Think book designers are namby-pamby design nerds hunched over their Macs? Think again. The Guardian reveals the secret, extreme lengths designers will go to in order to get that perfect cover:
Deputy art director Glenn O’Neill tells me that the original jacket concept for Robert Harris’s Cicero novel, Lustrum, was to feature an image of [...]
My sister, a engineering professor, is writing a book about how to encourage women to pursue engineering. She plans to self-publish the book through Lulu, since the print on demand strategy makes perfect sense for the specialized audience for such a book. And because I’ve worked in publishing, she asks me a lot [...]
When British books are published in the United States, and vice versa, publishers don’t generally change the text to cater to their audiences across the pond. Okay, they often adjust the spelling of a few words, like “realise”/”realize” and “practise”/”practice.” And some small punctuation changes occur—British writers tend to put their periods and commas [...]
bu Dhabi’s The National offers this fascinating piece by Peter Robins about typesetting ebooks:
“Designing a printed book is remarkably different from designing an ebook,” says Charles Nix, a partner in the New York publishing firm Scott & Nix and the president of the Type Directors’ Club.
“Printed-book design is about fixed-size pages and spreads. Those are [...]
Penguin has put out a neat little series of videos with book designers talking about their favorite fonts. Why? As one designer puts it, “Choosing a font is as personal as choosing what color you might paint your bedroom.”
Have you ever wondered how book covers get designed?
This video shows how Orbit Books’ Creative Designer Lauren Panepinto designed the cover for an upcoming novel. The whole process took over 6 hours, but the video condenses that into just under two minutes:
On Orbit’s webpage, Panepito explains:
Trust me, no one wants to watch [...]
If all the recent talk about the iPad and the Amazon/Macmillan ebook pricing catfight has you longing for a simpler time, look no further than this ode to the deckle edge on The Millions:
Opening a book can already feel like opening a gift. Armed with a knife and freeing the pages and the story hidden [...]
Did our last post on book covers convince you that cover design makes a difference? Want to try your hand at it? Design blog Venus febriculosa is running a book cover design contest for Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. The deadline is February 26, 2010, and the winner gets $1000.
More [...]
p>The old adage is right: you can’t judge a book by its cover. On the other hand, the cover still makes a difference. In a recent New York Times essay, satirist/memoirist Joe Queenan has a startling realization:
But in the next room, in the cabinet where I keep my unread books, I was stunned [...]
Vernerable publisher Penguin has quietly been putting out a series of “Graphic Classics”–classic novels such as Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers with snazzy covers by prominent graphic artists.
Over at his blog, illustrator Michael Cho discusses designing the cover for the recent reissue of Don Delillo’s White Noise:
The first thing I did, of course, was [...]
