Exercise 2.3: Book designers

Brief

This exercise hopes to broaden your understanding of other book designersโ€™ work by looking at their cover designs. Start to identify the kinds of book covers you are drawn to, and critically assess why you think these designs are successful.

  1. Undertake a combination of library and internet research into the following designers, identifying a number of book cover designs for each. Reflect on their conceptual and/or expressive approaches to design. Write a very brief description of your selected cover designs and a brief overview of the designer – try to focus on keywords rather than long descriptions. Do this in note form, using the designer and the chosen example design to visually inform how the information appears in your learning log.
    โ— Phil Baines
    โ— Coralie Bickford-Smith
    โ— Derek Birdsall
    โ— Kelly Blair
    โ— Irma Boom
    โ— Suzanne Dean
    โ— Julia Hastings
    โ— Linda Huang
    โ— Jost Huchuli
    โ— Ellen Lupton
    โ— Peter Mendelsund
    โ— Paul Rand
    โ— Paula Scher
    โ— Jan Tschichold
    โ— Wolfgang Weingart
  2. Compare and contrast some of the cover designs. For example, how does the cover of Peter Mendelsundโ€™s Kafka series compare with Coralie Bickford-Smithโ€™s gothic horror series for Penguin? Are these expressive or conceptual in nature? Are they both conforming to genre expectations, or are they challenging them in some way? Do Jan Tschichold and Ellen Luptonโ€™s cover designs have anything in common? Make a drawing, sketch or tracing of the covers youโ€™re comparing to help give you a better understanding of the imagery, typography and arrangement within the design. Use your learning log to reflect on your comparisons, identifying which covers you think are the strongest and why.
  3. Now, select three or more designers from the list that you are particularly drawn to, either because you like their work or because you donโ€™t understand their approach, and research their design careers in more depth. Think about how theyโ€™ve responded to very different design challenges, whether they have an underlying conceptual and/or expressive approach, and how their work has evolved over time. Continue to use your learning log to record their work visually, explore these covers through drawing, and your responses in note format. See this as a quick fire activity rather than a long essay.
  4. Finally, identify at least three different book designers you find visually engaging. To do this you might want to visit a library, bookshop, or browse online. Identify who designed these covers and find out more about them. Try to work out why you are drawn to them. Is it to do with genre or their approach to design? What is it about the design that captures you? What sort of imagery, if any, is used on the cover? How does the text relate to the image? What atmosphere or style does the cover evoke? Summarise your thinking in your learning log – focusing on the kinds of book covers you are drawn to and why – and continue to document what these covers look like.

Part 1

Phil Baines

Phil Baines was born in 1958 in Kendal, Cumbria, and studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood at Ushaw College, Durham. He abandoned his studies at the start of his fourth year, and in 1981 enrolled on a foundation course at Cumbria College of Art & Design. The following year he moved to London, to study graphic design at St Martinโ€™s School of Art (1982-85), where he met contemporaries such as Andrew Altmann and David Ellis (later to form Why Not Associates) and his future wife, Jackie Warner.

Bainesโ€™s work of this period was heavily biased toward experimental typography that took inspiration from medieval manuscripts and the writings of Marshall McLuhan and George Steiner โ€“ he has often noted that his influences came from written rather than visual sources. Letterpress exerted a particular attraction due to its do-it-yourself aspect: the entire process could be handled from concept to production without outside involvement. After two further years of study at the Royal College of Art, Baines graduated during a pre-recession boom period for graphic design. His work was featured heavily in Typography Now: The Next Wave (edited by Rick Poynor and Edward Booth-Clibborn), and he contributed two typefaces to Fuse, and guest-edited its fourth issue.

Phil Baines has got a background in typography, which can be seen in these cover designs. The use of typography and minimal colour palette gave these covers a sophisticated and serious feel.

Coralie Bickford-Smith

Coralie Bickford-Smith is a London based designer, illustrator and author. She graduated from Reading University with a degree in Typography and Graphic communication then moved to London to pursue a career in publishing. Her first book, The Fox and the Star, was named Waterstones Book of the Year 2015 and as one of Time Out’s 100 Children’s Books of All Time. 

Coralie’s design work has been recognised globally and featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Vogue and The Guardian. The work she did with Penguin Classics on the clothbound series attracted worldwide attention and harks back to the world of Victorian bindings and a golden age of book binding. Coralie has been commissioned to produce illustrations by a variety of clients including Fortnum and Mason, Diageo, Waterstones and Booths.

I really like these book covers by Coralie Bickford-Smith. I am really interested in pattern design and in my point of view these designs are very chic and sophisticated.

Derek Birdsall

Birdsall was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1934 and attended The King’s School, Pontefract, Wakefield College of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. “At Central, Birdsall came under the influence of Anthony Froshaug, who โ€“ alongside Herbert Spencer and Edward Wright โ€“ taught his students the difference between beautiful lettering and typography proper, with its pre-eminent concerns of clarity, directness and, above all, textual legibility.” Birdsall failed to earn a diploma, however, and began his career in design in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

These book cover designs have got clever ideas in embedding images in between the typography. They are very conceptual, it means that they have some hidden meanings. Theyโ€™re not giving too much information and leave the rest to the readers to figure it out. These designs have serious feel.

