Editorial Design Resources

For all your publication design and typesetting needs

Aug 01, 2024

A little snippet from my life: Alex and I went on an adventure to Jackson Park's Japanese Garden. It was so pretty! & I had the best smoothie ever in Chinatown afterwards (banana & lychee!).

I have gone back and forth about what to write about in this first post, what people would want to see, how to fit all of the information I want to share into a digestible chunk - and, well, here we are. I’m still unsure, but I tried to think about what I would’ve wanted to see from someone working in editorial design when I needed the most help. Since it’s such a niche field, it was difficult to find a lot of resources. I didn’t study Graphic Design in college, so I had to learn editorial design, InDesign, and typesetting by myself.

So! I think I’ll start by sharing some of my favorite resources for editorial design and typesetting in the hopes that this may help you.

book recommendations

The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines by The Graphic Artists Guild

This book is a must-have for all graphic designers. It goes over pricing, different careers, legal issues, copyright, contracts, etc. In the back of the book, there are extensive resources for all kinds of professions.

The Design of Books by Debbie Berne

Just published this year by the University of Chicago Press, this book is an essential for any editorial designer. It explains the process of designing different kinds of books, describing the minute details of setting a cover that is tailored to each book, creating page layouts, and setting type. Debbie Berne provides lessons in type etiquette and more. She generously provides a large list of further readings in the back of the book, and those are also worth making a note of!

Type Rules! by Ilene Strizver

This book is incredible! It goes over all things type, such as font technology, different typefaces, selecting the right font, how to format and set type, and more. She even provides exercises at the end of every chapter so you can practice what you’ve learned.

Book Design Made Simple by Fiona Raven & Glenna Collett

It has been incredibly difficult to find an all-in-one resource for how to design a book. I have been searching for a couple of years now and just stumbled upon this book recently. If you are a designer, it is an essential read. It goes over everything you need to know about how to design and typeset your book in InDesign, from your cover to the finest details on the pages to how to get an ISBN assigned to your book.

While this book is geared toward beginners, it is filled with advanced information, so even if you are already familiar with InDesign, it still provides a wealth of knowledge.

The one drawback is that they don’t go into detail about how to format ebooks - understandable when (as they note in the latter part of the book) this could fill a whole book of its own! However, I’d love it if they came out with an entire book on formatting ebooks in InDesign!

My suggestion: Most of these books have resources in the back (informative blogs/websites, books, contract templates, etc.). After you’re done reading, comb through all these resources. Look each one of them up to see if it’s something that may be relevant to your field. Add them to an Excel sheet with the name of the resource, any information/notes, and a link. Subscribe to any newsletters, check back in to read their blog posts, or save them in your Excel sheet for later use! Use all the resources that they give you!

online resources

Butterick’s Practical Typography: a donation-based book that serves as an incredible resource for how to lay out type, font suggestions, and learning why type is important!

Book Design Made Simple blog: This blog is great for if you want to dip your toes in and see if you want to buy the book OR to look at in addition to the book (which I am doing!).

Any & all courses by Anne-Marie Concepcion: (LinkedIn Learning; 30-day free trial) I have spent so long trying to find a resource for all things InDesign / EPUB and alas! Anne-Marie has all the answers - truly a master in the field. She’s also recorded a lot more courses than what appear on her page; here’s a post she made with links to some of her archived courses.

news!

Megan McDowell was in the LA Times! I had the pleasure of listening to Megan read one of her translations in Through the Night Like a Snake (Two Lines Press, 2024) - an amazing Latin American horror story anthology - at Pilsen Community Books. This interview shares some of her thoughts on translating.

A review of Fine Gråbøl’s What Kingdom - I loved seeing this review in Another Chicago Magazine! As a Danish girl, I love reading stories by Danish authors. There’s something about Danish stories (maybe the minimalism, the solitude?) that is crisp and fresh like you’re walking into a quiet forest. This book was published by Archipelago this year, and it is beautiful. Check out the review and consider reading the book yourself!

Mike Corrao interviews B.R. Yeager - This may not be “new,” but it’s news to me! I stumbled across this while researching Schism Press and Apocalypse Party and realized that Mike Corrao conducted this interview (an amazing book designer who I have gotten to know a bit this year) with B.R. Yeager (an incredible novelist writing some of the most unsettling and disturbing stories I’ve read). What a small little world!

Anna Morrison was featured in PRINT’s July 2024 Best Book Covers! I came across Anna’s work for Transit and Coffee House Press earlier this year and think she creates incredible designs. It’s cool to see some of her work featured in this article (along with so many other great designers that I’ll have to check out!).

Trio House Books are out! The links to these beautiful poetry collections are below. I worked on the typesetting for Dressing the Bear and Four Fields (^: