Category: Part 2

Brief

Assignment two provides a creative opportunity to put into practice what you have learnt so far, by exploring the physicality of the book in relation to its function and working through the design process in relation to a set brief.
Your brief
Design the book format and cover artwork for two different versions of Daniel Defoe’s classic 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. The publishers, Viking Press, have decided to re-release this title as a new pocket edition for readers on the move that reflects the adventurous nature of the story within a contemporary setting. This paperback version should have a modern visual feel that can compete with new titles in the bookshop. They also want a deluxe edition for armchair readers and classic book collectors that references the historical nature of the story and its associations. Produce book design ideas and cover artwork to reflect the content of the story across both formats and contexts. Be creative and inventive with both the look and format of these books.
As a side project to accompany the re-release of R obinson Crusoe, Viking Press has also asked you to design a new book called Washed ashore: The ultimate guide to surviving on a desert island by Rik Bennett. This is a ‘how to’ guide that should reflect not only the practical advice it offers, but something of the adventure of being a castaway.
The scale, stock and binding of these publications are up to you. The pocket edition needs to celebrate the functionality of the book as a lightweight, transportable object, and to connect to the story’s travel or survival themes in a contemporary way. The deluxe edition can present the content in a larger, finer, more luxurious, considered or expanded way, that perhaps makes reference to the history of the book itself. Your designs need to be seen as part of a series across both versions, so think about how you adapt your designs to fit each format. The shipwreck guide needs to be seen as a separate genre, piggy-backing on the success of R obinson Crusoe. Develop visual ideas that can distinguish the survival guide from your R obinson Crusoe designs, while at the same time making some thematic connection between them.
Your design should include the front, back, spine and flaps of your covers – if you opt for a traditional book binding. You can also come up with alternative ways of binding, and therefore designing your books if you want to. Generate your own illustrations, photography or artwork for the covers, source copyright free images, or treat the covers purely typographically. This is an opportunity to be creative with both your design thinking and outcomes, so experiment, and test out a range of visual and physical options.
You may want to extend your project by also designing a number of sample pages from the inside of the book. When creating sample pages, try to make a link between the cover design and the design of the inside pages.
Present your ideas by mocking up each of the books and their covers, and by presenting the overall spec of your designs (what paper stock you are using, etc.).
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Title Page and Cover featuring engraving by John Clark and John Pine after design by unknown artist. Wikipedia.

“From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition that it was possible I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world; and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.”
Daniel Defoe, R obinson Crusoe, 1719
Work through the design process, documenting it in your learning log as you go. Use rough drawings, notes, diagrams, mock-ups of your books, photographs of what you’re working on, and by saving different stages of any digital work to show your process. Talk about your creative process through notes and reflections.

Research and ideas

Read the brief, identifying keywords, and do the same for Defoe’s text. You don’t have to read the whole book, but make yourself broadly familiar with the story and identify key themes, motifs and images. The full text of the novel is available here: h ttp://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/521
Identify the research you need to undertake. This could include researching existing versions of this cover, others of the same genre, or seeking inspiration elsewhere. The same goes for your survival guide. This brief requires some lateral thinking, so develop ideas that are unexpected, as well as the obvious. Generate thumbnail sketches to document and explore your creative thinking process. Aim to come up with a range of different ideas from which you can select and test different outcomes.

Present visual outcomes

Develop your initial ideas through making, drawing, collage, photography or whatever other mediums you choose. Be playful and let new ideas emerge through your making process. See this as a project, rather than a linear journey, so you may want to return to earlier stages of the process to develop new lines of visual enquiry or to take creative risks and try new things out.
For the deluxe edition of the book, you may want to access the Bridgeman Library to source copyright free illustrations from previous editions of the book.
Think about how your choice of scale, paper selection, and binding can help support your ideas in visual and tactile ways. If you are unable to source particular materials, then find other ways of visualising or describing your choices.