Kelly Blair

Kelly Blair is the art director of Pantheon books, an associate art director at Knopf, freelance illustrator.

This designer has got lots of different styles for her designs. The images used in her designs make it conceptual and gives the readers a little information about the book. The different typographical hierarchy.

Irma Boom

There are few designers working today who can claim to have the legacy that Irma Boom has. Born in the Netherlands, and still based in Amsterdam today, Boom has practiced for over 30 years under the moniker Irma Boom Office, producing hundreds of books โ€“ over 300, in fact.

Boomโ€™s books are not your average paperbacks, but they arenโ€™t coffee table books either. They are objects of use, made for the many โ€“ likened by her to โ€œsocial housingโ€ โ€“ and they wholly embody whatever concept or topic they tackle.

Irma Booms cover designs are about the form of the books as well as the different printing methods. The books are conceptual and not giving a lot information about the content.

Suzanne Dean

Suzanne has been Creative Director at Vintage Books since 2000. She designs and art directs all of Vintageโ€™s imprints which include Jonathan Cape, Chatto & Windus, Harvill Secker and Bodley Head. Suzanne established the design for the Vintage Classics list in 2007.

She has worked on a wide range of cover designs for authors such as Mark Haddon, Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Yuval Noah Harari, Richard Flanagan, Margaret Atwood and Rachel Kushner. Her covers include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Sense of an Ending, Sapiens, Atonement and The Handmaidโ€™s Tale.

Before working at Vintage, Suzanne graduated from Kingston University, where she studied Graphic Design. Her first job was in general design, focusing on food packaging and brochures. A year later she was approached to join Penguin Books as a Senior Designer, working for Hamish Hamilton. Three years later she joined Macmillan, to work on the Picador list.

The patterns and the textures using in these books caught my attention. The designs are not very complicated, but repeated the design make them interesting. This designer used different techniques depending on the audience. The designs are conceptual with no any information about the contents.

Julia Hastings

Julia Hasting (born 1970 in Bremen, Germany) lives and works in Zรผrich.
She is the creative director of Phaidon Press. She studied graphic design at the Staatliche Hochschule fรผr Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, and finalized with a diploma. From 1993 to 1998 she has been designing corporate identities, posters and books for cultural clients, then she moved to London to design books for Phaidon Press, working closely with Alan Fletcher. In 2000 she moved to New York in order to run the new design department as the Art Director for Phaidon Press Inc., and in 2007 she has taken over the design direction at Phaidon Press and moved to Zรผrich, Switzerland. She taught Publication design at the design faculty of the Cooper Union School of Art in New York from 2001 to 2003. She has given lectures about her work at the BRNO Biennale of Graphic Design, The AIGA New York, Pentagram New York, F.I.T., the University of Lima, Peru, Integrated Design Conference, Antwerp, and has been a jury member in numerous international design competitions. Since 2003 she has been contributing illustration work to The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine. She is a member of the AGI since 2000.

These book designs look very sophisticated. The textures and patterns used in these designs made them different from other ordinary book covers. The typography used in different designs are vary due to the type of the design. The designs are conceptual and not giving lots of information to the readers about the content.

Linda Huang

Linda Huang is a graphic designer based in New York. Her work has been recognized by The Type Directors Club, Print Magazine, The New York Times, 50 Books | 50 Covers, and Itโ€™s Nice That, among others. She is currently an associate art director at Alfred A. Knopf. Formerly, she was an associate art director at Vintage & Anchor Books.

The playful typography and simple colour palette are very eye catching in these designs. The use of texture gave the designs more depth. The designs are conceptual.

Jost Huchuli

Jost Hochuli is one of the finest Swiss typographers and graphic designers. From 1952 to 1954 he studied graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) of St. Gallen. The year later he did one-year apprenticeship as a compositor at the Zollikofer & Co. printshop, also in St. Gallen. In 1955 he moved to Zurich to attend the composition class at the local Kusntgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts), from which he graduated in 1958. The same year he relocated in Paris to study at the ร‰cole Estienne under Adrian Frutiger. His work has been widely exhibited in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In 1993 he curated and designed the โ€œBook Design in Switzerlandโ€ exhibition that travelled across Canada, Europe, and the U.S.A.

These cover designs are typographical based and following the design rules; hierarchy, alignment and grids, which are the characteristics of the Swiss design.

Ellen Lupton

Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, educator, and designer. Lupton is the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore. She serves as a senior curator at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.

Ellen Luptonโ€™s designs are expressive as they reveal some information about the content of the book. Most of her designs are simple and typographical base.

