Ed Marquand
Publication Design

Simple Suggestions for Publishers and Designers

Center for Publishing Development
Open Society Institute – Budapest
© 1998 Marquand Books, Inc.

Good publications require well-written text, appropriate illustrations, intelligent design and layout, careful typography, and good-quality printing and binding. Each step is important, whether you’re producing a book, booklet, magazine, or newspaper. The purpose of this brochure is to offer basic suggestions to help you improve your publications.

Each person is important in the creative process. For a team to work well, each member must be a team player, respecting the other members’ work, opinions, and contributions.

• Are there many illustrations? Color or black-and-white? Photographs or drawings?
• Who will buy this book?
• Where will they buy it? Bookshops? Kiosks? Hotels? Tourist locations?
• Will competing titles be sold next to it? How can you make your publication stand out among the competition?
• How will the publication be printed? Offset? Photocopier? Letterpress?
• How many copies will be printed in the first print run?
• How will the document be created? Mechanical artwork or on computer? PageMaker? Quark?

When you have the answers to these questions, you are ready to start thinking about how to organize the content of your publication.

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In most cases printing is the most expensive part of publishing, so it is important to design the publication to make the most efficient use of the printing method being used. Since it is much more expensive to print color than black-and-white, the first question is simple:

• Is color really necessary for your publication? To save on printing and prepress costs, perhaps you could print the cover in color and the interior in black-and-white.
• Which local printers have the proper equipment and experience to print this publication?
• What types of paper and trim sizes can your printer print economically and efficiently? Be sure to determine this before you begin design.
• Can your printer secure the paper your publication requires? Coated or uncoated paper? Acid-free? Newsprint? Good quality newsprint?
• Can your printer bind the book properly? Glued, stapled, sewn, or case binding?
• Can your printer print both four-color and black-and-white?
• Does your printer normally print to the level of quality your publication requires? If not, either find a higher quality printer or design your publication to a lower quality.
• How long will it take your printer to produce the publication? Will this suit your schedule?

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Start by becoming completely familiar with the content of your publication.

• Read the text carefully to make sure it satisfactorily covers the topics.
• Try to have every text element carefully reviewed by a competent editor.
• To avoid difficult, inefficient, and expensive corrections later on, make all revisions to the manuscript before you start the page layout.

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Quickly sketch out simple organizational schemes on paper. Try to think of your publication as one whole object rather than a series of pages.

