Designing books can get complicated. When you are both writing and designing a book it is imperative that the designer be organized. Just like I use a Content Outline to help me with the design Utah Travel Guide, you may want to create a Content Outline for your Designer Book. Here is a example of a quick outline for the Designer Book project.
Designer Book Flat Plan
I convert the Content Outline for the Utah Travel Guide to a Flat Plan showing where the contents might appear in the book. Here is an example of a quick flat plan for the Designer Book project.
Designer Book Rhythm
One of the biggest challenges of book or multiple-page publication designer is turning pedantic content into an interesting and visually exciting rhythmic layout. It helps me if I look at the book I am designing like a visual piece of music. I try to create a visual rhythm composed of various visual parts – perhaps a light riff of a visual introduction, pedantic repeats to set up a beat, followed by a break in the beat, the pedantic repeat again, then followed by a contrasting visual turn-around of two or three single pages, followed by the pedantic repeat, then back to the break, ending with a light summary riff. Here I compare the layout of a book to the 12-bar blues.