Peter Mendelsund

Peter Mendelsund is the author of five books: the novel The Delivery (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Winter 2020; โ€œGorgeously writtenโ€ฆprofound.โ€ โ€”Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours) and the novel Same Same (Vintage/Anchor, Winter ’18; โ€œBreezy and profound in equal measure.โ€ โ€”The New York Times) as well the non-fiction works What We See When We Read, (โ€œWelcome and fascinatingโ€โ€”Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books), Cover (โ€œCover pushes us to reconsider what we think we know about the graphic representation of words and ideas.โ€โ€”The New Republic) and The Look of the Book (Crown/TenSpeed, Fall ’19). Mendelsund has been described by the New York Times as โ€œone of the top designers at work today,โ€ and his design work has been described by The Wall Street Journal as โ€œthe most instantly recognizable and iconic.โ€ He is the Creative Director of The Atlantic.

These designs are very creative in terms of using repeating patterns to give the designs a 3 dimensional feel. There are some quirkiness to his designs. The use of ordinary objects that normally take for granted in his designs make them even more interesting. The designs are mostly expressive as they give some hint about the contents.

Paul Rand

Born Peretz Rosenbaum in 1914 and deceased in 1996, Paul Rand is a graphic design legend. Throughout his 60-years long career, he changed America’s opinion on visual communication. With his editorial designs, advertisements, and visual identity works, Rand brought avant-garde European ideas to the United-States, mixing visual arts and commercial design. His colourful combinations, approach of typography and use of media translate his desire to “defamiliarize the ordinary“. His style consequently still have an impact on graphic design today.

The designer uses overprinting, geometrical patterns and textures in these designs. The colour palette is simple. These designs has got some mysterious feel and make the readers curious to find out more about the content of the books.

Paula Scher

Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Described as the โ€œmaster conjurer of the instantly familiar,โ€ Scher straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work. Iconic, smart, and accessible, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

Paula Scherโ€™s book cover designs are based on typography, initial of her name and her poster designs. Her designs are used for her own publication. These designs are expressive and giving out some ideas about content of the books.

Jan Tschichold

Tschichold claimed that he was one of the most powerful influences on 20th century typography. There are few who would attempt to deny that statement. The son of a sign painter and trained in calligraphy, Tschichold began working with typography at a very early age. Raised in Germany, he worked closely with Paul Renner (who designed Futura) and fled to Switzerland during the rise of the Nazi party. His emphasis on new typography and sans-serif typefaces was deemed a threat to the cultural heritage of Germany, which traditionally used Blackletter Typography and the Nazis seized much of his work before he was able to flee the country.

These covers have got a minimal colour palette. The main colour is red. The angle compositions are giving the designs some energetic feel or movement. The Penguin covers were refined by Tschichold in 1950s. Most of the designs are conceptual and giving out minimal information about the contents.

Wolfgang Weingart

wolfgang weingart, who was born in 1941 in salemertal in southern germany, attended the merz akademie in stuttgart from 1958 to 1960, where he familiarised himself with typesetting and the process of making linocuts and woodcuts. after this he trained as a typesetter and discovered swiss typography. since the 1970s wolfgang weingart has exerted a decisive influence on the international development of typography. in the late 1960s he instilled creativity and a desire for experimentation into the ossified swiss typographical industry and reflected this renewal in his own work.

https://www.typographicposters.com/wolfgang-weingart

These designs are typographical base. Wolfgang Weingart was one of the pioneers in experimental typography. He tend to break the rules to use typography as a design element not just for information.

Part 2

Part 3

Julia Hastings

Julia Hasting (born 1970 in Bremen, Germany) lives and works in Zรผrich.
She is the creative director of Phaidon Press. She studied graphic design at the Staatliche Hochschule fรผr Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, and finalized with a diploma. From 1993 to 1998 she has been designing corporate identities, posters and books for cultural clients, then she moved to London to design books for Phaidon Press, working closely with Alan Fletcher. In 2000 she moved to New York in order to run the new design department as the Art Director for Phaidon Press Inc., and in 2007 she has taken over the design direction at Phaidon Press and moved to Zรผrich, Switzerland. She taught Publication design at the design faculty of the Cooper Union School of Art in New York from 2001 to 2003. She has given lectures about her work at the BRNO Biennale of Graphic Design, The AIGA New York, Pentagram New York, F.I.T., the University of Lima, Peru, Integrated Design Conference, Antwerp, and has been a jury member in numerous international design competitions. Since 2003 she has been contributing illustration work to The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine. She is a member of the AGI since 2000.

