image and text design

Image Manipulation

 

Today I've been manipulating images in Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. This will be the primary method that I will use to formulate my endpapers for the JSS assignment, as only one Pantone or shade of CYMK is permitted. I am now going to break down what I worked on with each image:

Bear one (brown): I created a greyscale image in Photoshop and saved it. Then I changed the Image Mode to a bitmap, and saved it as a .bmp file. I then added the file to InDesign and edited the colour to a nude swatch that I created from Adobe Illustrator.

Shakespeare: To create this bitmap image, I saved it as a greyscale image at 1200dpi. I used the Image>mode feature again to save it as a bitmap.tiff image. From this, I placed the item into InDesign over a tan background. I then changed the B/W image to a one-tone red. I think these colours work quite well together.
 

Bear two (pink): I re-opened the photo of the bear in Photoshop and saved it as a bitmap.tiff image at 1200, I edited the bitmap type to Halftone Screen which gives the image a comic book effect. From there, I placed this file into Indesign and changed the colour swatch to a Pantone+ Solid Uncovered in a light pink.

There are multiple versions of bitmap manipulation, these include: halftone, threshold, pattern and gradient. Each one gives a slightly different effect.

Text manipulation

For the above text, I utilised Adobe Illustrator to create the text using vectors. This is a better alternative to editing text on Photoshop because quality is not lost. 

I ungrouped the letters so each could be edited and manipulated individually, I enjoyed working in this way because the letters stayed crisp and were of print-quality. I then copied this smart image into Photoshop. By using the enter key after doing this, I could edit the text in illustrator and the smart image would transfer over to the Photoshop file automatically. This will be invaluable to my final typesetting and cover design assignment! 

cover design and font choice

Today I'm looking different cover genres and searching for an appropriate font to match.


1. 'A View of the Cascade'

From a distance, this cover looks like it could be from a fantasy novel (to me, anyway). I think it's because of the muted, pink and green colour palette that somehow reminded me of the pretty glowy elves from Lord of the Rings. Anyhoo, on closer inspection it appears that the illustration is actually a really beautiful and traditional nature painting, with a few people in early 20th century dress. Because of all of these indicators, I decided on this font 'Fogtwo no5'. I think it's pretty classic and definitely signifies a vintage period, but I also think that it isn't too predictable and 'broadway'. 

 

2. ' Space Cats'

This a pretty cute illustration of a cat, in space (two of my favourite things). I really like this idea, and I chose a font that wasn't too traditionally 'childrens' because I think this image could possibly have potential with an older market too. 'Another' is a typewriter font with a rounded, approachable feel. 

 

3. 'Morning Dawn'

This design is a nice, fresh graphic design that doesn't give away much. Because of the palette and because of the style, I would think that this book is aimed at women. I decided that it didn't look much like a romance novel, so I settled on a memoir-type idea, and used a handwritten font called 'Hickory Jack'.

 

4. 'Demon Flight'.

This book with a demon on the front first indicated to me that I needed to take a wander down the 'gothic' section of dafont.com. However, after saving a few very garish and obvious fonts to my desktop, I decided on 'Optimus Princeps'. It's not quite as restrictive, and I feel that the cover of the book is deliberately enigmatic enough to draw a wide range of reader, and it should be complimented by a font that respects that. 

 

5. 'The Greatest Feeling'

This cover deserved a typical retro font, because of the mid century fashion illustation on the cover. I really like the graphic colour scheme, and I think the font could be easily edged up by colouring it acid yellow and outlining it in black.

 

6. 'Dancing: An Illustrated History'

This was my least favourite of all of the covers because it doesn't really say much except 'dance'. The fonts related to dance that I could find were all quite comical, so I settled for an aptly titled, 'timeless' serif font. 

 

7. 'POP!'

I really like this cover. I originally thought that this would be a 60s-inspired art book about pop art, but on second thought, it would make a really interesting contemporary literary fiction cover. I settled with the font 'Nova' in the end, because I thought that it encompassed the best of both worlds. This cover was definitely the hardest to look for, because I couldn't really pin it down

Now I'm going to make a full front and back cover from one of the illustrations above, I'll probably upload a separate post going through that though - look out for that!

academic publishing process (condensed)

As discussed in the previous post, an author can be commissioned through a proactive, reactive or collaborative process. After the commissioning editor and the author have made contact, the steps to produce a publishable and professional-standard monograph can be detailed.

• The author/academic submits a book proposal based on their research. This outlines a synopsis of the book, where its place in the market will be, a list of the contributors, how relevant the book will be to the market, and offers a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the content.
  

• The author -if not already on file - submits a copy of their CV, which details the published works and academic background of the contributor.
  

• The commissioning editor reviews the work and decides whether it is publishable based on market research and financial investigation into the costs of production using a P&L sheet. MUP aims to have a 65% profit margin, and will only publish after this amount. Here is an example of a P&L sheet:

• The title is sent to an acquisitions meeting, which includes members of staff from editorial, sales and marketing, and rights. These respective contributors determine if the book is publishable from their aspects.
  
  
• If it is commissioned, the academic publishing house will send out a house style attachment that outlines the writing style that is preferred.  This list is quite extensive, and contains grammatical, spelling and structural preferences outlined by the publishing house. An example of this sheet for MUP has been provided on Blackboard. The author must adhere to these rules if they are to be published.
  

• During this process, contracts between the publishing house and the author will be drawn up, these contracts talk about the digital, media and adaptation rights of a book, the revenue breakdown and the legal obligations both parties have toward one another. Some examples of these can be found on BlackBoard. Tony showed the group a few examples of their contracts at MUP, and we went through the contract line-by-line. It was very interesting how different the fiction/small publisher contract at Blue Moose was in terms of tone and address, in comparison to the academic contract.
  
  
• The work is then peer-reviewed by comparable academics in the field, these in-depth reviews work on a quid-pro-quo basis, and the reviewer is usually only paid £50 for the effort, or given five books from the publisher's backlist (in some cases).
  
  
• If the book passes the peer review process, the work is edited and finalised by the editorial team, the marketing and sales team work on the design. The cover is decided at this stage.
  
  
• The book at this stage is saleable, and the metadata and isbn must be put in place.
  
  
• Sales and marketing teams introduce the book at conferences and book launches, and the book is distributed through existing channels to retail outlets.