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Cover to Cover: Textbook Design

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by Mark DaGrossa, Director of Creative Services

In this edition of Cover to Cover, I’m going to take you through the steps we consider when we are designing a textbook.

After the project is awarded to us, we assemble our team and get down to work. First, we determine whether we are creating a design template or if one will be provided. If we are creating the template for our client, we need to define several items, including:

  • Chapter openers, unit openers, covers, testing pages, activity pages – all need to have the same visual theme or family but may have their own feel.
  • Icons – need to be created for each sidebar item
  • Head treatments – the head in the general body of the text will be worked on, A-Head, B-Head, C-Head, and so forth.
  • Columns – how many should each page have?
  • Fonts – We need to select fonts that allow for several options within the font family.
  • Printing – This is important to ensure specific margins or gutter spaces are incorporated into the design.
  • Photos – Will they have square cuts, borders, vignettes, breakout images, outlines or drop shadows? We also consider how captions will be shown.
  • Footers and folios – What will go into these areas?
  • Book map – is there one which shows how the pages flow? This is important if you want each unit to open with a spread.

For projects that are more design intensive, once we have a design template established, we move on to verbal visual conferences (VVC) for the pages. A VVC is a meeting that brings together the editor, art researcher, and the designer.

In the VVC, the designer uses a printout of the loose version of the pages, including the items that are static on the pages. The designer works through the manuscript, page by page, with the editor and art researcher, drawing a sketch of how each page will look. The editor highlights what is important in the content, allowing the designer get a better idea of the look and flow of the page. This also gives the art researcher a clearer understanding of what they need to be looking for and how the images will be used.

VVCs are conducted in the earlier stages of the project using rough sketches and will change somewhat once the final images are found, chosen, and approved. I’ve included an example below of a rough sketch and the final version so that you can see the types of changes that occurred as the project took shape.

Another important detail we need to factor is what grade level the content is being designed and written for. The lower the grade level, the less text and more imagery will be used. Lower grades get a bigger, more easily read font. Leading is larger, and the actual writing is grade level specific. Colors tend to be a bit brighter and primary. The imagery is much larger and more specific to the content, allowing younger students to make a better connection between the words and pictures. As the grade level climbs into the middle and high school levels, less imagery is required. Font sizes will be somewhat smaller, and the colors for images may be more muted so as not to distract from the text.

As you can see, there are many important items designers, working with editors and the art team, consider. Effective design ensures students better understand the program.

I hope this post has helped you learn more about how designers approach working on a textbook project. I welcome your design questions and ideas for future blog post subjects. Feel free to email me at: mdagrossa@westchesterpubsvcs.com

Have a great day!

Mark

 

by Michael Jon Jensen – Director of Technology

Michael Jon Jensen, and the software development team at Westchester’s Chennai office

I recently returned from my third visit to our offices in Chennai, India. The first trip seven months ago was an adventure and a revelation; the second, three months ago, was a return for strategic development. This most recent trip was a reunion with colleagues who I now consider friends, to refine our mutual long-term plans.

My first ever trip to India, in late April of 2017 — was a cultural whirlwind. The intersection between an ancient civilization, the impacts of a few hundred years of colonization, and 21st-century modernity means that Chennai lives all of them simultaneously. Their day-to-day traffic manifests that complex intersection: handcarts, bikecarts, scooters, motorcycles, three-wheelers, autos, small trucks, panel vans, and big trucks interweave constantly, usually gracefully (if terrifyingly hair-raisingly), blithely ignoring lane markings and traffic signs. I tried to put my foot through the floor so often that my right calf ached at the end of the first few commutes.

During that first visit to our Chennai offices, I discovered a depth of skill and capability that I’d only halfway understood. I found a desirable Indian workplace comprised of good jobs which were well-staffed, and a production workflow focused on quality-control at every stage, across the board.

I shouldn’t say I was “surprised” by anything I saw in our Chennai offices on that first trip. Before joining Westchester Publishing Services, I’d done due diligence by talking with a lot of publishers I knew to confirm their reputation before signing on, and to be sure that their Indian staff were well treated. I heard nothing but support.

What I saw on that first trip exceeded my expectations, and delighted me. I also reveled in the reality that at the Chennai offices we have our own software development team, who were already deeply knowledgeable about data transformations, typesetting nuances, as well as XML, EPUB, and textual presentations. These are things I’ve done and loved my whole career, and I realized that we could insource a lot of development, building internal strength, and creating some amazing tools together to serve our clients’ needs, and to expand what’s possible behind the scenes.

My job just got more exciting at that point.

My second trip, in August of 2017, was a solid week of engagement, bookended each day by that brief, routine commute in Chennai’s hair-raising traffic. That time, I complimented myself on only freaking out about the traffic once or twice per commute, such as when a family of five on a motorcycle swerved successfully around the three people on a scooter who were swerving around a slow-moving bicycle cart.

During that second visit, Elan and Christober (Development Chief and Head Architect, respectively) and I strategized out the next 18-24 months. From immediate priorities to stretch goals, we laid out what might be achieved given our existing strengths and client needs, and given our capabilities. Such fun, imagining what we could build. What kinds of hires would we want to make to achieve specific goals? What steps should we take now, to enable certain kinds of analysis a year from now?

Regarding this most recent third trip, begun when the January winter storm began?  Apart from my luggage finally arriving the day of my departure from India (a story for another day), it was sheer delight.  I was returning to meet with friends, people I had worked with to devise some radical improvements of already-streamlined production services, and to re-envision data infrastructure. Only geeks can get excited talking about the user interfaces for our backend workflows, which will also feed data to our client-facing Portal. And we were trans-Atlantic geeks, to be sure.

We’re already working out how to design a “scholarly EPUB” format optimally suited for scholars; refine image and textual analysis tools to flag possible problems like rivers, or stacks, or a disproportionate degree of “feathering”; identify the richest 25% of the document’s content; auto-categorize publications, via multiple frameworks (Amazon, BISAC, LC, etc.); identify most-related titles within a publisher’s WPS ouvre; and on and on.

Of course, we work on this stuff together daily from across the ocean, via Skype, phone, and email. But there’s nothing like being in the same room with really smart developers, brainstorming ways to enhance the quality, the beauty, the processes, and the value of the work we produce.

Best of all, during this visit’s daily commute, I didn’t slam on my “virtual brake” at all. I can’t say I was calm, but clearly, some part of me had become acculturated to Chennai’s traffic.

On my next visit to Chennai, we’ll hammer out the strategic structural necessities, and the required scripted processes to enable our next leap forward.

I can’t wait for that next trip!

– Michael