This project was quite complicated, and changed concept a few times. And since I started working on the cover long before the layout, as the layout progressed I had to work back and forth on the cover as I wanted cover and layout to be consistent.
To transmit the idea of workbook and implying interaction I used some of the elements from the interior of the book like the dashed lines, Escher drawings, etc.

And here some of the earlier drafts (even one with a change in the title!):

Nielsen believes that “the ability to inspire deep thinking is why non-fiction books still have value compared with websites….”

Relationship to book design? Designing a non-fiction book is much more stimulating to a book designer than designing a book of fiction since non-fiction offers many more elements for engaging the reader, e.g., diagrams, images, block quotes, pull quotes, captions, sub-headings. These elements all add a level of interaction with the content that changes the way a person reads a book.

Yet, this enriched interaction with a text does not translate smoothly to reflowable e-book formats (e.g., Kindle, ePub, etc.).

To compensate Nielsen advises, and I think this is a very important statement in his article:

“For Kindle, it’s certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can’t repurpose website content, either. For good Kindle usability, you have to design for the Kindle. Write Kindle-specific headlines and create Kindle-specific article structures.”

Read this part again: “But you can’t repurpose website content, either.” There’s an irony behind that since the underlying format behind Kindle & ePub is HTML & CSS.

Well, this should certainly keep writers, editors, and designers busy. But is it cost-effective for a publisher?

Or are lower-cost, mostly automated, quick-&-dirty conversions good enough for users that prefer mobile devices and reflowable text? Or, good enough for now until this market shakes out over the course of the next few years and we all see what device and formats are really going to dominate? In 5 years perhaps the Kindle will be nothing more than a netbook, and in that case we’re back to using PDF and/or designing for Web browsers and creating a stylesheet for mobile devices.

Is This Insanity?

From a strategic standpoint the difficulty of a publisher designing for the Kindle is that in the mid-1990s we entered an age of continuously redesigning content. Or as Nielsen says, “It’s simply the 1995 lesson updated to a 2009 device.” And I’m only referring to digital content, not the porting of print to digital. But what happens with the 2010 device, the 2011 device, the 2012 device? Evolving technological capabilities have kept Web designers gainfully employed for years now.

As a person running a design firm I should be an enthusiastic champion for specifically redesigning books for Kindle. But just as Web sites are often redesigned every few years to incorporate new features offered by advances in technology, will we see e-books redesigned every few years? Or should the focus be elsewhere, such as thinking about how to create original digital content that doesn’t have a corresponding print component? Or perhaps the print component of digital content is a deeper, more engaging examination of the topic? Or any of several other possibilities. But continually redesigning the same material into different formats isn’t progress.

Awakening Possibility is a book I designed a few months ago. The author described it as a ‘self-help book (workbook) on career and life planning‘, and the manuscript was about 66-page Word doc and I was asked to make it in about a 150-page book.
After reading the book I realized that it had a lot of ‘visualizing work’, so I thought that having a book with lots of white space fit the purpose of making it to the page count and also went very well to the content by leaving open space as a means for thinking and reflecting.

ELEMENTS OF THE BOOK

Being a workbook, there was not only text but many other elements to design: workbook pages to be completed by the reader, along with diagrams, charts, exercises, etc. Below a little look at the original manuscript. (Several of the textual elements in the manuscript that were converted graphically can be seen in the last two images of this post.)

GRID

I proposed a 2 column layout: a wide one for the text and a thin one for full width to be used with the elements mentioned before. Two thin blocks to the sides were used on the right for chapter title and on the left for folios (book title, page number & author).

TEXT ON THE PAGE

The column width is about 70 characters, and the text block is justified to add to the overall ‘clean feel’.

The main typeface was Filosofia by Zuzana Licko: Filosofia Roman 10/15 for the text (yes, generous leading) and Filosofia Unicase for the chapters. Looking for a typeface to combine with Filosofia, I found that ITC Conduit could work, designed by Mark van Bronkhorst. ITC Conduit is the opposite of the contemporary-modern roman Filosofia and with a wide range of variants for all the elements required (headings, diagrams, etc).

FORMATTING THE TEXT

Some of the elements were interesting to reformat, like this list that got formatted as a tag cloud:

I also added some ornaments to complement a few pages, which relate to the content (Escher’s drawings). Here are some double pages of the final design:

In an earlier post I mentioned using the font Brothers for the cover. So when working on the layout, the idea was (& always is) to relate the layout with the cover to unify the book.

Having the Brothers font on the cover, I thought that I would like to find a good text font to go with it: something masculine, geometric, but at the same time highly readable. (Remember that usability always must be in mind when designing a book: the book is meant to be read!)
The chapter headings and small ornaments were also set in Brothers, and for the main text, the choice was Melior by Hermann Zapf. After trying some other fonts, Melior fit the bill: the geometric rectangle based font went perfectly with Brothers.

For the front matter I started to incorporate Melior, always combined with Brothers Bold & Regular. (In the image is the horizontal design for the TOC & Dedication page.)

BTW, The Imperfect Enjoyment has its own website, which I found very amusing… featuring Barack Obama!

ORIENTATION: portrait or landscape?

By thinking that we are designing a ‘book’ the impulse is always to go with a known book format (portrait), but since the screen is landscape, it’d be useful to follow that format if the e-book is intended to be read on screen.
However, when we read a print book we are always looking at a landscape format from the moment we open the book: the double page. So finally, I decided to go landscape, but as double page to keep the book familiarity and avoid the feel of a PowerPoint presentation.

