Glossary

Alignment– Different ways the text can be arranged such as range left, range right, centered, justified.

Actual PPI– the DPI the image is set up at – eg. 70 dpi

A- format– standard size of a paperback book

Automatic Stock Replenishment– set up between the printers and the warehouse

Baseline– an imaginary line where the majority of the characters in a typeface sit.

B-Format– larger than a-format

Bitmap-A monochrome, opposed to a colour image

Bleed– space outside the book cover, which is cut off and helps prevent any misprinting. Usually 4-5mm

CYMK– Cyan, yellow, magenta, key (black) are the colours used in print

DPI/ PPI– Dots/pixels per inch. 70 dpi is low resolution. 300 dpi is usually used for printing. The size will also reduce the quality as it will decrease the DPI if stretched.

Dot Count– counting the dots per inch/ pixels

Drop caps– the beginning letter(s) of a paragraph that proceed more than one line

Glyphs– extra characters in the typography

Gutter– the width in the middle of the double page spread

Effective PPI- the DPI of the image relating to how it is used in the document. e.g. enlarging the image will reduce the dpi, which means it is not always good enough quality to print from

Endpapers– front and end papers of a book

En-dash– used to denote a time span or distance eg. 10–2pm or 15–21 March or Manchester – Preston

Em-dash– usually used to denote a break in a sentence

Folio- page numbers

Half title page- usually just the title at the beginning of the book

Hyphen- used to connect two words together eg. mother-in-law

Justified text- the text falls flush with both margins, also known as fully justified. Text can also be centered where it is aligned to neither the left nor right margin and left and right justify are also available options.

Kerning- refers to the horizontal space between individual letters

Leading– the space between lines of text, also measured in points. For example
10 point Arial on 12 point leading would be written as: 10/12pt Arial

Ligature– two or more letters tied together into a single letter

Line length– the number of words per line on a page. It is  recommended that the maximum words per line is 12 or 13.

RGB- Red, green and blue, the three colours that make up images on screen

Recto-right-hand of page of double page spread

Rights Managed (RM) – this means that an image can be licensed
on an exclusive contract if you do not want anyone else to use it and
usually for a specified use rather than as many times as you like.
It’s usually for an agreed time period. Images can cost more
because of this.

Royalty Free (RF) – this is a cheaper option as anyone else can use the
image at the same time. It means you can use it as many times as you
like on different things, like a website and in print at the same time.

Running Heads- headings at the top of the pages, usually the title page and the chapter name or number

Orphan- a single word, part of a word or very short line, that appears at the beginning of a column or a page

Margin- the border of the document, text is usually placed inside of the margin

Microstock (MS) – this is for images sourced by libraries from the
internet taken mainly by ameteurs and found on sites like Flickr.Bleed

Pantone colours– spot colours used for printing. These can be added when printing by using a specific tin of paint on a 4 coloured printing press. This is usually required for vibrant or unusual colours.

Paste- up– when an illustrator does the roughs for designer so that they can begin to layout the book

Points– the unit of measurement for type, usually written as __pt

Sans Serif– a font without serifs

Serif– a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter in certain typefaces

Slug– the space outside of the bleed

Strapline- a heading or caption, usually seen on the front or back cover of a book

Swatches- the sample of a collection of colours

TPS– trim page size

Tracking– the average space between characters in a block of text, sometimes referred to
as letter-spacing

Turnaround– extra space allocated when designing a jacket cover that allows for jacket to fit around the board of the cover

Verso– Left-hand of page of double page spread

Weight– typefaces come in different weights, these are usually describedas regular, italic, bold, bold italic, condensed, ultra etc.

Wetproof– a proof copy of the book, exactly how it will be finally printed

Widow– a short line of text, usually one word alone that appears at the end of a paragraph.

Wrap around/ dust jacket– an extra cover which wraps around the book

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Q and A with David Drummond

David Drummond is an esteemed book designer, with a modernist approach. He now resides in Quebec, Canada and has a degree in Gaphic design. His career took off in 1995 when his sister recommended him to produce the cover of her scholarly book, which was due to be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

In 2002, he became the founder of Salamander Hill Design. The business produces posters, book covers, promotional materials, magazine illustration, packaging and identity development and has featured in many magazines. David’s work has received awards from AIGA, Communication Arts Magazine and Print Magazine.

source

PROCESS AND PERCEPTION
David Drummond sees a project as solving a visual problem and the trick is to find a new way of expressing the idea. He mainly take photos and produces illustrations to create his designs, which he then manipulates in Photoshop, this is as he feels he then has more control over the finished product. He also uses a limited number of fonts on his covers, but spends time experimenting with the layout. He then keeps ‘hacking away’ at the design until he arrives at something he is happy with. Sometimes, ideas are disposed of, but other times he comes back to them early in the morning, during the ‘farmers hours’, as he calls it.

