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Category Archives: Graphic Design

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Publishing Advice – Practices & Principles

The World's Greatest Book Posted on February 3, 2016 by Dave BrickerFebruary 19, 2016

publishing-adviceThe following publishing advice is based on my own experiences and those of my clients. I hope you find it valuable and encouraging, even if it changes your expectations.

I’ve written and published 6 books, and I’m working on my seventh. I’ve guided many remarkable people through the process of telling their remarkable stories, and served as editor, typesetter, cover designer, web developer, and marketer. I love writing, publishing, and book design, but the least pleasant part of my work involves delivering “straight talk” that has popped many a shiny bubble. My experiences in publishing have been overwhelmingly positive, but I routinely hear from writers who have made expensive mistakes. Others are frustrated and stuck in the writing process. The good news is that with a bit of research, the right resources, and a few reality checks, problems can be avoided. You probably can’t do it yourself, and you probably can’t do it for free, but you can publish an excellent book and find the process rewarding.

Here are few snippets of writing, book design, and publishing advice:


Of course it sucks; that’s why it’s called a “rough” draft. Keep writing.


Many great books are terrible products. Many terrible books are great products. Write for the marketplace or write because you have something to say, but know where your book lies on the spectrum between art and business. Adjust your expectations accordingly.


Some writers struggle to generate ideas. “What will I write about?” Trying to have an idea is like trying to fall asleep. It doesn’t happen until you stop trying. But once you do fall asleep, a river of ideas flows through your head—characters, settings, conflicts, colors. Sit at your keyboard. Close your eyes. Take a deep, slow breath. Write something—anything. Don’t judge it. Don’t worry if it’s “good.” You don’t have to use it. Hold the pen for God. Just write something. You don’t even have to know consciously what it’s going to be. You may have to try this exercise several times before you “let go enough to flow.”


Given the low profit you make on an individual book and the quantity you have to sell to break even, it’s difficult to justify the costs of editors, typesetters, and cover designers. But given the time, care, contemplation, determination, and love that go into writing a book, it’s as difficult to justify presenting your book in any way that undermines the value and sincerity of the ideas it contains. Excellence is not always practical, but mediocrity contaminates everything it touches.

Continue reading →

Posted in Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Writing | Tagged Dave Bricker

Rethinking Book Cover Design

The World's Greatest Book Posted on January 2, 2016 by Dave BrickerJanuary 5, 2016

thoughts on Book Cover DesignBook cover design tells the story of the story. It must convey the spirit and intentions of the author authentically, and it also has a few practical chores to perform. If a book cover design is to accomplish these things in a world of publishing “climate change,” old approaches must be both embraced and questioned. Books are marketed in ways that authors and publishers could never have imagined only a few short decades ago; a new approach is needed. At the same time, a study of the history of printing and design affords powerful opportunities to communicate in fresh new ways.

The notion that a book will be found in a bookstore, picked up, and perused is sadly obsolete, especially as it relates to indie publishers. If you don’t have a contract with a big publishing house, your book will probably never see a bookstore. It makes no sense to design a new cover to fit an old merchandising model. Consider how prospective readers will be exposed to your book, and what information will be presented in that context. The title, byline, synopsis, reader reviews, author pages, and other data  are part of every book’s online listing. The cover art occupies only a small portion of the page.  And all that data won’t be visible on the tiny, digital cover even if you do pack it into a book cover design.

amazon-listing

It makes sense to rethink cover design. If your book is commercial, the cover should convey its practical value. But if your book is literary art, an artistic, uncluttered cover might convey that as well as any blurb or list of testimonials. As a designer, I find that liberating. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Book Marketing, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography | Tagged Dave Bricker

Book Design Basics: Choosing a Book Font

The World's Greatest Book Posted on December 20, 2015 by Dave BrickerDecember 20, 2015

book font featured imageSelecting a book font seems simple enough, but important subtleties and fine points of typography are not obvious to the average writer. This article offers insights into fonts suitable for book typography. Though it won’t turn the average author into a professional typesetter, it will inform indie publishers about the kind of guidance they should expect to receive from one. And if economic constraints force you to typeset your own book, the information offered here will help you make informed choices.

