Book design is the arrangement and shaping of text and image content within the parameters of a front and back cover…it is the shaping of content; it is the bridge between the original manuscript and the end user…A printed book is…the culmination of a group effort, between author, publishes, editor, designer and printer at least; often other specialists are also involved to realise the book.
Book Design: Principles and Process Course Book p16
Books are more than pages, board, glue and thread – they are artefacts of the human spirit and hand.
Jason Thompson, Playing with Books
Book: A portable container consisting of a series of printed and bound pages that preserves, announces, expounds, and transmits knowledge to a literate readership across time and space
Andrew Haslam, Book Design
The Anatomy of a Book
The language and terminology we use in book design today stems from early Egyptian books.
- Images and vertical text were hand-drawn onto palm leaves, then later onto papyrus scrolls.
- Papyrus was made from the pith of the papyrus plant and was rather like thick paper. It was used throughout the ancient world until the development of parchment.
- Parchment was a superior material to papyrus. Made from dried, treated animal skin, parchment could be written on on both sides and was more pliable than papyrus, which meant that it could be folded.
- Folding a large parchment sheet in half created two folios – a word we still use today to number pages. Folding the sheet in half again created a quarto (4to) and folding that in half again made eight pages – an octavo (8vo).The development of parchment created a break with the scroll form. Folded pages were now piled together and bound along one edge to create a codex, a manuscript text bound in book form.
Paper, invented in China, spread through the Islamic world to reach medieval Europe in the 13th century, where the first paper mills were built. See ‘Paper’ full post.
Flatpan
A flatplan is an overall guide to the editorial structure of the book that is adapted by the designer and editor together. It maps the book’s extent (number of pages), main elements and where colour and images can be used:
- front matter (or ‘prelims’): the frontispiece – usually a recto (righthand page) showing the author’s name, title, name of publisher and perhaps an image. Other material contained in the front matter includes the title page and contents page. |Note: it does not include details of the cover.
- body of the book: where important features such as chapter openers will be positioned – these usually fall on a recto page, or across a double-page spread.
- end matter: notes and references, bibliography, glossary, appendices and index.
Book Genres
Books may be of many types. It is possible to have books without writing, using only images and pictures. This includes for example artists books, photo-books and children’s books. With the rise of e-books the portable container can now be of many types including mobile phones. In parallel to this is a continued interest in hand-made books and altered books that are an art object.
The nature of the design depends on the purpose of the book and its intended audience. A book functions on an intimate scale, encouraging engagement and absorption in its pages. The purpose should affect all elements of the book – whether the pages are large or small, landscape, portrait or square, the choice of typeface and images, the type of binding and other aesthetic qualities such as ‘feel’. For example, is it hand-held – a small paperback that you can tuck into your back pocket, or a larger board book suitable for young readers or to be read aloud as a group.
Many of the design concerns however remain the same – the aim being to communicate text and/or image-based – the skill remains in organising and arranging content, so that it is presented in a pleasing and coherent way which makes it easy for the reader to assimilate. And choosing the appropriate materials and process for the audience. These may however differ significantly between cultures, and different audiences and age groups will have different associations with different types and arrangement of content, and different materials and forms of book.
Book design is influenced by many art and design sources that are incorporated, consciously or unconsciously, into the visual ideas of contemporary designers. Influential movements such as Arts and Crafts, Futurism, Dadaism, Constructivism, Modernism and Postmodernism which have developed distinctive approaches to book design as well as art and graphic design.