All publishing houses work with clear rules for the design of books. All of them are general and are subject to execution by all authors. In order to independently arrange your work, you need to be aware of a certain set of rules. In this article, we will look at what book design is, what you need to know for it, and also find out how to design a book yourself.
Why design a book
A book is a commodity like any other item. We look at its cover and appearance, and then we determine whether it will be interesting for us to read it, whether it is pleasant to hold it in our hands, whether it is convenient. It is believed that it is wrong to be guided by the appearance of the book. You can't judge by the cover. But we do just that. And in order for our works to interest a potential reader, we will have to try and bring the design of books to a beautiful and interesting performance. If the cover is not designed properly, printed materials will remain dead weight on the shelves in bookstores, not attracting buyers at all. Due to the lack of a high-quality cover, many publishers simply will not undertake to print a book. In this case, the author is usually offered the services of the designers of the printing industry itself. But you can also organize the design of books on your own, as the writer himself imagines.
What is included in the design steps
There are several mandatory items that must be written in the places intended for them. In addition, there are printing standards for the cover and the body of the book itself. So, the mandatory stages include the following elements: the choice of the format of printed materials, the selection of fonts for the text, the design of the book cover, the appearance of the spread, the arrangement and design of illustrations in the text. This kind of layout is created in electronic form, and then live editions are printed from it. At the time of registration, component parts are created, the question of how text strips, column numbers, footnotes, diagrams and illustrations will be located, what will be the style of headers and footers.
General recommendations
Book cover design is one of the most important components of the release of printed materials for sale. Its appearance depends on the author's idea and can be completely different. However, special attention should be paid to this particularly noticeable part of the book. Very often the cover is made of plain thick paper. If a stiffer material is used, such a cover is called binding. The main element is a cover made of woven material, to whichbook endpapers, captal and gauze valves are glued. A dust jacket with additional flaps can be put on top. It serves to protect the publication, and may also contain additional advertising. Some especially expensive copies (for example, deluxe editions) are put into a special cardboard case. This greatly increases the price of binding, so the technique is rarely used and only in relation to some books. All information displayed on the cover elements should help identify the book and match its contents and imprint.
Book Design: Front Page
The first page should tell the reader the names of all the authors. They must match the names on the title page. It is advisable to place no more than three names. If the book is published officially by any organization, its name should be indicated here. The rules for the design of the book require that the title of the work be indicated on the first page. If the work belongs to a series, you must indicate its name and the serial number of this part.
Book spine design
Information on the spine is indicated if its thickness is more than nine millimeters. The spine indicates the name of the author (or several names), the title of the book and the serial number of the volume. For dictionaries and reference books, the following rule is used: the first and last letters of the alphabet, information about which is located in this volume, are indicated on the spine. Information is printed in thissequence, from top to bottom. If the thickness of the book is more than forty millimeters, this data can be placed horizontally.
Decoration of the fourth page of the book
This page contains the barcode of the presented edition. In addition, authors, series of books can be listed again here, a table of contents and a search system for the content of the book and the entire series can be presented. The fourth page may also contain information about the publisher that issued this printed matter.
Rules for numbering elements
In order to understand how to number elements, you should first understand what types of numbering exist.
- Continuous numbering. With this technique, all elements are assigned a serial number in accordance with its location. It is suitable if the number of elements is not very large. For example, picture 1, picture 2 and so on.
- Pagination. With this method, the elements are assigned a double number, consisting of the serial number of the page, and through a dot - the number of the element. It is used if there are a large number of formulas and tables. For example: 36.1, 36.2, 43.1.
- Structural numbering is assigned according to sections. For example, table 1.1, table 3.1.
Please note that it makes sense to create object numbering under the following circumstances:
- A reliable search method is needed when referring to the samean element can occur several times in the text.
- A method is needed to additionally search for information on a large amount of text.
- Must match structural elements in the text, spaced apart in different sections in the book.
Internal Content Design
Signature is a technical element of the publication. It was created to help with folding, printing, block formation, final check. It should be located on the left. The beginning of a chapter should be separated by a large white indent and the use of a drop cap. Small pictures should be placed in the text so that the indents from the top and bottom edges are one to two or three to five. Tall and long illustrations should be placed in the middle of the strip. Samples of book design should have a signature on each printed sheet, which contains the serial number of the sheet and the keyword. This word is most often the surname of the author. The design of the title page should correspond in all respects to the general style and content of the book. The space between the title and the name of the publisher should not appear too empty. In this place, you can place the brand or coat of arms of the publisher. The page containing the imprint should be at the end of the book. Headings in the title are typed without dots.
Do-it-yourself book design
It takes a lot of time to arrange a book properly. The design of the pages of the book and its appearance can be entrusted to the designers of printing organizations. But for this pleasure you have to pay enougha tangible amount, especially for novice writers. Having studied the rules of registration, all these operations can be done independently. It is enough to know the principles of operation of graphic editors and formatting rules. For future implementation, such a factor as the design of books is important. Photos of how this process is carried out are presented in this article. In order to understand the rules of text formatting, you can read the work of Jan Tschichold. In his book, he collected a lot of advice on how to make the content of the book not only instructive, but also pleasing to the eye of the reader. He was a true master of book design. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and made a significant contribution to typography and literary design.
