Surviving change

There's been plenty of change lately but just look at how books have survived from where they first started. Thank goodness for the book designer we say.

The upheaval in the book trade has meant hard times for everyone. With our workloads a bit lighter we have kept ourselves busy and ahead of the game by reading. There is heaps of it to be done. Changes in ebooks and with Creative Suite have meant we now have the technology as designers to offer way more services than ever before. Do ask us before heading off to someone else for help with animation, video and interactive graphics. This round-up from Books in Browsers is a good guide for where we are heading for the future.

Digital publications are now part of our daily production and it's a real pleasure to produce an ebook that values the readers experience. Whether this be in a fixed or reflowable format or an app. The look of your book design is tops and the main element for portraying quality. We have our head around digital covers and can help guide you with innovations in ebook marketing and how to design an ebook wrapper.

images here with links through to portfolio on website that opens in a new window.

We have had a go and entered an ebook title that we recently designed for Scholastic NZ in the Digital Design Books Awards (part of the Digital Book World Conference in New York). Who knows if it will get anywhere. But sometimes you just have to give things a go.

Buy an ebook and enjoy the experience

Check out our ebook designs at the couple of links below for Scholastic NZ books now on Amazon.

"Why should I do that," I can hear you asking.

Well, that's because we have designed them. Now that's a big difference from 'produced' them. We've been blabbing on for ages about how we can 'produce' an ebook for you, which, of course we can do. But what we want to do is design an ebook for you.

When I compare these files with any of the ebooks I have been reading recently, they rock and really give the reader an experience. Judge this for yourself by clicking on the books above and you'll quickly see the difference.

A reader still wants an experience when they are reading, whether that's an ebook or a print book. Our aim is to create one for them.

Next — ebook marketing. We're also working on book trailers and how to get your ebook out there. Design has so moved on from the static image. But a book will always be a book.

Interactive PDF's, animated GIF's and book trailers?

Book trailers and animated gifs. Technology is wonderful and has advanced to the point where you don’t need to use an expensive developer to create your animated gifs and book trailers. If we’ve produced your book, then all the assets we need to create these are already at hand. If you are looking for a cost-effective option like this, then do ask us more.

Anne has had a blast with the personal profiles for our website, which gives you an idea of what we can do. It's all in the imagination.

Interactive pdf's for educational workbooks. We’ve been asked by some of our educational publishers if we can make their workbooks digital. It would be great, they tell us, if students could work directly on screen to fill in worksheets, then email these back to their teachers. Teachers could then mark and comment on the worksheets and send them back to the students. Can it be done? Absolutely.

This interactive pdf is an easy solution that we can customise to your needs. Feel free to download this dummy version and have a play. 

... and this is just the beginning. Do challenge us and see if we can help with your next big idea.

Hot off the press — designs to impress

Here's a handful of recent projects that we have designed both the covers and internals. There's heaps more that we have worked from a clients template or just completed the internals. We can help you in oh-so-many ways.

The third title we have completed by the Topp Twins and Jenny Cooper for Scholastic NZ.

An ebook that matches the design of the successful print book. Our cover design and all.

192 page, 4 colour book for New Holland. Watch out for it in your bookshop soon.

A picture book for Batemans with Errol McLeary.

Pleroma Press have published Joy Cowley's Notes to a Friend as an ebook. We love this fixed layout design.

There's also been a couple of great new titles from Huia.

The Easter Story started life as a print book and now has a digital partner.

Craig Smith is teaming with Scott Tulloch for his next book. Watch out for this before Christmas.

Introducing Carolyn Lewis

Whenever I see a gorgeous book on the shelf I pick it up and immediately look inside to see who the designer was. So many times that designer has been Carolyn Lewis.
When we first opened the Auckland studio, Carolyn sent in her CV. 'Goodie!' was my first thought, but it wasn't quite that easy; it took a couple more years and a baby for Carolyn before she was able to come and join our team.

Here's a peek at some of the work from her portfolio; we'll post her future work on our Facebook page. It will be worth keeping an eye out for.

Email Carolyn at carolyn@bookdesign.co.nz or see her page on our website.

Introducing Rachel Clark

Rachel captured our attention straight away when she answered our 'Help Wanted' ad with this clever advertisement. It was so out there, and really made her stand out from the crowd. Just what we were wanting in a designer.

Rachel trained in Washington DC to gain her BA in Graphic Design and Photography and then moved on to New York to put her skills to the test as a packaging designer.

In the six weeks she has been with us her new ideas and fresh approaches have continued to impress. She sits quietly, listens, takes in everyones needs and then shares her balanced opinion. It's just been great. Check out her personal website if you'd like to see more, but I also need to share these great competition posters she's just created for the Storylines festival. There was very little brief and no images supplied — very clever!

Email Rachel's at rachel@bookdesign.co.nz or see her page on our website

Ebooks — here's how we can help

If you are starting with a print book, then we make sure the designs and files can easily be adapted for their ebook partner, either now or in the future. The nature of the content will help steer the choice between a flowable epub file or a fixed layout.

The design process is about making things look good, and about helping readers capture a visual representation of the words they are reading.

The process isn’t as scary as you might think. We are still using InDesign as our main layout software, and the proofing process is exactly the same; it's just at the finished art stage that we need to choose the pathway — pbook or ebook. Do we convert the file to a high-resolution printable pdf or do we create a fixed or flowable epub?

We have updated and tweaked our in-house InDesign workflow, so we can create clean CSS for every file. It’s all in the way we set things up, and the advantages are that you can choose to go down either the print book or ebook pathway whenever it suits you. Your files are already set to go.

When you go for an ebook, don’t forget about cover design; it still needs to look good, although the focus is very different from a print book. An ebook cover is often viewed at thumbnail size and the buyer will probably only look at it when choosing a book. The rest of the time the cover is not viewed. But if the concept of the cover is changed to a ‘cover wrapping’, incorporating the marketing of other titles in the end-matter, it offers extra opportunities.

Book Design isn’t just a design company, it is an exciting team of people with expert knowledge and an eye on the horizon. My business focuses on emerging trends in leadership so I particularly value Kim’s quest for knowledge and thirst to be on the cutting edge, particularly in the ebook field. Dr Cheryl Doig, July 2013

Every project is different. If you’d like some help, drop us a line.