Book and jacket design, layout, pagination and typograghy

A book is a treasure, as lovers of books everywhere have known since forever. The way the pages feel between your fingers, the pretty motif at the start of a new chapter,the picture of a child that marks your page in the book waiting on your bedside table. Reading is a tactile, visual and even gustatory experience, and choosing the right page design, fonts and spacing to perfectly match the text and bring the words to life is it's own art form. 

Sometimes authors have an idea about how they want their books to look but Self Publish SA creates style alternatives and works with clients until they have a look they’re absolutely in love with. It’s a good idea to go to a bookshop and spend some time familiarising yourself with different layout options and get an idea of current trends, although in today’s eclectic world an antique or retro look wouldn’t go amiss either. Choosing the cover design is of prime importance, and we work with a range of designers to ensure you get the right look, using both photography and original artwork.

Once the design has been established, actually placing the copy is a time-consuming process because each line needs to be spaced properly, and bad breaks and widows and orphans eliminated etc. A draft is then sent to the client who proofreads it, and it’s best to enlist the assistance of as many pairs of eyes as possible to do the same because “fresh” eyes easily pick up mistakes which grow invisible to people very familiar with the text. Any changes are then sent back to Self Publish SA, a process we called “author’s corrections”, which is included in the cost of the design.

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