Book design
In the words of renowned typographer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974), book design, "though largely forgotten today, [relies upon] methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve, [and which] have been developed over centuries.
[1] Richard Hendel describes book design as "an arcane subject", and refers to the need for a context to understand what that means.
Front matter pages are traditionally numbered in lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.
), which obviates renumbering the remainder of a book when front matter content is added at the last moment, such as a dedication page or additional acknowledgments.
[5] The following table defines some common types of front matter, and the "voice" (or point of view) in which each can be said to be given: The structure of a work—and especially of its body matter—is often described hierarchically.
Conventions differ about the direction in which the title along the spine is rotated: In texts published or printed in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, the spine text, when the book is standing upright, runs from the top to the bottom.
This means that when the book is lying flat with the front cover upwards, the title is oriented left-to-right on the spine.
This practice is reflected in the industry standards ANSI/NISO Z39.41[12] and ISO 6357.,[13] but "... lack of agreement in the matter persisted among English-speaking countries as late as the middle of the twentieth century, when books bound in Britain still tended to have their titles read up the spine ...".
In many continental European and Latin American countries, the spine text, when the book is standing upright, runs from the bottom up, so the title can be read by tilting the head to the left.
This allows the reader to read spines of books shelved in alphabetical order in accordance to the usual way left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
The back cover often contains biographical matter about the author or editor, and quotes from other sources praising the book.
The binding of a hardcover book usually includes boards (often made of paperboard) covered in cloth, leather, or other materials.
The additional features may require extra printing time, sometimes adding a week or two to the production timeline, and they are not necessarily more profitable.
Gold leaf may also be applied to the edges of the pages, so that when closed, the side, top, and bottom of the book have a golden color.
Features such as these colored page edges, or others such as using metallic foil elements, reversible dust jackets, or affixing a ribbon for a bookmark, are often seen in special editions or when the publisher wants to signal that the book is a collectible.
On the other hand, the other three margins of the page, which frame the book, are made of the appropriate size for both practical and aesthetic reasons.
