that specifications are met in vocabulary and index items.

BAIPA Institute 2011: Book Design 101

Page Design
Choose a reasonable size for the book. Look at other books in the same category. Unless you have a specific and significant reason to choose another size, stick with a size that is similar to other books in the same genera. Some common sizes (with common names) are: 4 x 5 Pocket book 4 x 9 Rack Brochure (This is also an excellent size for a small tips booklet as it will fit in a standard #10 envelope.) 5 x 8 (or 5 x 8) Digest (Half Letter) 6 x 9 Standard Novel 7 x 10 Text Book 8 x 8 or 8 x 8 Juvenile 8 x 9 Software Manual 8 x 10 Standard Catalog 8 x 11 Standard Letter 9 x 12 Music Book 11 x 11 Sunday Insert The bold entries, digest and standard novel are the sizes most often used by independent publishers. These sizes are practical to produce on most printing presses with a reasonable level of efficiency. On any trim size that is larger than standard letter, you should verify its economic production with your printer. Many short run book printers use half web or large sheet-fed presses that do not economically produce some of the larger page sizes. If you are leaning toward using Lightning Source, Inc. as a print on demand (POD) service, consider using the 6 x 9 trim size as it costs the same per page as the 5 x 8 trim size, but will accommodate the same content with about 10% fewer pages. Professional Tools Use a word processor to process words. Use a page layout program to layout pages. It is short sighted to use the wrong tool for the job. Using the wrong tool, you will generally go to more effort to get a substandard job. The primary professional page layout programs are Adobe InDesign, Adobe Framemaker, and Quark XPress. Any of these programs will generate good typesetting with appropriate adjustments to certain internal settings. Quark XPress once had the largest market share of the page layout programs. However, a combination of high prices and terrible customer service gave Adobe the opportunity to overtake Quark with InDesign. Quark has improved the deficiencies in their customer relations and now is offering a product that competes with InDesign. InDesign has features that are particularly useful to

book designers and it has the best typographic engine of any of the page layout programs. It is the first desktop program that equals (or exceeds) the typographic quality of the earlier generation of dedicated typesetting computers. (This document was typeset with InDesign.) It is sold as an individual program or as part of Adobes Creative Suite that includes Photoshop and other useful software. Some people can qualify for a student discount under the right circumstances, making this an economical choice. Framemaker has been around for many years. It is a fairly difficult program to learn, but is well regarded for highly structured documents that need frequent updates or have multiple versions (in different languages). It is often used for software documentation and has a wide following in the academic publishing area. A version supports SGML (Structured Generalized Markup Language)a feature thats only useful to those who need SGML. Corel Ventura is the latest iteration of Ventura Publisher. Once a popular program (when owned by Xerox) on the PC platform, it has suffered from neglect and frequent changes of ownership over the years. It is no longer used by many publishers nor is supported by many printers. It is an adequate program if you wish to use it. Serif Page Plus is a consumer-level program that may be suitable for laying out a book. It is quite reasonably priced, so for the non-professional it may be worth a look. I have no personal experience with the program. Microsoft Publisher is only mentioned as a program to avoid for professional level work. While the program can be used to produce books, most of those who have used this program later regretted their decision. Apple Pages (a part of the iWork package) is in the same category as Microsoft Publisher a consumer level program that is not particularly useful for book layout. Also avoid any other low end consumer level page layout programs. These programs generally suffer weakness in dealing with multiple page documents, causing the user an excessive amount of work in paginating a long book. Consumer-level programs also have inadequate hyphenation and justification algorithms, the heart of a good page layout program. They are best used for flyers, simple newsletters, and church bulletins. Page Layout Page arrangements, particularly choice of margins, are a critical part of typography. Although generalizations are difficult (see bibliography), most authorities agree that margins should be generous rather than slender, that they should not all be equal in size, and that a progression in

Book Design and Production

margin size, from widest at bottom, to outside, top and narrowest on the inside or gutter, is desirable. Many additional considerations on margins are discussed in the bibliography entries. Examination of books about book history will provide examples of page layout used through the years, and will suggest many design ideas. Typography A definition of typography: Typography is the art of designing communication by means of the printed word. (McLean: author names in parentheses refer to Bibliography) On the other hand, communicating with images rather than words is different. When both are used together, the word portion is still called typography. The fact that typography is an art helps explain why some of the very first printed books remain among the best ever done. The difference between communicating with words, and communicating with pictures is fundamental, and requires basically different attitudes and techniques from the designer. Very few [graphic] designers practice equally successfully as imagemakers and typographers. (McLean) The history of books and printing Anyone interested in an understanding of typography needs to appreciate some of the history of printing. We encourage exploration of that history. There is an excellent short history of this subject readily available in a trade paperback edition (Chappell). Typographic goals The basic directions for typography, paraphrased from Bringhurst, are: 1. The typeface or group of faces must be chosen to harmonize with the content of the text. 2. The shape of the page and the text block must also be in harmony with the text. 3. Even color (by control of spacing) is essential. [Color in typographic language often, as here, means the relative darkness of appearance of the text blocks, not literal color.] Another list of goals are these: (1) readability (accomplished by choice of typeface and leading), (2) balance in page layout, and (3) even color of the text. These goals, though broad, correctly emphasize the essential role of the text itself in helping determine typographic choices. Lets begin with a discussion of typefaces.