Should we use COLOR or B&W?

Should we do it full color? We can! So why not?

A full color e-book can be done for the same price and will be more attractive since it’s full of graphics… ok, let’s think about the audience: what if the people want to actually print it and take it with them? Remember this is a tourist guide!
WHAT TO DO? We decided to work on 2 versions: a screen version with images & full color for people to enjoy, read and look at while planning the trip; and a print version that is B&W with a simpler layout. So by printing 11 letter-size pages of the print version then the reader can have the complete text to go.
Here an example of the screen version and the print version:

One complicated part we encountered was a double page with an architectural walking tour that included buildings photos: in this case we just left the map in the print version with references (so people could find the buidings) without images and included the text of that section:

To keep the feel of the book, the print version has the same text orientation (landscape), so by slightly modifying the original grid it was ready:

TYPOGRAPHY: screen font or book font?

I wanted a font family that could be used for the whole project, including the print version. The Rotis family was the choice because of the maximum readability and many options to combine the different levels of hierarchies of headings and text. The main text is set in Rotis Sans Serif and the headings are Rotis Serif & Rotis Semi Serif.

With or without LINKS?

I find it useful when a multi-page document (e-book in this case) has anchors from the Table of Contents linking to the corresponding pages in the e-book. Also since this is an e-book all Web sites mentioned in the e-book are actual links embedded in the document.

COVER

To be consistent with the landscape look of the whole project, the cover was done in the same style, so when opening the document all the pages are the same size, including the cover.

PART II: The Final Cover

The first round of the cover concepts were focused on the uniqueness of the yoruba origins of the author and her grandfather, the focus of the legacy.

For the second round we looked for a more ‘universal’ approach on the topic of the book’s theme “learnings of life”, which would allow more people to relate to it. This was a better approach from a marketing perspective and also conveyed the message that the author was transmitting in a better way since the book is about people and life regardless which culture they are from:

The dark background immediately stood out from the rest. And though we loved the title set in the calligraphic font Affair, we later changed it to Bentley & MrsEaves for improved readability:

Here is the final cover:

When we finished the cover, we sent it over to the talented team of COS Productions to produce the book trailer. I was thrilled to see how the video captured the essence of the book:

Coming soon | Part III: Book Jacket & Interior Pages

Respected Web designer Mark Boulton of the UK has a great post on why he chose to self publish his new Web design book rather than going with a traditional publisher.

He makes a very important point about self publishing:

Luckily, I’ve got a good team around me - a designer, a project manager, a proof-reader, and an editor to shape the book (that was particularly helpful early on).

You can’t do this on your own…if you want to have any chance of producing a book that anyone wants to buy and read. The part about having an editor is especially important. Of course, we also think that having a good book designer is particularly important, too. And that part about having a project manager? It should come as no surprise that most authors are not very good at managing projects and deadlines. Editing, project management, proofreading, and book design are all functions normally provided by a publisher (along with distribution & marketing). If you’re going to self publish successfully, then you have to take on those tasks. And you have to be willing to absorb the costs of those functions.

About the financial aspects, Mark says

the financial potential of just one PDF book far outweighs the traditional process (if you have an audience that is).

The key to that statement is the audience. I’ve been following Mark’s blog for a number of years and he always has good insights. He has established authority in his niche. A problem that many authors have is that they wait to establish their Web presence until after their book is published, or at least not until they have a book contract. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to build an audience online. Authors need to start on that long before they start writing that book, particularly in non-fiction.

David has several books and some great free e-books on the topics of PR and viral marketing. His latest book is World Wide Rave:

A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. Whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík, it’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.

He’s come across a really great method for getting people on the Web to talk about his book. According to David, “Your challenge: Creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories.” ….and, so here’s me promoting the poster of David’s book in Buenos Aires.

1) E-books based on a reflow format (i.e., suitable for small devices) will be based on common style sheets and exhibit a fairly uniform appearance. There will be a set of small (in size) firms that customize and refine these style sheets. Publishers will mostly outsource the format conversion since the ever changing variety of devices requires continual reformating of material. There will be some firms that profit very well from providing this service.

2) E-books based on PDFs also will be very popular due to the variety of light-weight computing devices with large screens. (The whole PDF vs reflow format for e-books is misleading unless one assumes that small, palm-sized devices will completely replace all other forms of desktop, notebook, and tablet-sized computers.)

3) Some material traditionally only published in book format will shift to Web delivery and “book” design for this genre actually is Web design. Many challenges for publishers in this segment who have not yet figured out how to monetize Web sites. (If publishers have not figured that out in the last 15 years, will the next 15 years be much different?) Many opportunities for new publishing firms to emerge to fill the gap for producing and monetizing engaging content using digital media. Many opportunities for designers since elegant Web design is neither simple nor cheap.

4) Print-on-demand establishes a significant market operating in bookstores, libraries, big-box retail outlets, and direct shipping to consumers. All those books still need designing and the PDF byproduct can feed directly into pathway #2 above as well as #1 with conversion services offered in pathway #1.

5) Print book designers will still flourish as some publishers will realize that a niche audience is willing to pay a premium for a wonderfully designed book, heralding a surprising renaissance in book design. Also, print book designers can design PDF-based e-books with no problem since PDF is usually a byproduct in the print book design process.