Lay out the jacket using DTP software and incorporating text and image(s). Design a range of versions of the jacket to choose from. Print the jacket designs and make a mock-up of the jacket onto either an existing book, or find other ways of mocking up the scale of the books. Photograph both versions of the book jackets as your final outcome to the project brief.

Reflection

Reflect on your outcomes but more so on your creative process – what worked for you, and how might you adapt these approaches for future projects?
Just a reminder to think about how well you have done against the assessment criteria and make notes in your learning log.

Analysing the brief

• What have I been asked to design? 1) Robinson Crusoe – Pocket edition 2) Robinson Crusoe – Collector’s Edition 3) How to survival guide
• Who is the target audience? Adventure enthusiasts
• How will it be produced? Paperback and hardcover

Keywords

• 3 books
• Paperback
• Hardcover
• Classic
• Adventurous
• Part of the series
• Modern
• Contemporary
• Including: title, author’s name, publisher’s name and trademark, price, barcode, endpapers

Primary Research

• About Robinson Crusoe
• Previous book covers

Secondary Research

• Inspiration
• Material
• Dimensions

About Robinson Crusoe

The novel Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a young and impulsive Englishman that defies his parents’ wishes and takes to the seas seeking adventure. The young Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked and castaway on a remote tropical island for 28 years. The story may be based on the true-life events of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who survived four years on a Pacific island, or Henry Pitman, a political rebel surgeon castaway from a Caribbean penal colony. This classic tale of adventure features cannibals, captives, and mutineers. Some regard it as the very first modern novel written in the English language, launching the publishing industry.

Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe on April 25, 1719. Its original title must not have fit on the cover: “The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.”

Who is the real Robinson Crusoe?

With any truly great novel, the questions are usually the same. Where did the story come from? What inspired it? Were the characters or plot based on real-life elements? But these tried-and-true questions might mean a little more when asked about Daniel Defoe’s 1719 debut novel Robinson Crusoe, a book literary scholars the world over regard as one of the first realistic fiction novels and one that helped popularize the form we still crave today.

Presented as something of an autobiography of the book’s titular character, the novel details the 30 years Crusoe spent as a castaway on a remote tropical island near what is now Trinidad. Throughout the story, Crusoe encounters cannibals, other captives, and mutineers before finally being rescued right at the novel’s end.

It’s part faux-travelogue, part diary, and part adventure novel, and Defoe’s ability to create vivid, heart-pounding scenes of action, intrigue, and romance paved the way for centuries of aspiring-writers to tell their own stories of adventure and peril.

But where did Robinson Crusoe come from? How did Defoe—who held a number of interesting professions, including a trader, writer, and spy—harness the elements of the story and mold them into this classic English novel?

Theories abound on the origins of the novel and the source material Defoe had at his disposal. Even today, nearly 300 years after its initial publication, academics and scholars still quibble over the search for the real Robinson Crusoe and the story behind the story.

Previous book covers

Elements used in previous book covers:

• People
• Island
• Palm tree
• Sea
• Wreck ship
• Leaves
• Fire
• Stormy night
• foot step
• Gun
• Parrot
• Mostly coloured
• Different typeface

Secondary Research

Standard Book Sizes Info

Here is a list of standard book sizes that are manufactured in the UK. If you produce your book at a standard size then you are ensuring that it is printed in the most cost effective and efficient way. 

However we do not insist that you stick to these sizes and can produce custom sizes.

Please note that if you are measuring a hardback book on your bookshelf then you need to measure the inner book block and not the outside of the case to find out the size that we would need to give you an estimate on.