Classifying type faces There are as many ways of classifying type faces as there are typographers. One simple classification is into these five classes: Old Style; Modern; Slab Serif; Sans Serif; and Display, Titling and Script. The attached examples illustrate the factors which distinguish the first four classes from each other. The fifth is really a catchall category and the examples merely indicate the range and variety of faces in this broad class. What difference does it make? Dont text faces all look pretty much alike? Its true that only with training and experience will you be able to readily tell faces apart, or put a name to a particular face. But there are three reasons to be aware of these classifications. First, the rules (given below and in Williams design book) for mixing type faces require you to recognize classes. Second, choosing a typeface which is consonant with the qualities of the text (see Bringhursts statement of typographic goals) is intrinsically sensitive to the style and historical context of each face. And third, if you need to match a particular face, knowing where to start, by typeface class, will help considerably. When recognizing or matching typefaces, the most characteristic letters are often: g, a, e, and t, or sometimes b, f and y. Thus the letter combination hamburgefonstiv has come into use as an aid to typographers in examining characteristic letters of a typeface. Ol Stle. This is the style arising from the earliest Roman types. Among the greatest type designers of that early age were Nicholas Jenson in Italy, about 1475, and Claude Garamond in France, about 1535. Later practitioners included William Caslon in England, about 1725. The illustration depicts characteristic features of Old Style typefaces, most notably their clear debt to pen-drawn characters. Generally, the Old Style typefaces are considered the most elegant and readable of all text faces. Moern. This unfortunate term was adopted when these faces were new, in about 1800. They have a mechanical feel, unlike pen-drawn characters. They remain popular in Europe, especially France, for text settings. Slab Serif. Devised for advertising around 1820, the name describes the most salient feature of these faces. They are also called Egyptian from a fad raging at the time of their introduction. Some have been very successful for text, such as Century and Bookman. Sans Serif. Though many think of these faces as intrinsically twentieth century, they date back to Greek inscriptions and to the Italian Renaissance. Their introduction into printing dates from about 1830, and the

BAIPA Institute 2011: Book Design 101

earlier styles are still called Grotesque (from English and German terminology) or Gothic (in America). In the modernist period of the 1920s, Geometric versions were devised, in an effort to simplify letters to pure geometry. Humanist versions have variation in stroke and avoid rigid geometrical design. Displa, Titling an Script. This fifth class is used mostly for display work, such as advertising. Some could be suitable for titling in books, but none are normally used for text. Readability Both the personal observations of many experienced book critics and typographers, and also laboratory studies by psychologists, have almost always concluded that serif faces are considerably more readable in text settings. Here is a table from Wheildons book:
Layout body type serif sans serif Comprehension level good fair poor 67 12 19 23 14 65

Mixing type faces When its necessary to mix type faces, that is, to use more than one type face on a page, there are two rules that are helpful. The simplest rule: dont use typefaces from the same class together. A more subtle and difficult rule: dont combine typefaces of the same characteristics; make sure you maintain contrast of the type faces. This topic is treated in more detail and very clearly in Williams excellent design book. Spacing Here are some space definitions. First, Page Space: the text block is the space occupied by text (or illustrations, or both), and the margins are the space around the text block. Next, Horizontal Space, with 3 parts: letter-space is the space between letters; wordspace is the space between words; and measure is the width of the text block. Lastly, Vertical Space: leading (rhymes with wedding) is the space between lines. The following suggestions give some broad guidelines for spacing. Bringhurst states that readability and organization of the text are the priorities, then color. You can best achieve this if you: 1. Choose the wordspace to fit the size and natural letterfit of the font; do not allow wordspace to be too wide. 2. Choose a comfortable measure (around 50 or 60 characters per line). 3. Leading must be chosen to suit the typeface size, character, and x-height. These comments of course are fairly general. It takes judgement, experience, and study of good examples to learn how these factors work and how they interact. But by trying different combinations, you can readily see what looks best to your eye. A particularly sensitive issue is the interplay of type size and leading. Typefaces vary considerably in x-height, or height of the body of lower-case letters. This affects readability, with larger x-height more legible; and affects the choice of leading (see below). Setting the spacing. An obvious giveaway of desktop publishing or of novice typographers is failure to control the spacing in their layout program, thus allowing both letterspace and wordspace to vary widely. In most page layout applications, you can control the range over which wordspace and letterspace vary to fill lines. Using InDesign, for example, go to the Paragraph options item on the flyout from the paragraph palette. There you find an item called Justification.... Click on that link to see the minimum and maximum settings. One of the great unfortunate circumstances is that the default

