Natalie Olson - Kisscut design Typography and Internal Book Design

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1 Natalie Olson - Kisscut design Typography and Internal Book Design Typography and the art of setting type in books hasn t changed a lot since the 1500s. The methods have changed. Print professionals like Donovan from Friesen s help us out a lot when it comes to internal design. 1) Refine Typography We owe it to typography to maintain elements that make reading a visual and pleasant experience. Gutenberg was the last person to get away with bad typography. - Frank Romano I don t know where your comfort level is with typographic jargon, so I ll go through these points relatively quickly. 8 things to improve your typography: - hyphenation don t stack more than two hyphens in a row avoid hyphenating proper names and one syllable words leave 2 (preferably more) characters behind, take at least 3 forward don t break a word across 2 columns or pages try not to hyphenate the last word of a paragraph YOU MUST HYPHENATE JUSTIFIED TEXT - word/letter spacing The space between words = the width of a lowercase t don t use negative tracking to save space use optical kerning, not metric kerning track out capitals and small caps (tracking refers to kerning, so tighter kerning means the spaces between words is closer together; tracking means increasing the kerning so there is more space between letters) You have word space and letter space. Look closely at your text blocks and boxes. A bad habit that s developed because of newspapers. They don t have time to refine newspaper kerning; it s awful. People aren t critical about how it s laid out. Books are something people keep and are longer pieces of text and you really need to be careful that you re not putting pressure on the reader to piece together sentences that don t flow. If you re not familiar about how to change the options, we can talk about it. when you re laying out your page, print six examples when you re tracking in or tracking out and figure out what s easiest for you to read.

2 - pagination Widows: when paragraphs end on the first line of a page. Orphans: when paragraphs begin on the last line of a page. Paragraph stub: when a paragraph ends on one word. Try to have the word be at least five characters long. - numerals There s a difference between the way numerals look in typefaces. Use proportional old style figures instead of lining figures Can usually upgrade to OSF as a font collection. If you don t use OSF, they scream out like all caps. - ligatures Turn ligatures on. Explore your glyphs palate. - dashes Compromise: style guide, Bringhurst, what looks good Be consistent Horizontally scale the dash if necessary Use en dashes (not hyphens) between digits to indicate a range. Dashes aren t supposed to draw attention to themselves. They re breaking sentences, but they re not supposed to be a design element. - apostrophes If you want to erect a flashing beacon that says Warning, inept typographer at work, use the single prime instead of the apostrophe - Nick Shinn Know the difference between inch and quotation marks Kern certain combinations. - indents Set opening paragraphs flush left: no indent required. The most common paragraph indent is one em wide outdents exist and can be a nice change. An em is a proportional unit and will change depending on the typeface. Use an em dash to find out how big that em will be. Dingbat time. Creating interesting art objects. It s one thing to throw characters on a page, and it s another to keep a reader s attention. We can t be complacent; we need to do everything we can to create interesting pages.

3 2) Create Interest You have to earn the interest of a reader. Ten things to Have Fun With 1. Table of Contents Boring tables of contents don t have to be boring. Your reader doesn t want to look like an overwhelming collection of newspaper articles. 2. (Fake) Fly leaf Traditionally the flyleaf is the first or last page of the book printed on a really nice piece of paper. It makes a strong impact because it s the second thing you see after you ve opened the cover. When you can t afford the super expensive paper, I like to print something on that first page. Find an interesting element to capture the reader s attention. 3. Chapter openers You can do interesting things typographically at the chapter openers. Use imagery, graphics, expressive fonts, etc.. 4. Ink The great thing about some of the new printing technologies is that printers can use digital technology and can slip in coded pages, so colour pages can be affordable. 5. Glyphs Ornaments. Use glyphs or ornaments as graphical elements (using a brackets and putting them on their side in rows to make an illusion of water). Use typography symbols in interesting ways that link to the content. 6. Title page Use images, graphical information, etc., on your title page. Try to negotiate colour with your printer. Play with the title. These elements can cause readers to think about the book more than they might if they just read the title. Use illustrations. Play with the element of the title or of the book. 7. copyright Publishers feel that it s their brand and so they print the exact same copy page in all of their books. The copyright page usually occurs at the front and it should carry out the tone of the rest of the book. I know we re all afraid of pissing off the library and cataloguing people. They don t mind if you have some fun with other elements on the page if you leave the CIP data alone. 8. footer/header The running heads or running feet don t always need to be at the top or bottom of the page. They can be wherever they need to be as long as they don t detract from the body text. Carry elements of the title or the book into these recurring elements.

4 9. page numbers Again, using stock elements to carry elements through from the cover, the title, or the book can be used with page numbers, etc. Graphical elements can appear in page numbers. Play with the layout and position of page numbers. Really pay attention to the content of the book for design elements. 10. colophon These are really only good if you re proud of the typeface you ve picked. It s a nice practice if you re proud of what you ve done to draw attention to the typeface, paper, etc.. 3) Augment content Picking a typeface The Necessities small caps, old style numerals, a matching sans, multiple weights, unique glyph sets. Make sure your typeface has all the things you need. If your typeface doesn t have old style numerals, lots of times you can go to the foundry for $30 for that. The tone and spirit Make sure the look of your typeface matches the author s/narrator s voice. some typefaces are very lively and light or romantic. Others are heavy and robust and strong. Some are literary, some are friendly. Think of the book and find a typeface that will replicate that tone. The heritage & historical period The setting of the story, the time frame, the author s background. Match the typeface to the important details of the book. The typeface can emulate the feel of the region. It could be as simple as the author s background. The paper & press depending on whether the stock is coated or uncoated, 40lb thin, light paper needs a light font. Making the decision between a digital press and an offset press. There s also knockout press to think about; all printing has an amount of dot gain where the ink is bleeding. So take all four of those things into consideration when choosing a typeface. LEGIBILITY IS A GIVEN. For Praha by Ted Blodgett, a book published by AU Press, poems about Prague. He had each poem translated by a Czech woman on facing pages. I needed quirky Czech symbols; really wanted something that felt literary and poetic so it needed a delicate sense. His line lengths were short and the poetry needed to breathe so I wanted a thin typeface that had that delicate airy feeling. In terms of heritage and historical period, it would have been good to find a Czech typeface: (ITC ESPRIT or FIGURAL) the typefaces I chose emulated the feel of Prague. The

5 other thing about it is that it has some quirks. There weren t a lot of long line lengths and there wasn t a lot of extended reading so you could get a way with a bit more pizazz. I was unrestricted with paper and press so we printed on covered stock. Q. What is the correlation between the typeface between coated v. uncoated or digital v. offset? A. Coated paper you can get away with a lot more because you won t have as much ink bleeding so when your typefaces have really fine details and tiny little terminals and subtle curve, they ll print nicely on coated paper. On an uncoated paper, sometimes you lose those details. Most coated papers are fine; I m really just referring to the 40lb almost like tissue papers that are recycled that you get an enormous amount of ink bleed. In terms of digital and offset printing, offset printing you ll maintain the intricacies of the typeface. Digital will sometimes lose bits of serifs depending on how accurate their output is and the quality of the digital press. Some designers design typefaces designed specifically for certain types of paper (Oficina). Design can augment the content of the book. Typography exists to honour content - Robert Bringhurst. Amendment: not just typography, but design. And sometimes typography and design can augment the content. Collaboration between design and editorial happens a lot in magazine design; not so much in book design, but that s changing. This should happen more in book design. PRINT OUT TEST PAGES and change one parameter (kerning or leading) at a time to see which is the most attractive, etc..