Selected Awards:
2015 – Silver Cube, Art Directors Club (Sottsass)
2015 – Bronze Cube, Art Directors Club (WA)
2015 – Wooden Pencil Award, D&AD (Bruce Nauman)
2015 – Wooden Pencil Award, D&AD (WA)
2014 – Art Monographs Winner, British Book Design and Production Awards (Bruce Nauman)
2014 – Brand / Series Winner, British Book Design and Production Awards (Phaidon Focus)
2008 – Silver Medal, Art Directors Club, New York (Unmonumental)
2006 – Merit Award, Art Directors Club, New York (Sample)
2006 – Design Distinction, I.D. Magazine Design Review (Vitamin D)
2006 – Hnorable Mention, I.D. Magazine Design Review (Sample)
2005 – Silver Medal, Art Directors Club, New York (Vitamin D)
2005 – Award for Outstanding Design, Graphis Magazine, New York (Area)
2004 – Golden Bee Award, Moscow (10X10)
2003 – Golden Bee Award, Moscow (Area)
2003 – Gold Medal, Art Directors Club, New York (Andy Warhol – Vol. 1)
2003 – Hnorable Mention, I.D. Magazine Design Review (Blink)
2002 – Award for Typography, Golden Bee, Moscow (Andy Warhol – Vol. 1)
2002 – First Prize, Aโ€“Z Competition, Print magazine (Fresh Cream)
2002 – PDN Photo book awards (Blink)
2002 – Certificate of Typographic Excellence, Type Directors Club, New York
2000 – Disctintive Merit, Art Directors Club, New York (Magnumยบ)
2000 – BRNO Biennale of Graphic Design (Andy Warhol – Vol. 1)
2000 – 25th Kodak Fotobuchpreis, Stuttgart (Magnumยบ)
2000 – Design Distinction, I.D. Magazine Design Review (Fresh Cream)
2000 – PDN Photo book awards
1999 – Certificate of Typographic Excellence, Type Directors Club, New York
1998 – BRNO Biennale of Graphic Design (Magnumยบ)
1994 – BRNO Biennale of Graphic Design (รœbergriff)
1993-1999 High Design Quality, German Award for Communikations-Design of the Design-Center Nordrheinwestfalen, Germany (รœbergriff)
1999 – Award ITP International Poster Triennale in Toyama, Japan
1993-1995 The 100 best posters, Berlin, Germany
1994 – Broncemedaille, The nicest books of the world, Bookfair Leipzig/Frankfurt, Germany
1993 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Gold Medal, 7th Triennale, German Poster Museum, Essen

Peter Mendelsund

Peter Mendelsund is the author of five books: the novel The Delivery (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Winter 2020; โ€œGorgeously writtenโ€ฆprofound.โ€ โ€”Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours) and the novel Same Same (Vintage/Anchor, Winter ’18; โ€œBreezy and profound in equal measure.โ€ โ€”The New York Times) as well the non-fiction works What We See When We Read, (โ€œWelcome and fascinatingโ€โ€”Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books), Cover (โ€œCover pushes us to reconsider what we think we know about the graphic representation of words and ideas.โ€โ€”The New Republic) and The Look of the Book (Crown/TenSpeed, Fall ’19). Mendelsund has been described by the New York Times as โ€œone of the top designers at work today,โ€ and his design work has been described by The Wall Street Journal as โ€œthe most instantly recognizable and iconic.โ€ He is the Creative Director of The Atlantic.

Suzanne Dean

Suzanne has been Creative Director at Vintage Books since 2000. She designs and art directs all of Vintageโ€™s imprints which include Jonathan Cape, Chatto & Windus, Harvill Secker and Bodley Head. Suzanne established the design for the Vintage Classics list in 2007.

She has worked on a wide range of cover designs for authors such as Mark Haddon, Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Yuval Noah Harari, Richard Flanagan, Margaret Atwood and Rachel Kushner. Her covers include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Sense of an Ending, Sapiens, Atonement and The Handmaidโ€™s Tale.

Before working at Vintage, Suzanne graduated from Kingston University, where she studied Graphic Design. Her first job was in general design, focusing on food packaging and brochures. A year later she was approached to join Penguin Books as a Senior Designer, working for Hamish Hamilton. Three years later she joined Macmillan, to work on the Picador list.

Part 4

Identify at least three different book designers you find visually engaging.

Noma Bar (born in 1973) is an Israel-born graphic designer, illustrator and artist. His work has appeared in many media publications including: Time Out London, BBC, Random House, The Observer, The Economist and Wallpaper*. Bar has illustrated over one hundred magazine covers, published over 550 illustrations and released three books of his work: Guess Who – The Many Faces of Noma Bar, Negative Space and Bittersweet a 680 page 5 volume monograph produced in a Limited Edition of 1000 published by Thames & Hudson

Bar’s work has become well known throughout the world, winning many industry awards; more recently a prestigious Gold Clio for his animation & direction work for the NewYork Presbyterian Hospital, a campaign to highlight new frontiers in cancer treatments.

He has also won a Yellow Pencil award at the D&AD Professional Awards and his London Design Festival exhibition ‘Cut It Out’, was selected as one of the highlights of the festival. The project was nominated in the graphics category for the Design Museum, Designs Of the Year.


