The practice and theory of book design is one of the oldest areas of graphic design, and yet one whose detailed study is often overlooked by contemporary graphic design programs. In this intermediate/advanced course, two very different book designers—one from the scholarly academic sphere and the other from Big-5 trade—will guide you through the history, theory, and practice of contemporary book design. Perplexed by paragraph and character styles and their various levels of nesting? Vexed about variable type and its uses in long-form content? Hyped to hear about type-specific hyphenation & justification settings? Tearing your hair out attempting to identify the difference between trends and timeless design in book covers? Well, then, this course might be for you.

The coursework will focus on the book as an entire package, providing students with lessons and resources to investigate both professional typesetting and composition as well as cover and mechanical design. The course will also cover the basics of materials, manufacturing, and assembly of books insofar as these processes relate to the work of a professional book designer. Taught over the period of 10 weeks, the course will feature extensive lectures and demonstrations, as well as in-class exercises and a good deal of homework. Students will walk away with a whole book file, including cover, mechanical, special effects, and interior page files, which will be ready to upload to a print-on-demand printer of their choosing. If time allows, a bonus class will be dedicated to uploading and troubleshooting files at Kindle Direct Publishing, one of these print-on-demand printers.

Audience and Format

This course will be taught online and on Slack. It is best suited for designers and publishing workers who have some experience using Adobe InDesign. Importantly, it is not a beginner’s course. Coursework will be rigorous and demos will be catered to intermediate-to-advanced students.

Goals

• Learn the ins-and-outs of professional typesetting using the industry standard program, Adobe InDesign
• Apply contemporary composition techniques to historical layout models
• Investigate how InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and other analog techniques can be used to build book covers and mechanicals
• Learn about comping book covers to quickly generate many ideas, and work with instructors and other students to hone those ideas into a well-crafted book cover
• Learn the basics of book manufacturing, assembly, and the variety of file delivery parameters for printers and binders

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, students will:

• demonstrate proficient typesetting techniques to handle longform content, using tools like paragraph, character, & object styles, parent pages, text variables, cross-references, and more to control the details of composited pages
• design multiple comps of covers for assigned texts and, through critique and feedback, choose a direction of cover most suitable for text, audience, market, and budget
• craft a full book package considering the ways in which a book’s cover and interior can be married into a seamless design and generate printable materials to show off their work in digital and printed form

Material Requirements

• A laptop or desktop computer with a working and updated version of Adobe InDesign is required As the course is 10 weeks long, a 30-day trial of the program will not suffice
• Notebook and notetaking materials for taking notes
• Students will be asked to bring a book specimen to one of the first classes
• Analog tools for cover design can be used at the participant's discretion
• Accounts on Zoom and Slack (students will receive a link to sign up before the course if they haven’t already)

Software Requirements

Those who have little-to-no experience working with InDesign specifically will have trouble keeping up. Even the most advanced Adobe Creative Suite users will be astonished with how deep the InDesign rabbit hole goes if they have little experience with the program.

Scholarship Information

Scholarship seats are available for this course. Please check out more details on the scholarship page. This scholarship is open to all Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, with priority given to those who have limited resources or access to educational opportunities.