• For books, plan your interior pages first, and design the cover later.
• Consider the basic elements: title page, contents page, opening page of a chapter, typical text pages, typical back matter pages (bibliography, index, etc.), and any other sections with a character of their own.
• Be sure to design the emphasis so that the reader will be drawn to the most important area of the publication; for example, in a newspaper the front page is the most important for sales purposes, and the top half of the front page has particular impact. Next come the interior pages, where you will need to determine all the different elements to be included in your layouts.
• Create quick “thumbnail” sketches (small, rough drawings) to help you create a picture of the final result in your own mind. Remember to keep thinking of the publication as a whole product, not just lots of related pieces. This is very important in creating a cohesive design.
• Create a simple grid with well-proportioned column widths, gutter margins, and starting points for repeating elements.
• As you create your publication using a computer layout program, keep all the elements as simple as possible. For initial layout purposes, you simply want to determine what size page you need and how many pages the manuscript and illustrations will require. For the “dummy” or rough design layout, you want to first place the elements (manuscript and illustrations). Then go back and “style,” or add the graphic elements to, the publication.
• It is a good idea to work hard on some sample pages at this stage. Is the typeface clean, simple, and easy to read? Print out several different samples of typeface, size, and leading and review them carefully. Pick the best one and use that as the style for all your text.
• Print your dummy on a laser printer. Fold it, and tape it together.
• Have an editor (or some other objective reader) review the dummy to make sure the text and illustrations are in place, captions are placed correctly, headlines are styled correctly, and page numbers and running feet have been correctly added. (A word of caution: the more a designer works on a publication, the easier it is to overlook mistakes. A good procedure is to have all the layouts proofed several times by different proofreaders before the publication goes to the printer. This helps avoid errors that are expensive to correct in printer’s proofs and impossible after the publication has printed.)
• Next, take your dummy to the printer and have him review it for potential production problems. At this stage, they should be able to give you a firm quotation of cost, schedule, and materials, in writing, for your review and approval.
• Review your dummy carefully and mark it up with ideas for improving the layout, size of illustrations, position of elements, and graphic look. Then make the revisions to the page layouts on the computer.
• Have an editor check the designer’s work carefully to make sure no new typographic mistakes have been added while fixing earlier problems. A “fresh” set of eyes can often find mistakes that the designer is blind to.
• Print your layouts, tape them together, and again review the entire publication for editorial and design consistency.
• For books, design the cover after you are have established the interior design. This way, it is easier to create a cover that illustrates the focus of the book and supports the design of the interior pages.
• When you are happy with all the details of your book, print out one final proof and take the electronic files and original photographic materials to the printer for prepress preparation. You should review these proofs with the printer to make sure he understands what you expect the final publication to look like.
• The printer will take your materials and work with them to create page proofs for your review. Again, you and a careful editor should review these proofs thoroughly. This is your last opportunity to correct problems before printing.
• If possible, go to the print shop and oversee the printing. This will allow you to make sure the print quality is up to your standards and to confirm that any last-minute changes and corrections are on the press plates.
• If you do go on press, check the press pages very carefully. This is your very last chance to correct errors—whether your own or the printer’s—before the book is bound and distributed. Check that the density of the printed type is consistent throughout the publication. You don’t want light type on page 24 and heavy type on page 25.
• Confirm with the printer that the binding is the type specified and the shipping cartons and wrapping materials are dry and are heavy enough to protect the books during storage and shipment. Also verify that the printer has printed the correct quantity.
• Finally, celebrate with the printer, author, editor, and any other people involved in the project for a job well done.

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The purpose of type is to be read, so keep it simple, clean, and easy to read. Don’t irritate your readers eyes by using a typeface that is too decorative, an especially important consideration for text type. Be wary of overdesigning. Computers make it easy to use many different fonts, but you should resist that temptation. Some of the most beautiful books ever produced were set using a single typeface. The sophistication derives from the simple beauty of the letter forms and the words themselves, so learn to use a few elegant and functional typefaces well.

You want your publication to be built to very tight and well-thought-out specifications, so begin with a grid that has very simple spacing and positioning rules.

• Margins should be consistent and even.
• Page numbers and running feet should appear in the same place on every page.

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Sometimes you will have more difficulty designing just the cover than you had in designing the entire interior of the book. One reason for this is that the cover must embody the subject, the hard work, and the emotional involvement of the creative team. A buyer may not know anything about the publication and therefore will not share your emotional attachment to it. Thus the cover of the book needs to attract the buyer first to pick it up and then to sell it. Here are some tips:

• The cover is like a poster for the content of the book. Keep it simple.
• You are never going to design a cover that represents all the ideas in the publication, so find a design that makes one point clearly.
• Make sure the title is short, simple, memorable and easy to read from a distance.
• Try several cover options and ask for the opinions of potential customers, booksellers, and librarians. Listen to their suggestions and advice when you make your final decision.

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The best way to become a proficient and critical designer is to use other publications as lesson books. If you examine each element carefully and thoughtfully, you will find valuable lessons in every book you see. When you look at any publication, ask the following questions:

• Does the book feel good?
• Is the type comfortable and pleasant to read?
• Do illustrations add to the meaning of the book?
• Is color really necessary?
• Is the book well printed?
• Is the printing technique appropriate for the purpose of this book?
• If this were your book, what, specifically, would you do differently?

These questions can help you improve your design sense quickly.