Chip Kidd is a contemporary American graphic designer, author and editor. He is best recognized as graphic designer for book covers. Being a huge admirer of comic books he not only wrote some of those for DC Comics but also designed their covers. Born on 12 September 1964, in Pennsylvania, Chip Kidd grew up to be an associate art director at the New York publishing house, Knopf. He was hired at the publishing house as a junior assistant in 1986. Besides, Kidd freelanced for various firms and produced more than 70 book jackets per year. Some of the publishing houses he freelanced for included Farrar Straus & Giroux, Amazon, HarperCollins, Scribner and Penguin/Putnam. At Pantheon Book he designed the graphic novels.


Na Kim is a graphic designer based in Seoul and Berlin. After studying product design and graphic design in Korea, Kim participated in Werkplaats Typografie in the Netherlands. Kim is currently running the project space, LOOM in Berlin. Na Kimโ€™s design practice as a system engages without putting limits on the field of graphic design. Kim is taking a methodology to collect objects and events found in everyday life and rearrange them into new order and rules, and ultimately expand design literacy. Besides many other projects, she was responsible for the concept and design of GRAPHIC magazine from 2009 till 2011 and has initiated series of projects based on her monograph, SET since 2015. She has held solo exhibitions, such as Bottomless Bag (2020), Black and White (2019), Red, Yellow, Blue (2017), SET (2015), Choice Specimen (2014), Found Abstracts (2011), Fragile (2006). Besides, Kim has been a curator for Brno Biennale, Chaumont Festival, Seoul International Typography Biennale, and Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. Kim also worked on projects with COS, Hermรจs, ร…LAND, and many other clients, and Kimโ€™s works been invited to international exhibitions at MMCA, SeMA, V&A, MoMA, Milan Triennale Museum, Die Neue Sammlung, etc. Na Kim has been a member of AGI since 2016.

Sources:

Research Task 2.2: Paper and Bookbinding

Brief

Further inform your understanding of paper and bookbinding by reading pages 165โ€“180 of Alan Pipesโ€™ chapter โ€˜O n Pressโ€™ 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 paperโ€™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 samplesโ€™ physical properties by working with them, testing them out, and visually documenting the results of your research.

After reading pages 165โ€“180 of Alan Pipesโ€™ chapter โ€˜O n Pressโ€™, Iโ€™ve decided to order some sample books. So far one of the sample books from โ€˜solopressโ€™ 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.

Exercise 2.2: Paper and binding choices

The kind of stock you choose will be informed by the nature of the job youโ€™re doing. If you were working commercially, then checking paper quality โ€“ the weight and finish of the paper โ€“ 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 โ€“ 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? Whatโ€™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 youโ€™ve collected. How does the book block adhere to the cover? How does it adhere to the spine? Is it stitched or glued? Youโ€™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 โ€™perfect-boundโ€™, where the pages are glued together and then directly onto the covering.

Analysing

Little WomenLouisa May Alcott

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

Iโ€™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).

Research task 2.1: Book terminology

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 bookโ€™s function.

According to Andrew Haslamโ€™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 bookโ€™s function

Cover and spine

The cover of a book can majorly affect peopleโ€™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. Childrenโ€™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 donโ€™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).

Exercise 2.1: The function of books

Brief

Identify a range of books that have fundamentally different functions in terms of how these books are engaged with – how theyโ€™re held, where theyโ€™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 โ€“ the choice is yours.
Think about how each bookโ€™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 Mantelโ€™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 youโ€™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: 

โ€ข 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.
โ€ข Body; the text or main content of the book. Pages are usually numbered sequentially and often divided into chapters.
โ€ข Back matter; Appendix, Glossary, Index, Notes, Bibliography, Colophon.

Mind mapping

Books

Iโ€™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

Part 1: Reflection on feedback

Overall Comments

Overall your response to the first part of the course has been methodical and thorough, there is evidence of you taking creative risks to see how your methods behave and the results they can produce. I would encourage you to continue to make the most of the content of the course by critically evaluating your response to the tasks as you go along, and push your use of your materials where there is opportunity to do so.

My respond to the feedback

Pleased to hear that I had a good response to this part. I really enjoyed working on the exercises and final assignment, as I was ready to challenge myself.


Things that need to be considered:

  • Making my online blog more accessible
  • Reading โ€œWomanโ€™s World: A Graphic Novel by Graham Rawleโ€
  • Adding my independent drawing/material experimentation in my sketchbook

