Book Design 101: A Step-by-Step Graphic Design Guide for Turning Your Content Into a Book
Stefan G. Bucher, Designer, Illustrator, Writer
Watch this class and thousands more
Watch this class and thousands more
Lessons in This Class
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1.
Introduction
2:45
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2.
Class Project
3:56
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3.
What Even Is Your Book?
7:55
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4.
Defining Your Audience
4:34
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5.
Gathering Content
11:29
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6.
Choosing Size & Paper
11:21
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7.
Designing Text
10:07
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8.
Laying Out the Images
6:25
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9.
Sequencing Your Book
8:39
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10.
Aesthetics: Cover, Back Cover, & Spine
11:02
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11.
Strategizing a Book Project
5:15
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12.
Finalizing Your Design
10:00
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13.
Printing Options: Specs & Steps
11:07
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14.
Preparing Your Book for Printing
9:43
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15.
Print Review
11:19
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16.
Conclusion
0:47
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17.
Bonus: Working With Clients
12:04
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About This Class
Whether you're a practicing graphic designer or you just want to create a personal memento, designing books can be a daunting challenge. I will help you break down the process into easy, un-scary tasks and will give you a fun and doable road map to get from here to there! I'll teach you everything you need to learn to design smart and elegant books and see them through the production process! You'll learn my tricks for everything except how to use the software, that is, because software changes, and these principles won't.
In this class you'll learn to:
- Clearly articulate your book's subject, topic, and audience
- Gather your content and organize it clearly
- Develop a basic structure for your book to grow around
- Create and develop a design language for your book
- Create powerful covers and book jackets that draw in your reader
- Develop a thorough method to prepare your design for printing
- Get the scoop on supervising the production process
- Learn a humane way to evaluate the finished book with your clients and for yourself
In a special bonus lesson, I also give deeper insight into my process of running book design jobs with clients:
- Discover how to interview clients to set up a smooth relationship based on honesty and integrity
- Learn how to structure book design contracts that reinforce the relationship with your client and protect you
- Develop honorable strategies to handle setbacks in the process
- Be encouraged to keep communicating with honesty and integrity
You will come out of this class with a complete understanding of how to manage all parts of a book design project and industry tips and tricks for each step along the way.
Even if you’re new to designing books, you’ll find these simple and effective techniques easy to use and apply to your work!
I can't wait to see what you create!
Meet Your Teacher
I'm a book designer, and I've been doing this for a long time. Over the past 20 years I've created books for David Hockney, Philip Glass, Tarsem, Chronicle Books, Rockport Books, Pearson, and many others.
Beyond that, I've designed for clients ranging from Judd Apatow to JPL and The New York Times. I also designed the titles for the films "The Fall," "Immortals" and "Mirror, Mirror" by director Tarsem.
If that wasn't enough, I'm the creator of the Daily Monster series of improvised ink blot drawings. My time-lapse drawings appear on the Emmy-award winning TV show "The Electric Company." I was the inaugural designer of the Echo Park Time Travel Mart for Dave Eggers' 826 organization, and designed the Blue Man Theater in Las V... See full profile
Hands-on Class Project
For your class project you'll pick an important person or event in your life and create a book about that person or event. If you come in with your own topic for a book project that's different, feel free to use that topic instead!
Together we'll figure out what would best represent and illuminate your topic, how to gather and organize your content, and turn it into a complete and interesting book.
Tools Needed:
- An idea
- Something to take notes with (preferably an analog tool like a notepad or sketchbook)
- A computer with a layout program and an image editing program of your choice
- A way of digitizing images (ideally a scanner)
Steps to Completion:
- Choosing your subject, topic, and audience for the book
- Planning your preliminary printing specs
- Organizing your assets and text
- Laying out and sequencing your content
- Designing your text, cover, and back cover
- Finalizing your content and print specs to prepare for print
Class Resources:
- The Client Intake Form is intended to help guide you, the designer, in early conversations with your clients so they can discover and define their desires for the book project early on.
- The Book Design & Production Checklists will walk you through (almost) every decision involved in the process of designing and creating your book! I recommend pinning that up in your workspace, so you can keep track of your progress and remind you of things that can slip your mind.
This is a class based on fundamental methods and principles of design, so what I'll teach you will be useful to you whether you're a graphic designer who's looking to get into book design, or you're somebody without any formal training at all who is just doing this for the love of books!
Remember to upload your final project to the project gallery to celebrate your work and get feedback or answers to your questions!
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