If you’re involved in writing or editing a book you also need to be at least aware of the design of book covers and the internal design of the book itself.
The cover, is of course, the book’s billboard, and has huge influence on potential readers.
The internal design is more subtle, but I suspect good design improves word-of-mouth promotion way more than we realize.
Some time ago I posted Book Covers & Book Design. Those links still work and are worth pursuing. So are these:
- Book Covers Anonymous – Great title; looks like this could be a good blog.
- Steven Seighman has an occasional blog that deals with book design. He’s got some interesting stuff here.
- If you want to look at book covers for ideas butterflyrocket has a good selection. There’s other info on design on this blog and some fun stuff too.
- The Book Cover Archive Blog is plain nifty. It runs hand in hand with The Book Cover Archive which is also a great resource – a ton of covers to spark your creativity.
- Judge a Book by its Cover is a wonderful, eclectic collection. You’re sure to find something to love and something to hate.
- BookLust, a title I can’t resist has a section on book design, but the whole blog is worth spending some fun time on.
- BeyondTheCovers looks mostly like book covers but if you read as well as look you’ll also find some book design information.
- The Good Design Book is a blog documenting the design of a book. Worth watching.
- Stephen Tiano is a book designer whose blog discusses layout, columns, type and other elements of book design.
What’s your thinking on book design?
Write well and often,
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You missed my blog about book design, at http://www.tianobookdesign.com/blog.
I sure did Stephen… I’ll go back and add you. I wanted more on book design… my post seemed to heavy on covers, so thanks for finding me.
Thanks so much, Anne. It sometimes requires a little boost–knowing that their are people finding the blog–to get me percolating on new blog posts. It didn’t help that i was hacked into last year and lost about two years’ posts (along with my Twitter account for awhile). I’m thinking of rerunning a bunch of those old posts, because I don’t know if anyone reading me today has read those old ones. I wonder if that’s even a good idea o whether it’s best to just move on?
Thanks for including me, Anne! My blog is scarce and updated rather unfrequently, but I’m going to have a lot more content and a new look very soon!
They are great web sites for inspiration. If you are ready to move forward on your next book, then I can be the professional creative book designer and layout artist you need. http://www.bluetaildesign.blogspot.com
Book design is my passion as with everyone you have listed.
Ted, want to write a guest article? No pay, 500 – 800 words, links to your site… maybe for this audience an overview of why book design is important?
The thing about book interior design is that it ideally strikes such a delicate balance: drawing and holding the reader’s eyes on the words filling the printed page, but not making such a big bang that it distracts the reader from those words.