Design is a topic like music and art that most people know just enough about to get into trouble. If you have been around design as long as I have and have seen some of the disasters that occur when someone writes a song, paints a painting or designs a book without knowing what goes into it, you might be cringing as I am now. We all know when we hear a sour note or see an image that is just plain bad, however we may not know how to play an instrument, paint or design.
So why is it that many authors try to add book design to their skill set instead of leaving it to professionals? I think the reason is that the authors don’t really understand what the rules of book design are. All art whether it is commercial or fine art has rules that you must follow. You can bump up against them but if you break them you start to look like an amateur. For example, take the margins on a page. An unprofessional design will have the type extend almost to the edge and gutter of the page. You fit more type on a page that way but it hurts the readability and the balance of the page. White space is necessary and is a good thing.
A quality book design helps you sell books and helps your audience enjoy reading your book more. If you are a wine drinker I just be you on occasion purchase wine by the way the label looks. I know I do. If the label looks high quality, I assume the wine is. The old saying you can’t judge a book by it’s cover is true, but people do judge books be their covers. Don’t scrimp on the design of your book. We can help you with your book design. When we take on a design project we send you several different proofs to choose from. Let us quote your next design project!
