Book Design

by Andrew Haslam

From award-winning writer and designer Andrew Haslam comes the final word on book design. This authoritative text guides readers through establishing formats, constructing grids, choosing typefaces, designing a jacket, and, finally, preparing materials for the printer, with more than 300 illustrations to demonstrate every aspect of the process. Interviews with professional book designers provide valuable insight, and an extensive glossary of editorial, design, and production terms make a handy reference for the burgeoning new designer.

Book Design is one of three titles this spring from Abrams Studio, our new imprint dedicated to providing artists and designers with innovative, affordable books to help them improve their skills.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Reference, Art, How To, Art Design, Books About Books

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2006

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have recently become interested in book design, mostly for self-publishing purposes. So I've been learning a lot about the arcane arts of typography and font selection and terms like "ligature" and "folio" and "optical alignment." Most of my work has been digital, learning to use modern software like Sigil and Affinity Publisher (a much cheaper alternative to Adobe InDesign). I have learned, for example, that I can design better ebooks than a lot of professional ebook designers, and I'm even pretty good at laying out print versions.

This weighty book, which showcases enough designs to be an artful design work in itself, is more of a textbook than a how-to guide. It covers every aspect of the bookmaking process, and the history of printing. A lot of it is interesting, if out of date, and the sheer variety and attention to detail that goes into everything from font design to line spacing to paper selection to binding will probably exhaust anyone but a professional printer. This is a dense and comprehensive tome. There are chapters about color separation and grids and visual presentation and people who are reviving old school binding techniques. There are also a lot of references to the then-new (this book was published in 2006) field of digital typesetting and layout. Mostly talking about QuarkXPress, which I guess still exists, but most professionals nowadays use InDesign. A lot of the "challenges" of digital layout and typography are now done automatically by modern software. And of course, this book was published before ebooks were really a thing, so no mention of them at all.

This is a nice book to have on your shelf to appreciate the art of printing and book design, but it's more of a reference and coffee table book than an instruction manual.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Design is exactly what I thought it would be, a text book on designing books. As a visual learner, I did find the many colored images and diagrams to be helpful to me in understanding concepts introduced in the book. It covers not just book design and layouts, but delves into paper quality and sizing, as well as binding and printing. There wasn't anything super fantastic about the book, it was practical in the extreme and performed its intended function. I will be keeping this as a reference text, as it is easy to navigate.

[KR · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found some information in this book to be helpful, but it wasn't the best design book I've encountered. It does give a good basic intro and cover a variety of areas.

[RW Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've worked in publishing as a designer for more than 8 years, and this is the book I have gone back to more than any other. A fantastic amount of information about book design.

[Davi Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realmente muito completo horizontalmente, abordando todo o processo de produção do livro do texto original à encadernação.

No entanto, perde aprofundamento em alguns dos temas intermediários, como a tipografia. Ele prefere apresentar superficialmente múltiplas abordagens sobre todos os temas a escolher algumas e analisá-las criticamente, e acaba ignorando pontos importantes nesse processo, como versaletes, que só são abordados brevemente num anexo.

Parte do conteúdo também já começa a ficar datada, apesar de sua publicação há menos de 20 anos. Julgo que, em parte, por essa ausência crítica e exclusividade informativa.

Enfim, vai ser útil pro TCC, mas não me apaixonou.

[H James · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has so many design problems that it’s almost worth picking up as a visual comedy of errors. Diagrams are frequently nonsensical or indicate the opposite of what the paired caption states; multiple headers are found at the bottom of the pages preceding their intended locations; spacing between sentences is somehow smaller than word spaces within sentences (an error so odd that it would take special effort to reproduce); and the print quality is so poor that transfer of ink between facing pages makes some passages challenging to read.

Widespread failures of fact checking (no, Gutenberg didn’t print a 38‑line bible) and editing (is the statement “bound but unprinted books have symmetrical formats” misprinted, nonsensical, or a totally byzantine way of saying that all pages in a book are usually all the same size?) are merely frustrating rather than comical, so I’ll simply issue a general do‑not‑approach warning.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the making of books, there is no end. That was written in a book more than two thousand years ago, and the trend continues to accelerate. But how are books made? At some point the avid reader morphs into a book lover and becomes aware that there are different responses not only to the meaning of the words on the page (or screen) but also to how they are placed there and packaged. With the growing appreciation of the book as an object comes a commensurate curiosity about why one book, as an object, seems more right. This book offers an excellent, well-illustrated overview of the steps in book production and the decisions that a good designer makes. Fittingly, the book is a prime example of design that is both innovative and clean.

[Jiaying · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tbh, I haven't really read the contents in-depth it's more of a brief glance of what the book is about. I might borrow this book again in the future! It has been an enriching book thus far knowing the different stakeholders involved in the making of any books. I also like the chapter on devising your own design palette when it comes to the contents or elements you wish to include in the book. It also covers a few general workflows depending on the project's aim and intention.

I'd say so far it has been helpful for me as a budding designer myself. Many a times when we are just starting, things tend to get messy. But amidst the mess, we also find a way to discover our own kind of workflow.

[Elijah]

Reading this is like listening to a very long episode of 99% Invisible about how a book is conceived, designed, and printed. I'll never look a book the same way again. Granted, this is very much in the vein of my favorite genre - "someone who is good at something explains in great detail how they do that thing." It just happens to be about an object a interact with more than just about any other object - books. Incredible text.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

my work...

[Leighwoosey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive, though perhaps a little self congratulatory, introduction. A useful reference.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Practical and useful overview. Will be a go-to reference.