Book (trim) size – Height x width

• A6: 148 x 105mm
• A Format: 178 x 111mm
• B Format (UK): 198 x 129mm
• B Format (US): 203 x 127mm
• A5: 210 x 148mm
• Demy: 216 x 138mm
• American Royal: 229 x 152mm
• Royal: 234 x 156mm
• Pinched Crown Quarto: up to 248 x 171mm
• Crown Quarto: 246 x 189
• A4: 297 x 210mm

For the pocket size book, I’m going to choose “B Format” and “A4” size for the hardback, collector’s edition. Size for the How-to-book would be “A6”, 105 x 148 mm.

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Materials

Uncoated Types of Paper:

Wide range of use for almost all genres

80 gsm Opaque

This is our most common paper type. It is a plain white, smooth paper, similar to what you would print documents at home on. There is a slight show through but not noticeable unless you have heavy printing to one side.

Good for:

• Non-fiction and poetry books
• Keeping the price of your book low
• Keeping the weight of your book low

100 gsm Opaque

This is the same type of paper as our 80gsm opaque paper but at 100gsm. This will give your book a more premium feel and will have less show through than the 80gsm paper.

Good for:

• Non-fiction and poetry books
• Giving your book a premium feel
• Any books with illustrations, images or any colour artwork

80 gsm Bookwove White

Our bookwove papers are what you would find in most novels. They are not as smooth as the opaque paper types we have and help to ‘bulk’ your book up. The bookwove white paper is actually an off-white paper and will look cream when held next to a pure white opaque paper. Bookwove paper is also available in heavier weights but please contact us if you want to find out more.

Good for:

• All fiction books
• Black and white printing
• ‘Bulking’ up the thickness of your book

80 gsm Bookwove Cream

Our bookwove cream paper type is identical to our bookwove white paper apart from the colour. The bookwove cream paper is still suitable for all types of books but it is most commonly used for novels. Any colour printing on the cream paper will not reproduce very well.

Good for:

• All fiction books especially novels
• ‘Bulking’ up the thickness of your book
• Giving your book a traditional feel

100 gsm Recycled

This paper type is similar to our 100gsm opaque paper but it is not quite as smooth and being recycled paper it is not as white. The recycled paper type is great for making your book feel more premium like the opaque paper type but also with the added impact of being fully recycled.

Good for:

• All fiction and non-fiction
• Giving your book a premium feel
• Eco-conscious

Coated Types of Paper:

Mainly used for books with lots of illustrations or photographs

115gsm Coated – matt / gloss

This is our lightest gsm coated paper which is fantastic for books that have any type of illustrations or photographs. We use this paper type for our mono and colour inserts as plate sections within your book. Because this paper type is a low gsm, it works well if you want a coated paper and your book has a lot of pages, 100+.

Good for:

• All non-fiction genres
• Keeping the weight of the book low
• A premium book at a lower cost

130gsm Coated – matt / gloss

As the paper types get heavier the page count of the books is usually less to keep the weight of the book down. This particular gsm of paper is a good middle ground between a non-fiction book with a lot of pages and a regular photo book. If your book is over 100 pages and you want a coated paper, it may be best to opt for the 115 gsm as your finished book can start getting heavy.

Good for:

• Most non-fiction genres
• Any book with colour or mono illustrations or photographs
• Children’s books

150gsm Coated – matt / gloss

This gsm of paper is a great paper type for photo books or books with a high amount of colour and mono images with under 100 pages. This is a premium paper that will give your book a fantastic feel.

Good for:

• Non-fiction books with lots of illustrations or photographs
• Photobooks
• A Premium book

170gsm Coated – matt / gloss

This is our most premium paper type for the internals of your book. It is a fantastic paper reserved for those special photo books or any book that you want to last. As the paper is a high gsm it is a lot tougher than the previous paper types.

Good for:

• Photobooks
• Any premium book
• Children’s books that need a strong paper

Mind mapping

Thumbnails

Design process

Design 1: Paperback

For the pocket book, I’ve chosen, sun, palm tree and a silhouette of a man. The main colour, I chose first was orange then changed it to green from palm tree leaves. I wanted to have the same colour pallet throughout three designs.