Book typography is an unusual art. Its success is best measured by the invisibility of the final result. The reader should not notice the type, and the type should not obscure or dilute the author’s intentions. Yet, the reader should be affected by the type. Reading is an aesthetic experience, and book font selection lies at its foundation. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography | Tagged Dave Bricker

Book Design Basics: Quotation Marks and Primes

The World's Greatest Book Posted on October 25, 2015 by Dave BrickerOctober 26, 2015

smart-quotes-preferredWriters often ask about the difference between “straight” or “dumb” quotation marks and traditional printers’ quotes, commonly referred to as “smart quotes” or “curly quotes.” Add in the need to distinguish between left single quotes and apostrophes, and the primes used to specify feet and inches or minutes and seconds and you end up with a typographic conundrum that confounds many a capable author. This article examines the various types of quotes and primes and explains how to use them.

Book Design Basics: Straight or Dumb Quotes

Straight quotes evolved to facilitate informal writing situations. When typing into a discussion forum, twitter feed, or comment box, use your apostrophe and double-quote keys for all the special characters (except the “degrees” symbol.) “Dumb” text editors don’t try to figure out which direction to slant your punctuation. “Dumb” writers don’t have to go to the “insert special characters” dialog box or remember special key sequences for each type of mark.

Consider the various punctuation styles needed to render the following example:

straight quotation marks example

Straight quotes make it quick and easy to express a thought. You don’t have to be a typographer to make yourself understood. In the right situations, “dumb quotes” are a smart idea. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography, Writing | Tagged Dave Bricker

Bad Kerning Awards: Typography and Your Brand

The World's Greatest Book Posted on October 9, 2015 by Dave BrickerOctober 9, 2015

bad-kerning-awardAfter a redesign, the folks at Final Touch should have found a solution. How much money do you think gets invested in branding a product like this? A snappy name might sound good, but type matters. Sometimes the visual message might not convey the intended meaning. Though it’s easy to chuckle over this kerning (letter spacing) faux pas, the consequences of the unintended association caused by the juxtaposition of two simple letters could cost this manufacturer a fortune—even though it might be a superior product. The pink roses don’t help the effect.

What’s impossible to measure is how many consumers who see this product on a store shelf register the unintended meaning subconsciously—like the brilliant arrow in the FedEx logo. So many people have never noticed it, but how many of them have been touched by it nonetheless?

fedex-arrow

Kerning: Touched by What?

Final Touch is a branding nightmare. Unless they change their name and relaunch, they’ll need a skilled typographer to design a logo that’s visually stronger than the magnetic attraction between the F and the I.

final-touch-bottles

Continue reading →

Posted in Graphic Design, Typography | Tagged branding, kerning, typography

Tabs, Indents, and Margins: How to use the Tab Ruler

The World's Greatest Book Posted on November 15, 2014 by Dave BrickerNovember 16, 2014

tabs-iconThis article explains the tab ruler found on every word processor and typesetting application. Understanding the simple and elegant split ruler and tab functions opens up a world of formatting opportunities.

Digital typesetting and word processing inherited a number of outdated conventions from the typewriter. When producing a paragraph indent on a typewriter, it makes no difference whether you hit the tab key or type a few consecutive spaces, but on a word processor, those approaches create problems as your manuscript moves from editing to final page layout. Though the “two spaces after a period” convention was not descended from the typewriter as is popularly thought, consecutive spaces are generally considered bad practice in the digital world. And though a half-inch paragraph indent (along with double line spacing) is perfectly suitable for manuscript work, the typesetter’s convention has long been to use an indent of one em (the width of a letter “m” in the analog world. In the digital world, the convention is to use the point size of the typeface, so if you’re setting 12-point type, your indent would be 12/72-inches or 1/6-inch). And yet, the old habit of repeatedly hammering the space bar to position elements on the page persists—even to a point where centered elements are sometimes left-aligned text preceded by dozens of spaces. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography

Bad Kerning and Signage Awards

The World's Greatest Book Posted on October 8, 2014 by Dave BrickerOctober 8, 2014

bad-kerning-awardIntroducing the Bad Kerning & Signage Awa rds. If written language is a cornerstone of civilization, type abuse constitutes a crime against enlightenment. These blemishes on the cultural landscape disappear all too easily in the sea of flashing messages, electronic billboards, and shop windows—but once you start looking for them, you’ll see them everywhere. Weak letter spacing, tacky font choice, stretched and distorted text, and generally poor craftsmanship pollute our public spaces.

