Ever think about the behind-the-scenes stuff that happens when putting a book together? It’s not just a Word document that gets sent to a publisher and then gets printed. For starters, the printers never even see a Word document. They get a PDF file that is carefully laid out by a designer in InDesign. And this designer not only has to know how to use InDesign, but also has to have some layout + design knowledge to be able to do it effectively. So, let’s talk about how that’s done.

FIRST THING’S FIRST

Once a client approaches me with a book project, the first thing I must know is the genre. Is it a novel? A work of non-fiction? A cookbook? Is it a children’s book? And so forth. Why do I start here? Because each genre is designed differently and I must know where I’m going to start with my inspiration and layout.

Novels, for example, are pretty much straight text with a chapter title and/or number and body copy. When selecting typography, I’m not going to have to think too much about combining fonts to make everything look cohesive. More on that in a bit. Non-fiction books may have a little bit more typography involved if I’m looking at titles, subtitles and, say, pull quotes. They might include some images, graphs, or charts. All of this could possibly involve a color palette in the design as well. Children’s books will be heavy on the images and light on the text and the typography selection here could be a little bit more “playful” if necessary. A cookbook is going to have a lot of images as well and different type of text layouts. Knowing what I’m going to be working with will set the tone for the rest of my design elements.

BOOK SIZE

The second thing I usually do is find out what size the book will be. The author (if self-published) will probably know this already when they hand over their manuscript. If not, I will suggest a size based on the genre of their publication. Having this information will help me in laying out my background grid, margins and columns which in turn will affect the size of my type. It’s better to know all these things up front so that you’re not changing things mid-project. Not knowing can cause delays in the project and not to mention unnecessary stress. Know that saying “work smarter not harder”? Yeah. That applies 100% here. 

TYPOGRAPHY

When selecting typography for books that are heavily read (fiction and non-fiction), I normally select a serif font. Those little “feet” at the ends of the letters make it easier to read books that are in print. My go-to fonts are usually Baskerville and Century Schoolbook. I find that these are classic fonts that offer me a variety of styles (regular, bold, italic and maybe a medium bold/italic) that I can use within my body text to give it just the right amount of contrast that it needs. But again, it all depends on the genre and subject of the book.

For other types of books such as cookbooks or books that have a lot of images, I will usually combine serif and sans serif fonts in a way that is cohesive to the design. For example, my body text could be a serif font, but I’ll select a non-serif font for subtitles to give it just the right touch of contrast while still being cohesive.

TESTING MY TYPE SELECTION

It's important to note that once I have my background grid and type selected, I always, always do a test print before proceeding with the entire book. Does the size of the font that I selected work with my background grid? Is it readable? Is the leading (the spacing between two lines of text) done correctly? Too much and you’ll have unnecessary white space. Too little and you’ll have a hard time reading it. It’s important to look at these things in print to get a feel for what the reader will be seeing. You’d be surprised how different everything looks on screen versus in how it looks in print.

Testing out different fonts and sizes for a gastronomy book I designed on the gastronomy of Mexico.

THE LAYOUT

Depending on the genre of the book, there are so many ways that you can design the layout. I have a couple of refence books that I use for inspiration, but I also use Pinterest A LOT. I take certain elements from one design and mix it with some elements of another design to come up with something that is functional while also being enjoyable to the reader.

These are just the first steps I take when sitting down to start a book project. Every designer approaches their editorial designs differently, but I find that this is what works for me. Next time, we’ll talk a little bit more of the technical aspects of how I set up my files in Indesign.