I made the illustration in Procreate and moved it to Photoshop for making final book cover design.

The cover of the paperback novel would be 240gsm with a gloss lamination to give the book some protection. For the paper 80gsm Bond paper seems a good choice to keep the cost down.

Design 2: Hard cover

Again for the second design, I started with Procreate. Then moved it to Photoshop for the final design.

I chose Papyrus condensed for the title as it got a rustic feel. However I changed it Georgia Regular as it was looking more sophisticated to be used in the series.

The original typeface was Savoye LEG for the author’s name and changed to Futura for the consistency throughout the designs.

The typeface that used for the blurb is Roboto Regular.

400gsm board for main book covers, with 120-150gsm uncoated pages. Spine sealed with a material such as a textured paper to create the green spine.

Design 3: How-To-Guide

300gsm cover, uncoated for more durability in ‘survival mode’. 120gsm inner pages, uncoated — paper made from a blend of grass or other plant materials to give the more natural feel. The island icon to be beveled to give a raised touch. Perfect bound due to size and scale.

Mockups

Self – reflection

It was a very challenging assignment as the material needed to be considered as well as designing. It was quite hard to come up with some new ideas as this book is very historical with lots of different book covers over the years.

I probably needed more sketches before choosing my final designs. However, I am happy with the final designs. I think I managed to portray my ideas in the best way that I could.

Overall, I enjoyed working on this assignment. As it helped me to understand about other elements, like materials apart from designing. Looking forward to working on next assignment.

Resources

• American Literature. Robinson Crusoe. At: https://americanliterature.com/author/daniel-defoe/book/robinson-crusoe/summary. (Accessed: 26/04/2022)
• Books Tell You Why. A blog about book. At: https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/who-is-the-real-robinson-crusoe. (Accessed: 26/04/2022)
• Biddles. Book printing. At: https://www.biddles.co.uk/book-printing/book-sizes-info/. (Accessed: 27/04/2022)
• Google images. Robinson Crusoe book covers. At: https://images.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl. (Accessed: 26/04/2022)

Brief

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the
maze.”
Margaret Atwood, T he Handmaid’s Tale, 1985
Following on from the discussion of George Orwell’s novel 1984, look at the covers for Margaret Atwood’s equally dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), in which a woman finds herself surviving inside a harsh American fundamentalist society, that sees women’s roles as subservient cooks, matrons, and mothers. Alternatively, you can pick a different book to respond to, but it needs to be one with more than one cover design, so avoid recently published books.
Are there key conceptual motifs being used over and over again within different cover treatments? Can you identify more expressive versions of the covers? Check the date of each version and try to speculate about the historical, political or social context for each one. (Don’t spend long on this but it’s important to realise that creative design doesn’t happen in a vacuum.)
Using one of the main motifs you have identified (such as the uniforms that feature the book), the title of the book, author’s name, and no more than three colours (including black and white), generate as many different layouts of the cover design as you can. Think about how you can dynamically layer, organise, frame, clash, or balance these elements. Work quickly and come up with lots of different visual possibilities.
This is a similar exercise to the Lightbulb Project in Graphic Design 1, which aims to generate quick design possibilities by arranging your typography, motif and colours in as many, and as varied, ways as possible.

The Handmaid’s Tale

The novel explores themes of subjugated women in a patriarchal society, loss of female agency and individuality, suppression of women’s reproductive rights, and the various means by which women resist and attempt to gain individuality and independence.

This traditional cover design showing some scenes from the book in front of the wall. Not giving enough information about the content. Full colour design gives it an expensive look and feel.

This design has got some decorative illustration. It’s a conceptual design and doesn’t give enough information about the concept of the book.

This cover designed by an Australian designer. The 2 colours makes it like it has been overprinted. The design is minimal and the figures are all the same and showing lack of identity of women in this book.