He often receives briefs which state they couldn’t think of an image, but they think that his conceptual approach would be perfect for the book. This puts pressure on him to achieve but it makes him work hard as he knows they want to be surprised by the solution. He states that ‘I really do think the creative faculty is like a muscle that you have to keep flexing.’

PUBLISHERS
He works with a range of clients and their requirements vary. He has worked with around 40 publishers and self-publishers and around ten of those offer regular work. He usually begins by presenting them with one concept, around 70 percent of these are successful and finds an alternative solution for ones which are rejected. Some publishers request multiple concepts and he states which he recommends, but he isn’t there to make a case for the ones he believes in, instead he has to let the committee decide. He explains in an interview with Caustic Cover Critic that ‘A really strong direction could be killed because someone doesn’t like orange.’ and highlights that he doesn’t really consider them as a cover unless they are printed.

WHO HAS HE WORKED FOR?
Many university presses including McGill-Queen’s University Press, University of Chicago Press Columbia University Press, and others such as Véhicule Press, Acumen Publishing, Polity, Les Éditions XYZ, to name a few. Also produced work for self- published authors and magazines.

IMPORTANT LINKS
David thinks the story has a big impact when he is creating his covers. It allows him to find the right visuals that link up to the text, and the cover should be smart if it is to be successful. Titles can also be important, he likes working on covers that have a title that presents the subject in a new way as it helps with the imagination. He has also created series book covers before such as the Parker novels. For this he finds an original way to tie all the books together. Originally, he wanted to commission illustrations for the Parker series but because of budget constraints he had to illustrate them himself.

David Drummond: ‘Doing this type of work is a perfect fit for me and I hope to continue doing it for as long as it lasts.’ (Dan, 2011)

QUESTIONS

How much information are you usually given by a publisher to create a cover?

I can get as much information as I need really. I work with so many publishers that it really varies. Sometimes I will have a conference call with editor and author. Sometimes it is just a really good brief. When I have time I will read as much of the manuscript as possible. That is usually more often the case for fiction covers. If my first sketches don’t hit the mark they are still really useful because they get the conversation going about what works and what doesn’t.

How much does this influence your work?

Completely. I will dig and dig until I find the right hook that will best encapsulate the book. I use the brief or conversation with the publisher to present the cover as a visual problem that has to be solved. Something will twig and get the process going.

Do the specifications ever limit you on want to create?

Not at all. The challenge is to use the specifications to frame the visual problem that has to be solved.

How many concepts will a publisher ask you to produce?

Varies really. Some publishers they really have to have 3 up front.  For other clients if I really get a strong direction I tend to present only that one up front and then take it from there. I am a really believer in going to bat for a concept if you really believe in it.

What is the process you normally undergo to create these designs?

Once I have the problem in mind I kind of bombard myself with random visual images to see if that sparks something. If not I put it aside and let it percolate for a while.

What types of books do you most like to work on?

Love working on poetry and fiction covers. I do a lot of scholarly covers. Those are always a challenge.

Do you have a favourite cover and why?

This one is a recent one that I really like. Perfect title and subtitle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Drummond, David. David Drummond Work, (Online), Available at: http://daviddrummond.blogspot.co.uk/ [Accessed 2nd February 2016]
Caustic Cover Critic: An Interview with David Drummond , One mans’s endless ranting about book design, November 2008, (Online), Available at: http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/interview-with-david-drummond.html [Accessed 2nd February 2016]
Crow’s VowAF , 10+2 Qs for David Drummond, The Book Stylist, June 2013, (Online), Available at: https://thebookstylist.wordpress.com/tag/david-drummond/ [Accessed 2nd February 2016]
Dan. (2011), Q & A with David Drummond, The Casual Optimist: Books, Design and Culture, March 2011, (Online), Available at: http://www.casualoptimist.com/blog/2011/03/01/q-a-with-david-drummond-salamander-hill-design/ [Accessed 2nd February 2016]
Friedlander, Joel. (2015), e-Book Cover Design Awards, June 2015, The Book Designer, July 2015, (Online), Available at: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2015/07/e-book-cover-design-awards-june-2015 [Accessed 7th February 2016]
Salamander Hill Design, About, Salamander Hill Design, (Online), Available at: http://www.salamanderhill.com/about.html [Accessed 2nd February 2016]

Guest Speaker- Introduction to Publishing

It was beneficial to hear to what she had to say, especially as the publisher also prints magazines with gifts, mugs and toys. She begun by saying that safety and sustainability were the two most important things. They have to make sure they print on sustainable resources as they are socially and ethically responsible. I was glad to know that’s it’s something publisher’s consider. They are have to check the substances they put in their books, such as the ink and the glue, to make use its safe, especially when considering board books which have a ‘play value’. This is not something I had really thought about before, I just assumed they were printed and shipped back to the UK to be sold but it’s reassuring to hear that they safety test all of their books.

Although they are one of the biggest specialised children’s book publishers in the UK, they don’t focus on new media products… This is because they have done their research. Apparently, a better bond is created when a parent reads to and with a child that on a digital platform.

