1. Use styles.

Styles have been a feature of Microsoft Word for as long as I can remember. Yet I rarely encounter anyone who uses them. Honestly, they will make your life so much easier! Styles are a set of formatting commands that apply to different types of text in a document—level 1 heading, level 2 heading, body text, bullet text, etc. You apply a style to paragraphs [or characters], then define the formatting elements of the style. [Or vice versa], If you later decide, for example, that your level 1 heading should be Helvetica rather than Garamond, you simply change the style definition and all the paragraphs tagged with that style are changed at once. Styles from Word integrate with styles in InDesign.

2. Use colors to validate styles.

Make things easy on yourself and use color to quickly highlight any problem areas. Once you have set up styles, while you are still in the “construction” phase, apply a color to the style. [It doesn’t need to stay there – this is just part of your quality control process.] Often heading levels have subtle distinctions and it’s not always easy to spot them when they are all in black type. I do this when I get a manuscript and there are multiple heading levels with subtle distinctions. [And because my client doesn’t use styles, they are often inconsistent themselves in how they format the headings.] By tagging Heading 1 blue, Heading 2 green, Heading 3 violet, it’s much easier for my client to look at the manuscript – or just a table of contents extract – and say, no, this one should be heading 2 and that one should be heading 3.

3. Set up a project folder template.

All my book design projects have the same types of elements: text files, image files, layout files, review files, and administrative files. So I have set up a template folder that I can quickly copy and rename for a particular project, ready for me to fill with the particular files associated with that project.

4. Develop a file naming scheme—and use it consistently.

I use a prefix with my client’s initials, project number, project name, and then a suffix with the version number. Version 0 is always the initial design version; the 0 indicates that this is not a file to be carried forward as it often does not have current versions of the text or images.

Regardless of what filenames my clients may have given the image files, I add a prefix so they present in the order in which they will be placed in the book. So my client’s original image [obtained from the U.S. Library of Congress] was named 1s01828u.tif. I added the prefix 006- to indicate it’s the 6th image to be placed in the book. [Because there will be over 100 images, I use leading zeros so they display in order.] As I work through the image enhancement process, I add the suffixes –E [enhanced] and –bw [converted to grayscale]. After enhancing and converting I save it in its ready-to-place .png format. So the new file name is 006-1s01828u-E-bw.png.

5. Use colors to navigate more quickly to the current file.

In the midst of a project it is easy to mistakenly open the wrong file. Use your operating system’s ability to apply color to files and folders so you have a path to follow to make sure you select the current version of the file.

6. Set up headers/footers and slugs.

After two or three rounds of revisions involving two or three or more reviewers, it’s almost inevitable that someone is going to open or print out the wrong file version. Use headers or footers in Word or a slug placed in the gutter in InDesign with text variables that update automatically to show the file name, page number, and latest save date. Emphasize the difference between versions by applying a different color to each new version.

7. Use checklists.

The books I work on usually involved a lot of photos and it’s easy to lose track of which photos are ready to place, which still need work, which are unusable, etc. But with a checklist, I can work through the photos systematically with a minimum of fuss because I can see where I left off and what is yet to be done.

There are many other types of checklists that I use on various projects and there most certainly are checklists I haven’t yet thought about yet.

One of my mantras is “think once, execute many times.” By spending a little time up front to develop systems, procedures, and forms, a lot of the confusion and frustration caused by administrative mix-ups is eliminated and we are free to concentrate on the more interesting and rewarding work we love as book designers.

I’d love to hear about your tips for managing a complex workload. Please leave a note in the comments section.

Examples used are from a recent project with Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, and her upcoming book Finding The
Civil War in Your Family Album.

Book design and production is a complicated process with a lot of moving parts: text and graphics, multiple people, as well as a fair share of technology gremlins. Some glitches are bound to arise, but many are predictable and thus can be avoided—or at least the effect of them ameliorated—by some advanced planning. Here are five common stumbling blocks:

1. Beginning design without a final manuscript

While it’s a good idea to begin thinking about the design of the book at an early stage in the development of a manuscript, changes in the manuscript along the way can blow what seemed to be a great design out of the water.

