TG2ED — Loanne Le

Book design proposal

Editorial design | Typography

I worked on a challenging book design and layout proposal, in which I handled an academic text with huge amounts of footnotes and captions. To push myself further I chose a square layout, which presented its challenges in terms of creating a grid which would work for text, image, footnotes and captions

I tried two different concepts for book covers: the first a ‘word search’ concept, as I enjoyed the fact it made full use of the letters in a typeface. I chose a mono spaced font – Dico mono slab – to develop an even grid.

Upon reflection that the cover should reflect the content of the book through the cover – particularly the fact that the book is a collection of essays by different authors, I then came up with the idea of using multiple typefaces to represent the different authors in the book

I also developed a second cover featuring two large ornamented characters, which took full focus of the cover. For a book about typography, this cover took advantage of classic, detailed typefaces. I added anatomy annotations to the characters as well, to create visual interest. I decided not to go with this cover as it didn’t reflect the content as well as the first concept.

At first, I tried an eight column grid to allow four columns for body text and four for images. The problem with this layout was that I started ignoring the grid as sizing the image down to fit into two columns would lose the details.

I then settled in a six column grid as it allowed for better resizing for small images, taking up two, three or six columns depending on the image size.

Page layout using 8 columns

Page layout using 6 columns

I also wanted my chapter openings to feature one of the typefaces from the cover to link the text pages to the cover, as well as linking it to the chapter subject. I tried using extreme sizes of text, however felt the extremity gave the feel of a magazine or annual somewhat, losing the elegance of a text page.

I therefore sized it down, changing the colour to the same red as used on the cover, to give a high contrast and let the figure stand alone as a feature on the page. The typeface correspond to the chapter content, such that chapter 1 used Oh No Fatface to refer to wood lettering, and chapter 2 used Albiona heavy stencil to refer to stencil dies, to give further hints as to the subject of the chapter.

Chapter opener with large number

Chapter opener with smaller resized chapter number

I printed and bound the book using perfect binding, creating a belly band for the book cover title as inspired by books such as Carneval by Harry Eastwood. I took special care when trimming the sides of the book to produce an even feel when flipping through the book.

Reflecting on the project as a whole, the hardest challenges were:

Making footnotes appear under the same column of text
Making figures appear on the page as they were mentioned
Ensuring consistency in the use of text columns for my book

My answers to these were:

Sometimes isn’t possible as footnotes are too long to appear on a certain page – have them appear on the next page/in next column
Have them appear on the page after/have several pages dedicated to figures
Try to vary the use of text columns throughout the book to create a pattern of reading

Although the square format posed a challenge at first, I didn’t feel this was an issue as I’d only ever explored the square format, therefore I’d always been working with this format anyway.