Anna also discussed the different finishes that can be printed onto a book, and the ways in which they create a different effect depending on how these are layered. For example, Black ink must go on last, if you put orange over to top, that will go green! This had happened to one of the books she showed us. She also passed around some others and described problems that they have encountered. One was that the printer no longer did that type of ink so there was a slight colour change in the re-print. It was interesting to learn what mistakes happen and how these are rectified, by talking to management, informing the client, and discussing with printers.

As technology advances, we were informed that now an automatic stock replenishment can now be set up between the printer and the warehouse. This is so that if a certain book goes below a certain threshold, it will be re-printed automatically until they are otherwise informed, which means less hassle for the editors, which is great news!

Setting up guides for different finishes

First of all we though some assignment details of how to print the files. We then shown how to set up foil, spot uv and embossing guides for an image on InDesign. This was useful to know, even in case I decide to add any finishes on my cover design.

We were informed that you you need to make sure the finishes layer is on a separate page when creating a PDF, which can be done by turning off the other layers. The guide is a solid black area on a separate layer that is exactly the same shape as the image underneath it and the visibility of this layer needs to be turned off when saving save as bitmap and tif. It seemed fairly straight-forward to do, I will just have to practice this a bit.

Genre of the Week- Classic and Series

For this week’s genre, I chose a book from the Penguin Classics collection. This is because they are renowned for the classics. The titles usually feature an image on a black background, and the title underneath the white strip which reads ‘Penguin Classics’.

As this title is The Koran, the interior layout varies slightly to a fiction book as it has all of the numbers in the left-hand margin. The back of the book is consistent with the front of the book as it has the same colour scheme and the white strip running along the bottom which frames and separates the rest of the information well.

This has been gloss laminated and is a a-format book size.

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Genre of the Week- Historical

The Boy from Treacle Bumstead is an historical memoir set in the 1930’s+. I haven’t really read much historical fiction but the cover of this book stood out to me. I was fond of the blue, scrolled title embossed above the black and while photo of a young boy. It is also framed with a stained effect, giving the reader the illusion that it is old. The interior layout resembles a general fiction book, witht the chapter title and drop caps.

The cover has been printed with matte lamination and was published by Simon and Shuster in 2013, b-format.

Marketing Materials?

I really enjoy all of the creative things Becky shows us, even one’s that aren’t directly related to publishing as it is good to see how other businesses promote their work. For example, this week she showed us images of some chip forks boxed in a three-dimensional trawle by a fishing company called Atlantika (right).

We were shown different marketing materials created from publishers such as Palgrave Macmillan Education and Random House Children’s Publishers. They resembeled the book in some way, whether it was colour scheme or the imagry . We were the given a breif from Palgrave to create a marketing advert, using a specific swatch and icons etc., for a big title from the politics list. My design is below, I decided to keep in simple and well-organised. I also looked at Palgrave’s tumblr page for ideas.  I begun by adding a background that made the book stand out and then added the rest of the text. I changed the colour and weight of the text until I was happy with it and organised the text in the order I thought seemed most appropriate.

Genre of the Week- Art books

I love this book, it’s so pretty! It was given to me after I finished my internship at a craft magazine publishers.

The book has a wrap around over the paperback and has been printed on a textured paper, which resembles a wood-like texture. The centre is also cut out so that the fox on the front cover can be seen on the front.

The front and back covers are photographs of the artwork you can make in the book and the materials that are required.

There are lots of coloured images and illustrations on the spreads and little keys on folio. There are also step-by-step illustrations which make the text easier to follow.

This book is square in shape and published by Collins and brown in 2013.

Genre of the Week- Health

This week I chose Simply pilates. Its cover is simple and clear and it has a glossy finish, which is what you would expect from a health book. There is also an accompanying CD in inside cover of the book for those who want to follow along with the exercises. The paper inside is good quality and slightly glossy, with coloured photos and drop caps for the beginning paragraphs.It is also set up in two columns so that the text is easy to read.

This is slightly bigger than a-format and was published by Hinkler books in 2007.

Files for Print

This week we learnt how to prepare files for printing, which will come in useful for my assignments. To start off with we went through how swatches can be added to Photoshop and InDesign. You are able to get a swatches palette from illustrator, or color.adobe. Note: any extra colours need to be set up as a spot colour. 

Colour can also be added to grayscale images. For this we used an image of Shakespeare and changed him into a bitmap image, increasing the resolution to 1200 dpi and then added colour. Endpapers are sometimes set up this way to reduce the costs as it just needs to be printed in one colour.

We also performed a Preflight check on InDesign which is a tool that points out any issues in the document, such as any RGB colour (as it should be CYMK), missing links and the DPI of images. When this is exported into a PDF, press quality needs to selected.

When everything is completed and ready to print it is important to make sure you have in writing that job is signed off and that no further amendments need to be made.