This illustrative cover for the Penguin Classic range, there are some flowers, which I guess representing the beauty of the handmade. The designer kept the figure and the original colours. “The Wall” can be seen at the background.

This design is based on the TV series. The colour are red, white and black followed by a photograph of the actress.

This design is slightly different from the other designs as the typography is the main focus and not the illustration.

I think the interesting thing about this cover is although it was designed in 2019, it’s got more the older style feeling.

This design is quite touching because of its simplicity and the use of red colour opposites to the black colour. To me I’d the most memorable cover design for this book.

Motifs

• Colours: black, red, white
• A figure of a woman
• Faceless
• The wall

For my designs, I have chosen black, white and red as a background. Instead of using a woman with a hood, I drawn a silhouette of a woman in my Procreate as my main element.

For the typography, I’ve chosen a serif typeface for the title matched with a sans serif typeface for the author’s name. I kept those typefaces throughout my designs to be able to concentrate on the composition and layout.

I used Procreate for making my different layouts of my cover design. I liked couple of them more, however I think they all have something for different audiences.

Self – reflection

It was interesting that by keeping one element, same colour palette and typeface how many different designs with different layouts can be made. I really enjoyed this exercise as it was a way to experiment with different compositions and layouts. I probably could make more of them by changing the typefaces and swapping the colours around.

Resources

• Amazon. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Handmaids-Tale-Contemporary-Classics/dp/0099740915. (Accessed: 15/04/2022).
• Good reads. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38447.The_Handmaid_s_Tale. (Accessed: 14/04/2022).
• Good reads. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/885-the-handmaid-s-tale-book-covers-from-around-the-world. (Accessed: 14/04/2022).
• Litbooks. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://litbooks.com.my/product/the-handmaids-tale-deluxe-edition/. (Accessed: 15/04/2022).
• Maxminervas. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://maxminervas.co.uk/products/9780099511663. (Accessed: 14/04/2022).
• Over drive. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.overdrive.com/media/902863/the-handmaids-tale. (Accessed: 15/04/2022).
• Penguin random house. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600455/the-handmaids-tale-graphic-novel-by-margaret-atwood/. (Accessed: 15/04/2022).
• Rebeccaromney The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://www.rebeccaromney.com/blog/cover-designs-handmaids-tale. (Accessed: 15/04/2022).
• Wikipedia. The Handmaid’s Tale. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale. (Accessed: 14/04/2022).

Brief

Further inform your understanding of paper and bookbinding by reading pages 165–180 of Alan Pipes’ chapter ‘O n Press’ available as a downloadable resource at http://www.oca-student.com/
Collect lots of different paper samples, and assemble these into a standalone book, or integrate them into your sketchbook. See this as the start of an ongoing resource that you can add to, and refer back to. Add notes to your paper sample book/sketchbook identifying the paper source, stock, and any reflection on the paper’s qualities. You may want to extend this investigation by exploring how your paper samples can be folded, combined, stitched, printed on, or bound together. Explore your samples’ physical properties by working with them, testing them out, and visually documenting the results of your research.

After reading pages 165–180 of Alan Pipes’ chapter ‘O n Press’, I’ve decided to order some sample books. So far one of the sample books from ‘solopress’ has arrived.

I really enjoyed looking at different paper weights Having images printed on them make them even more interesting. The information about the uses and the possible finishes are really helpful.

After looking at different types of papers and different kind of possible finishes, I am more interested in the papers used in different books and magazines. Hopefully after ordering and receiving more sample books, my knowledge in this field will help me in my future work.