Assignment 1: Your zine

Brief

โ€œAn intimacy derives from the fact that fanzines remain amateur, โ€˜handmadeโ€™ productions operating outside mainstream publishing conventions and mass-production processes. The hand – the imprint – of the individual producer or maker is readily evident in the fanzine itself. This suggests, then, that the history of the object is bound up not only with the history of fanzines more generally, but also with the history of the individual maker.โ€
Teal Triggs, Fanzines, 2010. London: Thames & Hudson. Page 206.
Your first assignment asks you to create a small publication or fanzine based on your interest in books and their design. It allows you to introduce yourself, and your interests in book design, so that your tutor can get to know you and your work better.
Your fanzine can be digitally printed, photocopied or handmade. Aim to design a sixteen-page simple folded and stapled A5 fanzine, though you can add more pages, or change the scale, if you want to. You can use any medium or materials to generate your artwork and make your publication. You may want to work much larger and reduce your artwork for the fanzine. While visually it doesnโ€™t have to look like a punk fanzine, try and embrace the lo-fi โ€˜cut and pasteโ€™ attitude, so youโ€™re making the work relatively quickly and not too preciously. Be creative with this task both in terms of the content and how you choose to present it, this could extend to challenging some of the assumptions about what a fanzine should look like, or how itโ€™s made.
Use the work you have produced so far, in the earlier exercises, as a starting point for your content. Not all of this material needs to be included in your fanzine. You may want to develop new visual ideas, or add to the work you have already produced.
As a guide, your fanzine should contain the following elements:
โ— Introduce yourself – say something about your relationship with books. Why are they important to you? Communicate this through writing and images. โ— Your creative process – how do you like to work creatively, what sort of process do you follow to research and generate ideas, and what are your preferred mediums to work in. Say something about you as a creative practitioner and your approach. Show your approach to book design through your design decisions and the hands-on sense of immediacy and energy that is an attribute of fanzine design.
โ— Looking at books – present the most interesting books youโ€™ve looked at, or those you find influential as a reader, designer or both? Present a selection of books, or focus on one particular example to present in more depth. Think about how you can present these books, and your reflections, in visually engaging ways.
โ— Global influences – which books with a wide reaching scientific, artistic,
historical, political, geographic, fictional, poetic, religious or other impact have you chosen. Present them along with a brief rationale as to why, or how these books have affected you personally. Again, can your designs echo the ideas in these books in anyway?
โ— The future of the book – where do you see the book heading? Show and
tell. Try and summarise your thinking into a series of short statements, quotations, images or ideas. Be creative in how you approach this.
โ— How can you creatively respond to one or more of following book related sayings – Bookworms, A closed/open book, The oldest trick in the book, You canโ€™t judge a book by its cover, In someoneโ€™s good/bad books, or, by the book. Use your fanzine to present your ideas. Can any of your images, text or ideas also feed into your cover designs?

I started by making a mind map to summarize the brief and make it easier for me to understand. I made some notes of the key points and the certain things that I needed to include. The brief didnโ€™t seem to have any lack of information, I just needed to research and experiment to come up with some new and creative ideas.

Although I made some research through the previous exercises, I wanted to explore more about punk and non punk zine designs and layouts. So, I collected some photos from Pinterest and made a board out of them. My understandings of these boards:

  • Simple
  • Mostly mono or due-chromatic
  • Different sizes and folding
  • Bold typography
  • Handmade feeling
  • More textures in traditional zines
  • More modern zines seem to have more colours due to the access to modern design and printing software and quality printers

Itโ€™s obvious that the traditional zines tend to be more cost efficient and easy to make and print.

I really wanted to think out of box to make something more creative than the usual A5 booklet.

So I started looking at different paper folding. My main issue is that I just have an A4 B&W printer at home so I needed to have that in mind before making any decision.

I looked at my experiment with paper folding at โ€œExercise 3: Alternative publicationsโ€. But because my zine needed to be 16 pages, I tried another folding method.

I started with an A3 paper and made an example. But it was too small. I had a collection of wallpaper samples , so decided to use them as a base for my zine.

The final size for each page was 10 x 11.5. I know that the brief asked for an A5 booklet, but also said that it can be flexible. So, I didnโ€™t think that would be any problem with this size.

As I mentioned, My printer would just print an A4 paper. I thought, I can make each sheet 20 x 11.5 then stick them on.

I wanted to use InDesign to make my design. Unfortunately, my InDesign wasnโ€™t working, so I used Photoshop instead, as I needed to use lots of photos.

I made 8 Artboards for each sheet: cover and back , an introduction, creative process, looking at books/ influential books, the future books and you canโ€™t judge a book by itโ€™s cover.

Final digital design

Final handmade design

For the cover, I wanted to use some colour. I could either print of a B&W paper and add some colour later, make it completely handmade or use a coloured paper. I used two different colours, the lighter paper to print out the words and a darker paper. I stuck the darker paper underneath, then ripped off the printed paper and stuck it on the top.

Self-reflection

This assignment was interesting and challenging at the same time, as it was my first time making a zine. I wasnโ€™t sure if I wanted to make it completely handmade or digital. After lots of consideration, I decided to use digital as well as a DIY techniques.

Although a completely digital zine would be quicker and neater, I was determined to give it a handmade feel.

This assignment took me out of my comfort zone by not following the design rules that I practiced not to break, like page layouts, using columns and grids.

Since I used a wallpaper to make the base of my zine, initially I wanted to show part of the texture throughout the pages. However due to the small size of the booklet, I thought that would be overwhelming. So I decided not to.

