On Book Design

How is a book designed? What do book designers think about as they turn mansucripts into printed books? In this volume the book designer Richard Hendel and other book designers discuss their approaches and working methods. They consider the problems posed by a wide range of projects - selection of book's size and shape, choice of typeface for text and display, arrangement of type on the page, and determination of typographic details for all parts of the book within manufacturing and buget limitations. As omnipresent as books are, few readers are aware of the "invisible" craft of book designing. The task of a book designer faces is different from that faced by other designers. The challenge, says Hendel isn't to create something different or pretty or clever but to discover how best to serve the author's words. Hendel does not epouse a single philosophy of design or a set of instructions; he shows that there are many ways to design a book. In detailed descriptions of the creative process, Hendel and the eight other designers show how they achieve the most effective visual presentation of words, offering many examples to illustrate their choices.