Recommended typefaces A set of recommended typefaces is listed below. The emphasis is on Old Style faces for text use; the Sans Serif faces would usually be used only for titling. A comment about digital versions: not every great metal typeface has been well digitized for computer use. The Adobe digital versions have been extremely well reviewed. The Minion face, by Robert Slimbach for Adobe, is exceptional too, though not precisely an Old Style face. Minion is available in a Pro version with a huge variety of alternate glyphs and even a swash variant. Some good book typefaces are: Baskerville Bembo Californian Caslon Century Garamond (Adobe) Cheltenham Jenson Goudy Old Style Minion New Century Schoolbook Palatino Sabon Stone Serif Some good Sans Serif typefaces (for headings): Franklin Gothic Gill Sans Antique Olive Syntax Officina Sans Frutiger Optima Stone Sans Myriad What about Times Roman and Helvetica (and its look-alike, Arial)? These are poor choices due to overuse, and are not outstanding faces in any case. Helvetica also enjoys the dubious distinction of being used on many government forms, including the dreaded IRS tax forms. 4

Book Design and Production

settings in Quark XPress are far from idealallowing extremely loose type. As a result you will often see poor typography in many publications where a professional typographer hasnt been involved in the overall design process. (This is particularly noticeable in newspapers and magazines, though the success of Adobe InDesign in taking market share from Quark has helped reduce the bad typography that is observed.) The default settings in the other programs are also fairly loose and will result in wide variations in line density. Wed recommend changing them to: word space, minimum 85%, maximum 125%; letter space, minimum, 0%, maximum 15%. But experiment for yourself and see how you like the look of different values for these attributes. Also be aware that optimum values may differ for different typefaces. Other page layout programs have similar control opportunities. Use them. Leaing. Use more leading with sans serif, bold and italic type to increase readability; use more leading with relatively long lines; use more leading with short descenders; use more leading to lighten page color. This handout is set using InDesign with Adobe Minion Pro, 11 points on 13. Lines are about 5560 characters each. We have used the alternate proportional oldstyle figures and the optical margin alignment features available automatically with the pro typeface and InDesign. Most text is suitably set between 9 and 11 points (depends on the typeface) for body copy. Use 2 points leading with these sizes, e.g. 9/11, 10/12, 11/13. (The auto leading setting in most programs is 20% larger than the type size.) Be very careful if you use 12 point or larger type to ensure that its not really too large for the page (a common error, because its more readable on the screen). Our titling face is Myriad. Details There are many details of the typographers art, and only a few are listed here. These and more are explained and dissected in much detail in the bibliography books. Setting non-regular tpe. Text and even headlines generally prove less legible when set entirely in capitals, or in italic or bold. Minimize use of these settings. Use of tpe stle. The type style function in some word processor or page layout programs can provide a fake italic typeface by merely slanting the regular upright figures. Some sans serif faces do in fact form italic or oblique characters this way, but most typefaces have a separately designed italic face. Use it whenever available. Likewise, small capitals can be faked as a style, but should be taken from the typeface itself whenever

available. And avoid outlined, shadowed typethis is an abomination that arrived with desktop publishing software (that fortunately has made this option less obviously available in recent years). Wios an orphans. An orphan is the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a page or column; a widow is the last line of a paragraph at the top of a page or column. Both should be avoided, though orphans are less damaging to appearance. If absolutely necessary, widows may be tolerated if they are over half a line in length. Be especially careful to avoid widows and orphans between the bottom of a right hand page and the top of the following, left hand page, as you must turn the page to finish the paragraph. Bullets. Avoid hyphens or lowercase letter o for bullets. Professional page layout software gives you several options for bullets, or you can use symbols from the Zapf Dingbats typeface. Boes. Avoid gray boxes behind text. Avoid boxes, especially those with rounded corners. Avoid putting boxes inside boxes. Avoid borders around your pages. These elements need to be used with care. Colophons. These were originally a concluding item in a book, listing the printer and place and date of production. Later, printers marks, details of typography, and other matter began to be included. The modern colophon normally contains only details of book design and typography, since publication formalities are now customarily placed on the reverse of the title page. A colophon is one signal that typography has been taken seriously, though it remains rare in the books of large publishers. Things that make a book look amateurish 1. Holdovers from what you learned in high school typing class: Two spaces between sentences Use of underline text instead of italics or bold Incorrect typographers quote marks: use and not " " or ' ' (But, you should use ' and " for feet and inches or, if available, use the prime and double prime for feet and inches.) Be careful, too, with the automataic quotes feature in your software. This usually puts an inappropriate beginning single quote when it should use an apostrophe in a date such as: 99 (for 1999) when 99 is correct. Half-inch indents. (Traditionally, the normal paragraph indent is one em space. 5

BAIPA Institute 2011: Book Design 101

In most typefaces a 1 4 inch indent is about right.) 2. Use of a word processing program instead of a page layout program 3. Narrow margins, equal on all sides 4. Use of Helvetica or Times Roman 5. Multiple typefaces (ransom note style) 6. Wide variations in word- and letterspace Colophon his handout was produced by Pete Masterson of onix Publishing Group using Adobe InDesign version 2.0.2. The body text is set in Minion 11 point type with 13 point leading. The headlines are set in Myriad.

Contact information for the speaker: Pete Masterson, onix Publishing Group P.O. Box 20985, El Sobrante, CA 94820-0985 Tel: 510-222-6743 Email: pete@aeonix.com URL: www.aeonix.com Note: This handout was written by Pete Masterson and Anthony Thompson as a collaboration in 2000. This version has been updated by Pete Masterson.

Copyright 2000 and 2003 Pete Masterson and Anthony Thompson. Copyright 2011 Pete Masterson.

Bibliography & Suggested Reading

A Short History of the Printed Word, Warren Chappell, 1980 (Arno Press, New York) Elementary The Mac (or PC) Is Not a Typewriter, Robin Williams, 1990 (Peachpit Press, Berkeley) 2nd Edition, 2003 Intermediate Using Type Right, Philip Brady, 1988 (North Light Books, Cincinnati) Basic Typography, James Craig, 1990 (Watson-Guptill, New York) Typography, Ruari McLean, 1980, 1992 (Thames & Hudson, New York) Advanced The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst, 1992 (Hartley & Marks, Vancouver) Anatomy of a Typeface, Alexander Lawson, 1990 (David Godine, Boston): history and typography

History

Design (& Typography) Book Design, Douglas Martin, 1989 (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York) Stop Stealing Sheep, Erik Spiekermann and E. M. Ginger, 1993 (Adobe Press, Mountain View) Type and Layout, Colin Wheildon, 1995 (Strathmoor Press, Berkeley) (2nd Edition 2005, Worsley Press) The Non-Designers Design Book, Robin Williams, 1994 (Peachpit Press, Berkeley) 3rd Edition 2008 Methods of Book Design, Hugh Williamson, 1966 (Oxford University Press, London); a paperback edition of this book is also reported Additional Titles A Manual of Style, 14th, 15th and 16th (most current) editions all useful (University of Chicago Press, Chicago) Book Design and Production: A Guide for Authors and Publishers, Pete Masterson, 2005 (Aeonix Publishing Group, El Sobrante, CA)

Typography

Display, Titling, and Script Faces

Anna Cooper Black Brush Script copperplate gothic Latin lithos ITC machine BOLD Old English Text Tekton tr ajan Zapf Chancery
Note: All of the above samples are set at 24 points. Observe how the sizes vary from typeface to typeface. Also note that an underline was not used below the heading, rather a rule was placed 3 points below the baseline. An underline would have passed through the decenders hurting the appearance of the type.

hpx hpx hpx

These three typefaces, Bitstream Arrus, Adobe Garamond, and Helvetica, are shown at 48 points. The x-height, i.e. height of lower-case letters, differs considerably. Legibility is partly a function of x-height for any particular type size. A few landmarks to watch for in reading about book history: The Gutenberg Bible: 1455 The Mainz Psalter: 1457 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: 1499 (Aldus) King James Bible, 1611; Shakespeare First Folio, 1623 (not great typography) John Baskervilles work: 1762 The Kelmscott Chaucer: 1896 (and other work of William Morris) The Rockwell Kent Chaucer: 1934

Book Design and Production

BAIPA Institute 2011: Book Design 101

Illustration (above) from McLean of the various descriptive terms used to identify parts of type characters, as well as type size parameters. Note that the cap size need not be the same as ascender and descender sizes; and maximum size is usually still less than the point size of the typeface.

Cap height X-height Bar Serifs Ascender Bowl Bracket Terminal Ear Baseline
Point Size Measure X-height

Leading Leading Measure

Counter

Descender

Spine

Loop

Another illustration showing the descriptive terms used for the various parts of type characters. In this example, the tail of the Q actually drops slightly below the point size measure line.