Having an A4 B&W printer at home was a key point for me to approach my design, which wasnโ€™t a concern for me as most of the traditional zines tended to be B&W and very cost efficient. I believe that the limitation helps us to be more creative to find another way to solve the problem.

Overall, I am pleased with the final design. I am aware that itโ€™s not perfect as it is the nature of the zines not to be perfect. I believe that each zine improves gradually by receiving comments and feedback after each issue. Hopefully, this assignment can be a foundation for my future assignments.

Sources

Exercise 1.7: Visualising, editing and critiquing

Brief

Based on your work from the previous exercises, think about how your designs within the context of the book. For example, visually explore how your artwork sits within the format of your A5 pamphlet – how the page might frame the artwork, how different pages sit together or how you might begin to develop a narrative across multiple pages.
This process might suggest new ways of presenting or developing your work. Think about how you want to finish your artwork, whether this is through typography, illustration, photography, drawing or another format.
Critique your work – what has the format of the pamphlet offered you, how might your ideas develop further, and how has your understanding of creative book design changed through this exercise?

Previous exercises

The future book

This poster was my original design for the exercise – The Future Book, however when I was designing this poster, I didnโ€™t expect to use this design as a zine. So considering the characteristics of a fanzine, being simple and cost efficient, I looked as my design again with a new eye and made it to something, which could be used on a zine cover and be able to be printed by a home printer.

To make it even more cost efficient, I made a B&W copy as well.

You canโ€™t judge a book by itโ€™s cover

Again, I had a look at my design and the design would be nice on a book cover, but couldnโ€™t imagine it on a zine cover. So I decided to make something simpler to be used on a zine cover. Also, be able to be printed even by a home printer.

I wanted to give it a hand drawn feeling. So I used a sketch image and hand written font.

Self reflection

After looking at my work from the previous exercises, I consider them as separate pieces that can be used as an image within an article or a book cover design. After making some changes, having in my mind that they need to be used on a zine cover, I think now the new designs are more appropriate for the purpose. After printing them off at home, I noticed that I also need to consider the bleed of the image as well.

Exercise 1.6: Folding and mocking up your book

Brief

There are two elements to this exercise – thinking about how you produce your publication, and making a smaller scaled down version as a mock up.
Creating a small mock up
Printers use large sheets of paper to print multiple pages, which are then cut and folded. Youโ€™re going to use a simple A4 sheet to recreate the process of imposition and folding into โ€˜sectionsโ€™ or signatures at a smaller scale.
Fold an A4 sheet of paper in half, to create an A5 sheet. Now fold it in half again, so that you have an A6 size. This will comprise four leaves and eight pages. A page has a recto (facing) side and a verso (back) side. The terms recto and verso are also used to describe right-hand and left-hand pages in a double-page spread. With the sheets still folded, number the pages as they would read, from page 1, the front, through to page 8, the back. Now unfold the pages and notice how the numbers are distributed on the outspread sheet. This is a very rudimentary form of imposition, but the principle is essentially a miniature version of the same process within print production. By refolding your A4 sheet and then cutting the folded edges, you create pages, which can be stitched or stapled at the centre (gutter) to form a rudimentary book. Books are constructed from folded sheets in this way, each one of which creates a signature. A signature is a section made up from a folded sheet which will create pages when guillotined. Signatures are built up in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 pages then stacked up in sequence and glued or stitched (or both) across the back edge to form the book block, which is then bound to the cover.

(left) 8 page Quarto folding. Wikibooks. (right)16 page Folio folding. Wikibooks


Creating a full scale mock up
To create an A5 pamphlet with 16 pages take four A4 sheets together, and with the sheets positioned landscape, fold in half. Stitching or stapling on the fold will secure the sheets and form your publication.
Additional pages can be added, but there is a finite number that can be slotted together before you notice how the folded pages start to stick out from the non-folded edge. This can be remedied by trimming the edges of your pages. For professional book designers working on large publications, this process needs to be taken through binding choices, and carefully adjusting page designs across the whole document.
Number each of your sixteen pages from front to back cover. Unpack the document and notice how the relationship of the numbers on the front and back of each sheet. For example, 1 and 16 should be alongside each other, with 2 and 15 on the reverse. These numbers dictate where your content will go, and how this content needs to be printed, and are known as โ€˜printers pairsโ€™.
Translating your DTP artwork, which has been produced in chronological order, 1-16, into the format needed to print your publication, is known as pagination. Commercially, printers often undertake this work, but as designers, it is also useful to understand how pagination works.
A simple way to approach this, is by taking the overall number of pages (often including the covers), and add one. So for your sixteen page booklet the magic number is 17. Go back to your mock up and add up your page numbers – each of your spreads should add to 17.
Critiquing and editing
Making decisions about which of your designs are the strongest is an important part of the creative process. Thinking about your designs within the context of a book can help spark new ideas, so the critiquing and editing of your work can initiate the start of a new creative process. With this in mind, donโ€™t leave reviewing your work to the very end. Itโ€™s a good idea to test out your ideas within a book format as you go. This might mean seeing how your work is framed within a bookโ€™s borders, how content sits alongside each other on the spread of different pages, summarising your ideas down to essentials forms, or seeing how the turn of the page might start to build a narrative from one idea to the next.