The kind of stock you choose will be informed by the nature of the job you’re doing. If you were working commercially, then checking paper quality – the weight and finish of the paper – is something you would do with your client, as paper choices can add both quality and cost to a design job. The advent of high quality digital printing in almost every high street has made high finished standards much more achievable and affordable – although you might be amazed at what can be achieved with a photocopier and coloured 80gsm paper!
Knowing what papers are available and their qualities is an important part of what you might offer as a commercial book designer. One way to do this is by requesting sample books from commercial paper merchants, or talking to your local printers, who can give you a swatch of the papers they recommend for you to share with your client and keep for future reference. Another way of doing this is by looking at as many different kinds of books as you can and critically start to gauge the weight, grain and finish of the papers. Do all books keep the same paper choices throughout? What’s the relationship between the covers and the paper inside? Which books do you like the feel of, and why?
Analyse the binding style of the books you’ve collected. How does the book block adhere to the cover? How does it adhere to the spine? Is it stitched or glued? You’ll notice that in case-bound or hardback books, the sections, or signatures, are sewn together and glued to the spine. Paperback books, on the other hand, are more likely to be ’perfect-bound’, where the pages are glued together and then directly onto the covering.

Analysing

Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

The World of Dan and Phil – Dan Howell and Phil Lester

I’ll Be There – Holly Goldberg Sloan

The Very Busy Spider – Eric Carle

One Snowy Night – Nick Butterworth

500, 20 – Minute Recipes

Sources

Bambara. 10 Book Binding Methods You Need To Know. At: https://bambra.com.au/news/10-book-binding-methods-you-need-to-know/ (Accessed 12/02/2022).

Familiarise yourself with the terminology used in describing the anatomy of a book and write some brief notes in your learning log on how the various structural elements could be modified to reflect the book’s function.

According to Andrew Haslam’s book the components of a book are:

• Spine section of a book cover that covers the bound edge
• Headband narrow band of thread tied to the sections that are often coloured to complement the cover binding.
• Hinge fold in endpaper between pastedown and flyleaf
• Head square small protective flange at the top of the book created by the cover and backboards being larger than the book leaves
• Front pastedown endpaper pasted down to the inside of the front board.
• Cover thick paper or board that attaches to and protects the book block.
• Foredge square small protective flange at the foredge of the book created by the cover and back
• Front board cover board at the front of the book
• The tail square small protective flange at the bottom of the book created by the cover and backboards being larger than the book leaves.
• Endpaper leaves of thick paper used to cover the inside of the cover board and support the hinge. The outer leaf is the pastedown or board paper; the turning page is the flyleaf.
• Head top of the book
• Leaves individual bound paper or vellum sheets of two sides or pages recto and verso.
• Back pastedown endpaper pasted down to the inside of the backboard
• Back cover board at the back of the book block.
• Foredge front edge of the book.
• Turn-in paper or cloth edge that is folded from the outside to the inside of the covers.
• Tail bottom of the book
• Flyleaf the turning-page of endpaper
• Foot bottom of the page
• Signature folded sheet of printed paper bound in sequence to form the printed block.
• Book block the main block of pages created when book pages are sewn or glued together before binding.

Elements that can be changed to reflect the book’s function

Cover and spine

The cover of a book can majorly affect people’s perception of the book and also assists in selling the book and its contents. The quality or value of the book will impact on the type cover the book will have, whether it is a hard-cover or paperback. The type of printing can also vary depending on the type of book. Artwork may be printed directly on to the cover of a paperback book whereas hardbacks may be foil-blocked, embossed or have the artwork on a dust-jacket.

Orientation and size

Depending on the books function the orientation may change. The dimensions of the book also depend on its function, if it is meant to be read in hand or on a table.

Headband

The thread could be changed to match or complement the cover.

Leaves

The type and makeup of the pages will depend on the books function. The heavier paper would mainly be used for books that are coffee table books or presentation books that are meant to be thumbed through and are too large or heavy to be held in hand. Paperbacks and novel are usually printed on thinner paper to make them lighter so they can be easily held and transported. Children’s books are often made of thicker paper or board to give them extra strength to protect them from the destructive power of the child.

Binding

How this is bound can change depending on the type of book whether it is stapled, sewn together or glued.

