HOW A BOOK IS MADE:THE

DESIGNER

Nigel designed all the

inside pages for the

Read On books,

include Lone Wolf.

Nigel is going to tell

you about how he put

the words and pictures

together in the pages

of this dark and

thrilling tale.

Meet Nigel Jordan, graphic designer.

Lone Wolf: The design process

Nigel says:

The design of a new book starts with the ‘design brief’

from the publisher. This gives me the basic information I

need:

• Page size

• Whether the book is colour or black and white

• The number and style of illustrations or photos

• The age of the intended reader and

• The suggestions and requirements of the publisher.

In the case of Lone Wolf,

making the pages visually

interesting wasn’t too difficult.

With Matt Timson’s stunning

illustrations providing the

main imagery, I had to ensure

that the other graphic

elements on the page, such as

chapter headings and pages

numbers, enhanced the look

rather than detracted from it.

Nigel’s work station in his home studio, where he worked on Lone Wolf.

Lone Wolf: The design process

Where to start. A read-

through of the author’s

manuscript showed

werewolves figured strongly.

A red and black colour

scheme along with the

illustration style suggested

a ‘dark feel’ to the book.

Lone Wolf: The design process

Claws, teeth, scary

eyes and blood, lots of

blood – those were my

first thoughts. I tried

wolf eyes for the

chapter headings and a

single claw mark for

the page numbers. Too

fussy. The design

evolved through a

number stages and in

the end both the eyes

and the claw marks

were replaced with

blood spatters.

1 2

3

4

Lone Wolf: The design process

The author writes the story but

sometimes spelling or grammatical

mistakes can be left in. My first

layout or ‘proof’ doesn’t include the

illustrations or the graphics, just the

words, so these can be checked.

This is then ‘marked up’ by the proof

reader and I make their changes. In

this way the text is refined so that it

is the best it can be. After each set

of changes I supply another and

slowly the pages start to look more

like they will when printed.

Lone Wolf: The design process

As well as looking at the

appearance of the page, I

also have to make sure

that the text the reader is

reading is a good size,

using a clear and

appropriate style of

‘font’*. There are a

number of things which

make a page easy to read

and these include how

many words are on each

line and how far apart

those lines are.

*There are many

thousands of different

fonts to choose from.

These can make text

look very different.

Compare the chapter

headings in Lone Wolf

to the main

paragraphs. You

wouldn’t want all the

words on the page to

look like the chapter

heading – that would

be very difficult to

read.

Lone Wolf: The design process

When everyone is satisfied

with the look and quality of

the text, I produce a PDF

(Portable Document

Format) file, which is sent

to the printer to be turned

into the finished book.

– Nigel Jordan

Lone Wolf: The design process