One of my watchwords is to “design for the extremes.” Here is an example: I had what I thought was a great chapter opening design because all of the chapter headings I had seen were very short – two or three words – so it fit on one line.

When I received the final manuscript, I noticed that chapter titles toward the end were much longer and, wouldn’t fit in the current design. Not only did the chapter title section need to be resized; many other elements on the page had to be recalculated and rebalaced.

This may, in fact, be a better design. My point here, though, is that we had to backtrack and redo steps in the process we thought were complete: using up time and costing money.

2. Waiting until design and layout are complete before selecting a printer/binder

Your printer can provide valuable information that can help you save time and money. And different printers have different capabilities, affecting the page size that can be printed economically. Even among print-on-demand printers such as blurb and lulu, specifications can vary ever so slightly. For example: both blurb and lulu offer a 10×8 landscape format, but lulu does not offer a dustjacket option in the size and format. And, the trim size is slightly different between the two. Not knowing this ahead of time could mean you have to resize your pages.

3. Not having a system for handling physical and digital images

It is very easy to get confused about which photos go where in a manuscript, which ones have been scanned or retouched, which caption and credit goes with which photo, etc. It’s also very easy to misplace digital files unless you establish a clear naming convention and folder system and create a worksheet to keep track of all the images.

4. Not having a clear review and revision process

This is the area that seems to be the most troublesome for personal histories and others involved in producing privately published books. At what point do you show the book to the client? How is it presented? [While online proofing can be expedient as an intermediate step, I believe that final reviews and revisions should be handled on physical paper.] What are they expected to look for and respond to? How many review cycles are included in your initial estimate? And how will you handle excessive review cycles where the client continues to change the manuscript and/or images?

It may seem excessive, but the more specifically you spell out the review steps, responsibilities and deadlines, the smoother things seem to go.

5. Not having a clear sign-off process

Nothing focuses people like having to sign their name on the dotted line. The first thing they want to know is: what am I agreeing to?

Presenting a review copy to your client along with a sign-off form that focuses them on what they should be looking at is a good way to manage the review and revision process and to ensure that nothing is overlooked.

There are a number of places in the book design and production process where a written sign-off is appropriate. Signing off on printing specifications indicates that you are ready to solicit bids from printers. Signing off on the printers proposal indicates the commitment to use that particular printer/binder and specifies how and when payments will be made. Signing off on the page design indicates approval to proceed to page layout. And signing off on the review proof indicates approval to send the files to the printer. There is usually a final sign-off of the printer’s proof as well

In each case, you will want to develop a form that indicates to the client what to look for and what their signature means. The gist of it is that, by signing, the client agrees to proceed to the next step with the understanding that backtracking will likely to incur additional costs and delay the project’s completion.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

what is workflow? and who cares anyway?
Thinking about [profitable] book design & production

Over the years I have developed pages of material based on various strategic planning systems: year end summaries, goal setting, etc. They have always been written as a business document in Word, printed out on 8.5×11-inch sheets of paper and put in a file folder or slipped into page protectors in a three-ring binder. I realized this year that I was becoming more and more averse to going anywhere near this material. Rather than providing guidance and inspiration, it was soul-deadening. It wasn’t so much the content of the material, but the way it was presented.

So I decided to create a book out of the material, adapting some of the ideas in Lisa Sonoma Beam’s The Creative Entrepreneur, but using the medium of print-on-demand books.

Here, to the best of my recollection, I recount my rambling journey to create this book. Perhaps it will serve as a cautionary tale; perhaps as reassurance about your own process. It’s messy work, this creativity thing; particularly where it intersects technology. [I use the term create here rather than design deliberately. When I develop a book design for others, the constraints are usually set and I have no control over the content or sequence of text and images. They are givens. With my own books, everything is subject to alteration. “This is not necessarily a good thing,” she says ruefully.]

setting constraints

I love constraints; they eliminate so much from the universe of infinite possibilities. They begin to give a wee bit of definition to the problem I am trying to solve.

