Teach me about picture book design - ISO advice and things to read
October 24, 2020 7:18 PM Subscribe
I'd like to learn more about designing picture books. My googling just turns up "remember not put text in the gutter" advice for super-dummies. I need advice for regular dummies. I am at this moment grappling with how to place two full-page images on a spread without it looking weird, which they seem to whether the image are quite similar or a little different. But I have lots of other things I'd like to learn. Can you either tell me what you know or tell me what to read?
So I said, the current problem I'm facing is that I feel like having two full-size pictures on a spread just looks wierd. Is this because there's no physical gutter? Will look this fine once there's a gutter? If not, what's the solution? Is the solution different when the pictures are very similar (first spread) vs. when they're less similar (second spread).
I thought about having a border around with the actual edges blank so there's a sort of no-image-land in the gutter so they don't actually touch, but even though the book is big (12x12) I worry that details will be lost if I take significant size from the images.
Other things I'd like to learn about (I don't expect you to be able to answer all these, but just to give you an idea what kind of blog/book/web site it might be useful to point me to).
1. Image orientation -- currently and in past books I try to orient the images toward the gutter (e.g. theatre in second spread faces the gutter), unless it's someone travelling (i.e on the main journey/quest of the book), and then I point them toward the right. This feels right to me, but is there some principle on how to orient the pictures.
2. Text placement. Inside (near gutter), outside, left, right, top, bottom. Are there rules of them about when to do which? Are their rules of thumb about "if you do this on the right page, do that/don't do that on the left page"?
3. Font size. The placeholder text is 18 pt. font. That's big enough to be comfortably readable but it's kind of small relative to the size of the page. How much does this matter?
4. Gutter, gutter, gutter. I feel like I don't know enough about dealing with the gutter and all I find is either "don't put text or faces there" and "here are people that do cool things with it." But I don't want to do cool things with it, I just want my book not to look weird and be confusing.
5. Covers. I don't have a cover idea yet. articles/blogs/blogposts etc. on picture book cover design and tropes welcome.
p.s. Note that my son now has a nose in the first picture. He still has no head in the others. Baby steps.
p.p.s. Any advice on what shape to make that bottle falling from the sky so it doesn't look like booze? It's reindeer flying powder. I need a label wide enough to write on in a close-up. This is like the third shape I've tried and they all look weird.
p.p.p.s. I know my son will like it no matter what, but at this point it's as much hobby/skill-building/creative outlet for me as it is gift-making for him.
So I said, the current problem I'm facing is that I feel like having two full-size pictures on a spread just looks wierd. Is this because there's no physical gutter? Will look this fine once there's a gutter? If not, what's the solution? Is the solution different when the pictures are very similar (first spread) vs. when they're less similar (second spread).
I thought about having a border around with the actual edges blank so there's a sort of no-image-land in the gutter so they don't actually touch, but even though the book is big (12x12) I worry that details will be lost if I take significant size from the images.
Other things I'd like to learn about (I don't expect you to be able to answer all these, but just to give you an idea what kind of blog/book/web site it might be useful to point me to).
1. Image orientation -- currently and in past books I try to orient the images toward the gutter (e.g. theatre in second spread faces the gutter), unless it's someone travelling (i.e on the main journey/quest of the book), and then I point them toward the right. This feels right to me, but is there some principle on how to orient the pictures.
2. Text placement. Inside (near gutter), outside, left, right, top, bottom. Are there rules of them about when to do which? Are their rules of thumb about "if you do this on the right page, do that/don't do that on the left page"?
3. Font size. The placeholder text is 18 pt. font. That's big enough to be comfortably readable but it's kind of small relative to the size of the page. How much does this matter?
4. Gutter, gutter, gutter. I feel like I don't know enough about dealing with the gutter and all I find is either "don't put text or faces there" and "here are people that do cool things with it." But I don't want to do cool things with it, I just want my book not to look weird and be confusing.
5. Covers. I don't have a cover idea yet. articles/blogs/blogposts etc. on picture book cover design and tropes welcome.
p.s. Note that my son now has a nose in the first picture. He still has no head in the others. Baby steps.
p.p.s. Any advice on what shape to make that bottle falling from the sky so it doesn't look like booze? It's reindeer flying powder. I need a label wide enough to write on in a close-up. This is like the third shape I've tried and they all look weird.
p.p.p.s. I know my son will like it no matter what, but at this point it's as much hobby/skill-building/creative outlet for me as it is gift-making for him.