It’s time to protest! I’ll be collecting and posting examples of some of the worst transgressions on this page. Feel free to submit any particularly heinous examples you’d like to share.

kerning1This one wins a Bad Kerning & Signage Awa rd—plus it deserves special honors for exposed wiring, additional irrelevant signage (“EQUAL”) on the electrical box, and for putting that box on top of an attractive cinder block. I almost overlooked the collision in the word “C enter” between the n and the t and the clogged up blob at the top of the r because the spacing after the capital letters was so distracting. The horizontally stretched type on the sign beneath S klu C enter (“We have the THERMAGE”) is the perfect accent.

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Posted in Graphic Design, Typography

Book Cover Design: Moving from Screen to Printing Press

The World's Greatest Book Posted on October 3, 2014 by Dave BrickerOctober 3, 2014

ink-density-article-imgOnce you have your book cover design looking spirited and professional on your computer screen, how can you ensure that your masterpiece will translate accurately to the printing press? Ink on paper is an entirely different medium from pixels on a monitor. Understanding how to adjust your book cover images to your printer’s specifications will make the difference between a cover that sings and a cover that barks. Using the correct color space and controlling ink density are key factors.

I created a sample, low-resolution book cover design for this exercise. The imagery contains saturated colors, photographs, and dark areas that contain subtle details—all potential stumbling blocks for publishers who don’t understand the printing process.

ink_density_cover

Figure 1. Example Cover Design in RGB Mode

I set some body text on my original design so I could visualize my final result, but for purposes of adjusting color, I’ll strip it out. Adobe Photoshop is a remarkable image editor, but it lacks sophisticated typesetting tools. If this was an actual cover, I’d leave the back cover text and the bar code out while I adjusted the images, and then add them later with a page layout program like Adobe Indesign or Quark. Please don’t set body text with Photoshop—ever. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design

Page Layout: Illustrated Books and the Rule of Thirds

The World's Greatest Book Posted on September 27, 2014 by Dave BrickerSeptember 27, 2014

rul-thirds-article-imgThis 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 9×9 grid come from? The answer is found in a classic formula: the rule of thirds.  Continue reading →

Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography

Simulating the Appearance of Traditional Print

The World's Greatest Book Posted on September 19, 2014 by Dave BrickerSeptember 19, 2014

letterpress-text-mainDigital typography offers capabilities that printers working with hot lead type and wood type could only dream of. Digital type can be stretched and resized infinitely, justified within unusual boundaries, or wrapped around almost any shape. And yet, traditional letterpress and wood type specialty shops continue to marry ink and paper. Their work offers a special, organic warmth that digital type lacks. This article explores the differences between digital and traditional type, and suggests techniques for simulating the appearance of traditional print. Though it ultimately fails to reveal a magic formula for turning pixels into authentic printer’s ink, it offers insights into why that goal is so difficult to achieve.

The best source for historical information is old books. Reading about traditional typography is nowhere near as valuable as looking at it. Observe the interaction between ink, paper, and time. I find old design books on eBay that typically cost half of what contemporary books do. My collection goes back to the 1830s. Two of my favorites: The Art & Practice of Typography by Edmund Gress, (1917), and The Manual of Linotype Typography by William Dana Orcutt and Edward Bartlett (1923) are available for online viewing (click their titles in this sentence). These books offer insights into evolving language as much as they do into evolving typography. Above all, they inspire one question: Why doesn’t my type look like that?


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Posted in Book Design, Graphic Design, Self-Publishing, Typography

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