Layout, grids, margins and gutters

These all depend on the type of book. The layout varies depending on the function and so does the grid to an extent. Grids can alter the style of the book directing and leading the reader in the right direction. The margins and gutters also depend on the function of the book. Novels have thicker margins allowing the reader to hold the book without inhibiting the view of the type, whereas coffee table and reference books don’t need such wide margins as they are meant to be left open on a table as opposed to it being held in hand.

Source

Haslam, A. (2006) Book Design. Laurence King Publishing Ltd. At: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_Ri63jEKPfgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false (Accessed 08/02/2022).

Brief

Identify a range of books that have fundamentally different functions in terms of how these books are engaged with – how they’re held, where they’re read, by whom, and for what purpose. Try to look at least six books, but you can extend this if you want to. The differences between these books might be determined by their genres. For example, you might look at a cookery book, a biography of a sports personality, a travel guide, a work of historical fiction, a teenage film tie-in like Twilight, this course guide – the choice is yours.
Think about how each book’s form reflects its function. The front cover is an obvious starting point (and the focus on your upcoming assignment) but try to look more broadly than this. Think about things like page extent, paper quality, typeface, the weight of the book, imagery and more. Is the book illustrated with photographs, reproduced images or drawings? Are these concentrated in one or two places or distributed throughout the book?
What about front matter and end matter? Historical novels like Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall may have family trees and/or a list of characters as part of the front matter. A scholarly biography will usually have many pages of end-notes and references.
Reflect on this in your learning log, with examples of some of the books you’ve selected. Identify how each book designer has reflected the genre and function of your chosen books in their final design.

What is function of a book?

If you are referring to the book in a physical sense, it consists of a few main components. These include book boards, the joint, the end sheet, the paste-down, the hinge, the fore-edge, the headband and dust jacket. 

A hardback book is usually made up of a front and back cover, sometimes called the book boards. These are mainly used to protect the interior pages of the book from damage but also often display information about the book, such as the title and the author as well as a brief synopsis alluding to what the book is about. 

Next is the joint, this is a small groove to which the book boards are attached and it bends when the book is opened. This allows flexibility when the book is used. 

The end sheet is one piece of paper on the inside of the book that makes up both the flyleaf and the paste-down. The paste-down is the part of the book that is attached to the inside of the book board. This essentially connects the main body of the book to the boards. The hinge is what allows the book to opened and closed! The fore-edge is the trimmed edge of the book opposite to the spine that is sometimes painted or gilded, the latter is reserved for more expensive books. 

The headband is usually decorative colored cloth designed to protect the spine of the book. Lastly is the dust-jacket, usually only found on hardback books, the dust-jacket wraps around the covers to protect them, it also displays additional artwork and information about the book.

If you are referring to the parts of a book in the sense of what the internal written structure is, these components, classified as front matter, body and back matter,  are as follows: 

• Front matter; Frontispiece, Title page, Copyright page, Table of contents, List of figures (if any), List of tables (if any), Dedication, Acknowledgements, Foreword, Preface, Introduction.
• Body; the text or main content of the book. Pages are usually numbered sequentially and often divided into chapters.
• Back matter; Appendix, Glossary, Index, Notes, Bibliography, Colophon.

Mind mapping

Books

I’ll be there – Holly Goldberg Sloan

One Snowy Night – Nick Butterworth

500, 20 Minutes Recipes – Jenni Fleetwood (contributing editor)

Little Women – Louise May Alcott

The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare

Self-reflection

Very interesting exercise, it made me to look at each book with lots of attention. It also helped me to think about the function of each book. I tried to choose from different kind of books, as each has got its own characteristics. Whose the audience? What is the typeface? What kind of paper was used? Is it light or heavy? What kind of information added to the front and the end of the book?

Sources

• Blurtit. Available at: https://arts-literature.blurtit.com/1006634/what-are-the-parts-of-a-book-and-its-function (Accessed: 19 January 2022)