Are you constrained to a certain number of pages? Could you have art on the left and text only on the right (or vice versa)?
posted by kate4914 at 8:03 PM on October 24, 2020
posted by kate4914 at 8:03 PM on October 24, 2020
Response by poster: kate: I've done that with previous books, combined with some full-spread illustrations. I feel like I don't want to do that here in part because it's such a big book that a giant white page with text (even big text) will just feel like a wall of empty. Also, bigger book means each page costs more (per page) to print, so doubling the length would get kid of pricey. Finally, there's a repeating pattern to the centre part of the text and each 2 page spread will be in the same location (e.g. llama drama land) so it feels right to make each spread a place and a (prose) verse.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:14 PM on October 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:14 PM on October 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: A few sites that might help, example-wise:
https://www.designofthepicturebook.com/
https://blog.picturebookmakers.com/
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/
Re:gutters- you can have information cross the gutter but you want to make sure focal points or details aren’t placed there. There’s always a chance things won’t line up in folding or binding the book so if you have important visual information there that would look strange if not properly lined up. That said, I’ve illustrated several picture books and often have information cross the gutter— it’s more forgiving than you might think.
With your 2 full page illustrations side by side, part of the problem is that you have the same colors bleeding across the spread— even with binding, generally I’d recommend finding a way to show some separation between the two pages— a young reader will read it as one scene. Change colors up, or look into spot/vignetted illustration for one page of the spread— white space is your friend in picture books because it gives the eye a rest and you can also play around with multiple spots to suggest visual rhythm. A classic example of this is Where the Wild Things Are.
Hope this helps!
posted by actionpact at 11:18 PM on October 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
https://www.designofthepicturebook.com/
https://blog.picturebookmakers.com/
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/
Re:gutters- you can have information cross the gutter but you want to make sure focal points or details aren’t placed there. There’s always a chance things won’t line up in folding or binding the book so if you have important visual information there that would look strange if not properly lined up. That said, I’ve illustrated several picture books and often have information cross the gutter— it’s more forgiving than you might think.
With your 2 full page illustrations side by side, part of the problem is that you have the same colors bleeding across the spread— even with binding, generally I’d recommend finding a way to show some separation between the two pages— a young reader will read it as one scene. Change colors up, or look into spot/vignetted illustration for one page of the spread— white space is your friend in picture books because it gives the eye a rest and you can also play around with multiple spots to suggest visual rhythm. A classic example of this is Where the Wild Things Are.
Hope this helps!
posted by actionpact at 11:18 PM on October 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Best answer: This is an anecdotal response related to the above advice: I've been reading to a ~2-year-old recently and when the pictures across the gutter are very similar, she sometimes experiences them as one total scene, gets a bit confused, and begins asking questions to clarify (eg "but who is that?" when a single character is pictured on both pages in the same environment).
posted by youarenothere at 2:45 AM on October 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by youarenothere at 2:45 AM on October 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
I would open the illustrations in Photoshop or one of the cheaper programs, and add a border of off white with a soft brush at partial opacity. It would create a cloudlike effect around the images and separate them enough for what you need. If you did it with these two images, you'd probably want to do the same with all of them for consistency. But have the artist play around with it to see what works best.
posted by cartoonella at 4:32 AM on October 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by cartoonella at 4:32 AM on October 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: 2. The first page of the story should ideally be on a recto or full spread. If it's a full spread, best to put all the text for that spread on the recto.
Avoid having the text on any recto begin higher on the page than its facing verso.
4. Even though it will look less weird once the gutter is a real physical gutter, it's good general practice to avoid having two full bleed pages on a spread. There are two common ways to avoid it without having to add a border to every page:
--Have one page be full bleed and the other in silhouette, in other words, characters and major props are against a solid color (usually white) instead of a full-context background.
--Crop one of the two full bleed pieces and place it against a solid color (usually white). This can be anything from a border just wide enough to clear the gutter and be seen, to zeroing way in on the action.
Best to change up which page on a spread gets which treatment so it's not the same each time.
For the bottle, maybe try something more like an old-timey vial with a cork?
posted by lampoil at 10:54 AM on October 25, 2020
Avoid having the text on any recto begin higher on the page than its facing verso.
4. Even though it will look less weird once the gutter is a real physical gutter, it's good general practice to avoid having two full bleed pages on a spread. There are two common ways to avoid it without having to add a border to every page:
--Have one page be full bleed and the other in silhouette, in other words, characters and major props are against a solid color (usually white) instead of a full-context background.
--Crop one of the two full bleed pieces and place it against a solid color (usually white). This can be anything from a border just wide enough to clear the gutter and be seen, to zeroing way in on the action.
Best to change up which page on a spread gets which treatment so it's not the same each time.
For the bottle, maybe try something more like an old-timey vial with a cork?
posted by lampoil at 10:54 AM on October 25, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone.
This is all super useful and this book (and the birthday book to come in April, as yet un-concepted) will be better as I learn all this stuff.
It looks like there are reservations around full-page images on facing pages. I get it and I feel the same, but I feel like A) These images need to be full scenes (i.e. not shapes against a blank backround, which I did in another book) and B) I really don't want to do picture page and text pages on each spread. Again, nothing against that system, I just feel like it won't work here. So that a leaves border. Obviously I could just do white space (but I've done that before and it's kind of boring).
