Category Archives: Typography

Page Layout Part Six: Designing body copy styles

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Body copy styles The first formatting decisions I will be talking about are for the body copy. This is what Word calls Normal. Many of the Word docs you get to setup will be entirely locally formatted Normal. It is the main content of your book, and it must be comfortable to read. This paragraph style is what produces that smooth type color you need for the background against which the contrasting heads and subheads stand out. … Continue reading →

Self-publishing Front & Back matter: It’s all about the reader

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Today, in this third post on formatting, I want to talk about many things which have been lost in the rush toward ebooks: self-publishing front back matter. This is an excerpt from my book: Book Publishing With InDesign CC Many reader services are no longer written or included. Most of this is simply because of the inexperience and lack of training by the normal self-publishing novelist and writer of devotions. You should take a look and seriously … Continue reading →

Basic page layout: Part One, Book size

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As I get ready to release my new book, Self-Publishing With InDesign CC, I want to share some of the basic ideas in the book. Self-publishers rarely know page layout standards So, this little series will help with some of those basic decisions you need to make. Setting up your book to be read: One of the more daunting aspects of book design for the inexperienced is page layout. Most people have Word experience and as I have said … Continue reading →

Studying poster design to help your covers

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CREATIVE PRO HAS AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE TODAY on poster design. I mention this because authors without the trained eye of the designer make embarrassing design mistakes because this knowledge is not part of their understanding. Self-publishers must train their eyes Books like Ellen’s shown above are a real help as you expand your knowledge beyond the narrow confines of writing and editing. What writers are normally not aware of is the constant visual input which is the … Continue reading →

Butterick’s Practical Typography, a new online book

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A new typography resource, beautifully done Graphics.com gave a link today to an online book, Butterick’s Practical Typography [shareware, to use an old term] which looks to have some excellent pieces. I just read the first article: Drowning the Crystal Goblet. It is quite good. In it, the concept of invisible typography is taken apart. As I have taught that for years, it was good for me to hear the counter arguments. The second article: Typography in … Continue reading →

New release! Librum Book Design Group font package

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This is the release of the fifteen-font package for book design which I developed in the writing of Practical Font Design With FontLab 5. It is a further development of the Contenu/Buddy group. Click here to purchase the Librum Book Design Group The x-heights are larger, it’s slightly narrower, and the general design is a bit more conservative. There is a serif text family, named Librum, for body copy, and a companion serif ebook family, named Librum … Continue reading →

The 12-font bundle offered in Practical Font Design is available now!

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Over the years, I have sold quite a few of these bundles, but I never really had a place where it could be purchased and downloaded. Now I do. It’s a value-added offer for readers of the book. Buy the 12-font bundle here

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A short note about ebook licensing for your fonts

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As a font designer, Monotype is the biggest and best. They have all the top sites: fonts.com, myfonts.com, itc.com, and several more. They are the sites used by the pros, primarily. At the least, the pros sell their fonts there also. These places are where my fonts are sold, in most cases. Ebook licensing is very new I have the entire Adobe library and several others, maybe 4000 fonts total. None of them are licensed for anything other … Continue reading →

Enhanced typesetting and new inaccessible Kindle format?

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Back to scratching mud Aaron Shepherd is convinced that this is true. The .kfx (which Aaron believes stands for .kf10) is a post-uploading process done to your books over the first month or two after uploading. What it means as far as he is concerned is this: In practical terms, this means there is no longer any effective way to proof your book before or after publication. You can get it looking absolutely perfect in a KDP proof, and … Continue reading →