The World's Greatest Book

This arti­cle explores page lay­out strate­gies for books based on the Rule of Thirds. A grid sys­tem based on tra­di­tional guide­lines ensures har­mo­nious pro­por­tions and place­ment of objects on a page.

Page lay­out for books is gov­erned by a range of fac­tors. Trade pub­lish­ers ship­ping 30,000 copies of a title real­ize sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings by using smaller type, tighter lead­ing (line spac­ing), and nar­rower mar­gins. For them, aes­thetic sac­ri­fices are smart busi­ness. But indie pub­lish­ers print­ing short runs are free from the busi­ness real­i­ties of mass pro­duc­tion (POD pub­lish­ers often order sin­gle books made to order). Classic page lay­out strate­gies offer an easy way for the small pub­lisher to gain an aes­thetic edge over the trade.

I dis­cuss page lay­out in-depth in an ear­lier post, and Wikipedia’s Canons of Page Construction is an excel­lent resource, but though these arti­cles present lay­outs based on page divi­sions of 1/9, read­ers are left won­der­ing, why not 15ths or 8ths? Where did the idea of divid­ing a page into a 9x9 grid come from? The answer is found in a clas­sic for­mula: the rule of thirds. Continue read­ing →

Page lay­out pro­grams like Adobe Indesign and Quark, allow typog­ra­phers to exert fine con­trol over jus­ti­fied text to remove gaps and “rivers.” The default set­tings pro­duce “pretty good” results—better than a word processor—but a few small tweaks will dra­mat­i­cally improve the spac­ing of your text. This arti­cle explains how to bal­ance hyphen­ation set­tings with word spac­ing, let­ter spac­ing, and glyph scal­ing to opti­mize the appear­ance of jus­ti­fied text.

My last “Book Design Basics” post dis­cussed the impor­tance of hyphen­ation set­tings. These should be adjusted to suit the line width and the pur­pose of the text. A long legal dis­claimer in small print in a nar­row box can often be set with­out regard to how many hyphens are required to pro­duce con­sis­tent spac­ing. Body text is likely to be a com­pro­mise based mostly on one group of set­tings. A short blurb on the back of a book cover should be poked and prod­ded until spac­ing and hyphen­ation are ideal. This arti­cle explains how to com­bine hyphen­ation and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion set­tings to achieve opti­mal results.

Disclosure: If you’re read­ing this arti­cle, you’re prob­a­bly work­ing on your own next book and don’t care about mine (sell­ing books to writ­ers is like sell­ing boxed lunches at a chef’s con­ven­tion). At the risk of appear­ing self-promotional, I’m using the blurb from my new book’s back cover as the exam­ple text. It offers a per­fect, real-world, one-paragraph exam­ple of how adjust­ing hyphen­ation and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion set­tings can turn so-so text into a har­mo­niously spaced, easy-to-read mes­sage, but if you feel I’m “slip­ping an ad into your drink,” you can bail out here.

Still with me? Good. Let’s look at the text in its “pure” left-aligned form:

The spac­ing is ideal for the font (Adobe Garamond Pro) as it’s unaf­fected by jus­ti­fi­ca­tion set­tings; the spac­ing you see is the spac­ing designed into the type­face. Many peo­ple pre­fer left-aligned (ragged right) text for this rea­son, but oth­ers pre­fer jus­ti­fied text because of the neat, tidy way it fills its box. Continue read­ing →