Small mock-up

Full mock-up

Self reflection

I have learnt a lot through this short exercise. This exercise has given me new way of thinking of a book as a whole not just pages. Iโ€™ve made some documents in InDesign, however, I have not given much thought to the rule of printers and pagination. I hope this exercise can help me with my final Assignment.

Exercise 1.5: Research & development

Brief

Firstly, review your visual ideas based on from the previous exercise through a process of critical evaluation. Which ideas are you drawn to? Which ideas have โ€˜legsโ€™ โ€“ possible interesting outcomes which are worth pursuing? Often the ideas which are strongest are those which have depth, or many layers of association. Perhaps you are intuitively drawn to a particular idea. Select a few ideas you would like to push further. Use your learning log to record your thoughts.
Now, do you need to undertake any research to help move your selected ideas on? The form your research will take depends on the individual elements of your idea. Find source material that helps informs your ideas. For example, by doing objective drawings or taking photographs, to understand your subject better, and to consider aspects of composition. You can use both primary and secondary sources of research in this way. Research feeds into the development of your visual work, informing and advancing your ideas. Document this phase of the work accordingly.
The developing your ideas stage is about building on your initial ideas by reworking them, adding the visual or other insights gathered through your research, and testing out different versions or possibilities. Spend 45 minutes developing the possibilities of one of your ideas. How many different ways can you visualise this?
If you want to develop a broader range of ideas, then repeat the previous exercise to generate more possibilities, potentially using a different phrase as a starting point. Use your learning log to document this process of review, research and development.
Visualising your ideas is the culmination of all your preliminary work in which you work up some more developed visual sketches and ideas. This artwork can be hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and/or include typography. The presentation can be a little rough around the edges but should show the main elements of your designs. Select the strongest variation of your ideas from the previous research and development exercise to start exploring how you can visualise them within a mock-up.
Use your learning log to document these research and development stages, and to reflect on the process and your results.

Research

You canโ€™t judge a book by itโ€™s cover

Wikipedia: The English idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a metaphorical phrase that means one should not judge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. For example, “That man may look very small and insignificant, but don’t judge a book by its cover โ€“ he’s a very powerful man in his circle”.

The Cambridge dictionary: You canโ€™t judge a book by itโ€™s cover said to show that you cannot know what something or someone is like by looking only at that person or thing’s appearance.

Collins dictionary: You canโ€™t judge a book by itโ€™s cover said to mean that you should wait until you know someone or something better before deciding whether you like them, because your first opinions may be wrongYou can’t judge a book by its cover. Just because someone looks strange doesn’t mean they’re not a nice person.

Judge

Britannica: judge, public official vested with the authority to hear, determine, and preside over legal matters brought in a court of law. In jury cases, the judge presides over the selection of the panel and instructs it concerning pertinent law. The judge also may rule on motions made before or during a trial. In countries with a civil-law tradition, a more active role customarily has been assigned to the judge than in countries with a common-law tradition. In civil-lawcourts the procedure is inquisitorialโ€”i.e., judges do most of the questioning of witnesses and have a responsibility to discover the facts. In common-law courts the procedure is adversarialโ€”i.e., the lawyers for each side do most of the questioning of witnesses and the presentation of evidence. There are many kinds of judges, ranging from an untrained justice of the peace to a member of the U.S. Supreme Court or of the Court of Queenโ€™s Bench. In the United States judges are elected or appointed. Most federal judges are appointed for life by the president with the advice or consent of the Senate. The highest-ranking judge in the U.S. legal system is the chief justice of the United States. See alsojudgment; judiciary; magistratesโ€™ court; Missouri Plan. The role and power of judges vary enormously, not only from country to country but often within a single country as well. For example, a rural justice of the peace in the United Statesโ€”often untrained in the law, serving part-time, sitting alone in everyday work clothes in a makeshift courtroom, collecting small fees or receiving a pittance for a salary, trying a succession of routine traffic cases and little elseโ€”obviously bears little resemblance to a justice of the Supreme Court of the United Statesโ€”a full-time, well-paid black-robed professional, assisted by law clerks and secretaries, sitting in a marble โ€œpalaceโ€ with eight colleagues and deciding at the highest appellate level only questions of profound national importance. Yet both persons are judges.

From the thumbnails, I have made, I thought 3 of them have got some potential to work on. So I found some photos on freepik and took them to Photoshop.

Iโ€™ve made some designs in Photoshop, having my thumbnails in my mind. Tried to experiment with different images, fonts and compositions. At the end the last design with a halftone effect looks more appealing to me. And I made a mock-up based on that.

Self-reflection

For the subject that I chose, I could just think of judges and judges equipment. I donโ€™t think that my designs are very creative, but I think that it would be something that can be seen on ordinary book covers.

References

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started