So is this awesome or awful? Festive or fugly?
And will it print ok and look cool and metallic or will it look flat and awful in print. They're digital papers that are 12x12 at 300 dpi so I think they're ok resolution-wise. I have one sheet of the 12x12 digital paper on each spread.
Really appreciate the book design principles and links. Feel free to keep them coming.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:21 PM on October 25, 2020
This is all super useful and this book (and the birthday book to come in April, as yet un-concepted) will be better as I learn all this stuff.
It looks like there are reservations around full-page images on facing pages. I get it and I feel the same, but I feel like A) These images need to be full scenes (i.e. not shapes against a blank backround, which I did in another book) and B) I really don't want to do picture page and text pages on each spread. Again, nothing against that system, I just feel like it won't work here. So that a leaves border. Obviously I could just do white space (but I've done that before and it's kind of boring).
So is this awesome or awful? Festive or fugly?
And will it print ok and look cool and metallic or will it look flat and awful in print. They're digital papers that are 12x12 at 300 dpi so I think they're ok resolution-wise. I have one sheet of the 12x12 digital paper on each spread.
Really appreciate the book design principles and links. Feel free to keep them coming.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:21 PM on October 25, 2020
Best answer: Personally, I think it looks awesome. But I'm not very knowledgeable about these things. However, I do look at a lot of picture books at work.
posted by kathrynm at 5:11 PM on October 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by kathrynm at 5:11 PM on October 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Nthing everyone + your own instincts that you don't want two full bleed images abutting each other. Part of my introductory spiel to an illustrator when we're kicking off a picture book is that I'd like to see a mix of full-bleed spreads and full bleed single pages facing vignetted images. The vignetted pages can have one large image or multiple smaller images.
If you're going with a border, you'll want the gutter margin to be bigger than the others so that when the book is bound they'll be optically equal. (The binding eats up some of the gutter, which is why you don't want important art or text there.)
You need to add a line space between your paragraphs or indent the first line of each paragraph. It helps differentiate between paragraphs, and makes it easier to read. Also, you want to avoid hyphenating text in picture books as it's not appropriate for that reading level.
I imagine this is just because you added the borders and haven't adjusted text placement yet but your text is way too close to the edge of the art now.
Font size: Print out 1 or 2 pages at 100% (doesn't have to be on nice paper or anything) just to see what the size actually looks like. Do this with the actual text for those pages, not ipsum lorem.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 8:54 AM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you're going with a border, you'll want the gutter margin to be bigger than the others so that when the book is bound they'll be optically equal. (The binding eats up some of the gutter, which is why you don't want important art or text there.)
You need to add a line space between your paragraphs or indent the first line of each paragraph. It helps differentiate between paragraphs, and makes it easier to read. Also, you want to avoid hyphenating text in picture books as it's not appropriate for that reading level.
I imagine this is just because you added the borders and haven't adjusted text placement yet but your text is way too close to the edge of the art now.
Font size: Print out 1 or 2 pages at 100% (doesn't have to be on nice paper or anything) just to see what the size actually looks like. Do this with the actual text for those pages, not ipsum lorem.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 8:54 AM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
One more thing: a traditionally published picture book will be 32 pages + endpapers, 40 pages including endpapers, or 40 pages + endpapers. No need to follow that for self-pub, but FYI.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 8:56 AM on October 31, 2020
posted by (Over) Thinking at 8:56 AM on October 31, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks, (Over)Thinking. I will add setting my preferences to non-hyphenating to my to-do list. I've actually missed this a few times in my previous books and it looks terrible. And I use the in-design plugin from Blurb to make the books, so it will set up the different bleeds and "safe space to put stuff" margins to make sure the gutter and sides end up looking even without my having to figure it out. I used borders (not like this, but for visual even-ness -evaluation purposes applicable) in a previous book and their measurements ended up looking good.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:18 PM on October 31, 2020
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:18 PM on October 31, 2020
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Yes. This is how most picture books work, and seeing the actual printed book will make this look less unusual. Doing a spread is an option if you want to avoid this, though.
1. To me, the only rule you might want to follow is being consistent with whatever rule you choose to follow.
2. There really are no rules, especially since this is a kids' book. I like grids, so I always keep things aligned to a grid, but in the case of your book, the images will probably have to dictate where the text goes.
3. I'd think that the audience is the main factor here. Is this something that kids are going to read? Kids books often have rather large text.
4. You generally want to leave stuff out of the gutter because it's hard to read, so if you don't want to do "cool things" with the gutter, then don't.
5. I'm not a kids' book designer, but I am a graphic designer, and I would lean towards doing something simple that represents the contents. It could even be an illustration that exists in the book, but with distracting elements removed.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:37 PM on October 24, 2020