Course Info

CAVEATS

• This is an
  archived course from Lynda.com
   and may disappear! #ARCHIVEDCOURSE

COURSE DETAILS

Description:

Learning objectives

• Getting to know your text
• Choosing a page size and format
• Setting margins
• Creating and applying paragraph styles
• Wrapping text around images
• Creating a table of contents
• Designing the front cover, spine, and back cover
• Exporting a print-ready PDF
• Uploading to Blurb
• Making an EPUB

Instructor

NIGEL FRENCH
Nigel French: Graphic Designer, Author, Artist, Trainer

Table of Contents Goes Here

VIDEOS

0. Introduction

0.00 Welcome

• Purpose: design novel -> Alice in Wonderland
• Public domain, excellent variety of layout and type design
• Creating interior, back cover, and spine
• How to upload finished files to  Blurb.com to receive a real, printed copy of our book

0.01 Using the exercise files

• 
  Ex_Files_Design_Book.zip
   (480.47MB)
• If using InDesign CS4/CS5 need to use the IDML files. #GOTCHA: These IDML files always open to a blank document.

1. Getting Started

1.00 Looking at the parts of a book

FRONT MATTER:

• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Colophon (information about typefaces and printing techniques)
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Forward: Usually written by somebody other than the author
• Preface: Usually written by the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction

BODY MATTER

• Parts
• Sections
• Chapters

END MATTER (optional)

• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index

1.01 Getting to know your text

• Start with Raw text – one continuous text file – look for possible issues and  #GOTCHAS:
  • Weird formatting
  • Inline Graphics
  • Text boxes
• Start with mostly vanilla formatting – you don’t want to lose ALL the formatting. Leave in local formatting (bold, italic, underline) so that you know where to apply paragraph styles.
• Differentiate different prose and verse patterns of text
• Much precedent for design of Alice in Wonderland.”How has this problem already been solved by designers that came before us?”
• Usually Find/Change in InDesign is more friendly and powerful than MS Word

1.02 Understanding the use of Alice in Wonderland

RATIONALE FOR CHOOSING ALICE IN WONDERLAND (AIW)

• This is a
  book design case study
  
• Text by: Lewis Carroll
• Images by: John Tenniel
• Both text and images are in the public domain
• Not too long, but has most of the main book parts for a book design project
• Most of us are familiar with the imagery and the basic story

VIDEO LINKS & RESOURCES

2. Document Setup and Strategy

2.00 Setting up the page size and format

• Paperbacks come in a variety of standard sizes (A/B/C):

PAPERBACK BOOK SIZES TABLE

• “The size of your book will typically be determined by your publisher”
• Since we are going to print with  Blurb.com, we have to conform to one of their sizes.

BLURB.COM

• http://www.blurb.com/pricing#black-white-books
• Blurb tradebooks come in two sizes
• 5×8 and 6×9
• He’s using 6×9 because he favors a larger size and 2/3 aspect ratio

SETTING UP THE DOCUMENT IN INDESIGN

• CTRL-N  #KBDSHORTCUT

• Primary Text Frame: When you place your text file in the document it will create extra pages automatically; You don’t need to know exactly how many pages you have. Just leave num pages and start page number at 1 for now.

BLURB BOOK CREATOR PLUGIN

• #GOTCHA: You have to sign up for a free Blurb.com account first
• Download for free from http://www.blurb.com/apps/indesign-plugin/v2-download
• The advantage of using the plugin: you make sure you are giving blurb exactly the format they one.  #GOTCHA: When you upload an InDesign file from your desktop without using the plugin it has to go through a “rigorous preflighting process” to ensure the book will print the way you expect it to. The plugin will streamline that process

• #GOTCHA: Blurb Book Creator requires a minimum of 20 pages
• Estimated price is generated based on the above data
• Click “Create Pages Template” and save result to desktop

Pages Template

• Bleed is automatically set up (red line)
• Gray area is the “safe area” or type area
• No content should be in the white area outside the gray
• Turn off instructions layer

2.01 Setting margins

• We will be using the standard “new document” method for most who probably don’t have the book creator plugin.
• Exercise Files > alice1.indd
• You should see a two-page spread for the A-Master page (because of primary text frame on)
• Starts with working backwards from the type and the size of type you’ll be workiing with
• Typesetting a novel written in the mid 19th century
• Typeface  Caslon was very popular at that time
• We’ll use:
  Adobe Caslon Pro
  
• Start with dummy text. Click into left primary text frame and fill with placeholder text. Select all > Change font to “Adobe Caslon Pro Regular”.
• Rationale: It seems historically appropriate and he really likes it
• Leading: line spacing
  • Font size: 12pt
  • Leading: 15

ESTABLISH BASELINE GRID

• Turn on the grid: View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid
• Preferences > Grids

• Select All your type
• Open the Paragraph panel. ”
  Align to Baseline Grid
  ” is the box to the right of “Hyphenate” that looks like two columns of text.
• https://www.creativestudiosderby.co.uk/adobe-indesign-applying-baseline-grid/

CALCULATE HOW MANY LINES FIT ON ONE PAGE

• Now you can calculate the maximum number of lines that can fit on a 9″ high page.
• Change units of measurement to points. In the “H:”eight field add “/15” (because default leading is 15pt). The result is roughly how many lines will fit on each page.
• Select left page text frame and pull top down 6 lines
• #GOTCHA: You need to consider where your folio information ( page numbers & chapter headers) is going to go. In this case, he has chosen to put it in the header instead of footer. The header will be slightly bigger than the footer.
• Pull frame bottom up 4 lines and change.
• Inside margin should be at least as big as bottom margin (15 x 4 = 60).
• Select Left middle reference point
• Add “-60” to the width value
• He favors a bigger outside margin than inside margin so you can put your thumb somewhere
• Outside margin: 5 x leading = 75pt
• Change to Right Middle ref point and -75pt from width field

RATIONALE FOR GOING THROUGH THIS PROCESS FOR MARGIN SETTING

• When margins are all based on leading increment, then ” the overall effect is going to be much more harmonious than it would be had we just chosen some random numbers.</em >”

DETERMINE CHARACTER COUNT PER LINE

• Open  Info panel and check for a character count (in left frame we just set up) of between 50 and 60 per line.
• His character count is more than 60 in some case so he is deciding to reduce both the inside and outside margin by 15 points. #GOTCHA: Make sure to use the appropriate reference points.
• #TIP: Use image frame as a “measuring stick” to determine final margin values

FINAL MARGIN VALUES

• Layout > Margins and Columns. Set the following values:

• Adjust both left and right text frames to the new margin guides
• Delete all the text

(To Be Continued …)

NEXT: 2.02 Adding page numbers and running heads