• My 2011 Inspiration Book will be a 7×7 softcover from blurb. I like the square proportion and the small size will sit unobtrusively on my desk, subliminally reminding me of the path I am setting out on for the year. It’s also easy to toss in my bag and carry with me.
• Because I expect to be revising and reprinting this book many times in the coming year—it’s intended to be a living, working document, just like when it was in .doc format—cost is an issue. The 7×7 softcover is the least expensive option blurb has if I keep the page count to no more than 40 pages. [Actually, I get only 39 of those pages because blurb reserves the last page for its own logo, unless I pay an extra, per book fee. I usually do this for client books, but for this book I’ve chosen not to.]
• The images need to come from my personal collection or from flickr’s creative commons domain because I have allocated no budget to buy rights to new images.
• And while I don’t intend this book to become commercial, I want to leave myself the option of using the images in other ways that might be considered commercial, so my creative commons search is further restricted to images offered for commercial use.

laying out the dummy

Working in InDesign, I block out the fixed pages: 1 title page, 2 publication information page, 3 table of contents page. I like to use the final left hand page of a book for a strong image that encapsulates the sense of the entire book, but since that page is not available to me, I block out the spread on pages 38-39 for that purpose.

Then I place various chunks of text to see how they lay out on the remaining pages. I want to determine what text should be on a two-page spread and what should stand alone.

This led me to discover there are natural breaks that could serve as section dividers. Since I want these dividers to be two-page spreads, I needed to go back and adjust some of the text blocks.

gathering images & placing them in the layout

This is the work of what used to be called a photo editor. Since there isn’t a narrative in my written material, it is images [and color] that will drive the book. Rather than having literal meaning, they need to invoke a certain emotional or visceral response. The images themselves, their relationship to one another, and the sequence in which they are presented are crucial.

I spend two evenings searching for images from my own library, from flickr’s creative commons, and—just in case—creating an istockphoto lightbox. Then another two or three putting them together with the words to see how the sequence works. Sometimes I have great images, but their colors clashed. Or the image is perfect but its orientation or proportion won’t fit my page size the way I want. And sometimes an image that by itself I love just doesn’t seem to belong in this book.

At this point, everything is fluid. Because it’s all my text, and it’s more phrases and bullet points than narrative anyway, it can be separated and rearranged and recombined to suit the imagery. In some cases, I rewrite the material to make it work better.

adjusting and adapting the images

I finally wrestle the images and the text into a coherent conceptual and visual flow but now it’s color that is giving me grief. My solution is to first create a consistent underlying palette for the entire book – background color, text color, emphasis color. Then I desaturate all the images and tone them with one of the colors from the palette. Ahhh. It’s looking good.

back up and redo

Now I’m feeling rather satisfied, perhaps even letting a wee bit of pride show itself. But then two new thoughts occur to me:

1. while the images look great on my computer monitor, I didn’t pay attention to the resolution of the creative commons images; they may not be large enough to print well.
2. even more troubling, I realize that after I altered the color of the images, I may not have license to do so. Now I need to go back image by image and verify that the permissions include the right to “modify, adapt, or build upon.” This should have been articulated as one of my constraints from the beginning.

So, that’s where I am today. So, what have your experiences been creating and designing books? Books for clients, your own traditional books, even artists books. Do you have a process you follow every time, or do you find yourself wandering in the wilderness more than occasionally, circling and backtracking and having to tear down what you thought was permanent to start all over again? I’d love to hear from you.

Related posts you might like:

why making a book is hard—and fun!

Cover image by +fatman+ via flickr used under a Creative Commons License

This is why I consider e-books merely a metaphor. Books are composed of atoms – inky atoms and slurry atoms and textured atoms and smooth atoms. Lots and lots of atoms – not a byte amongst them.

Other posts you may like:

print production circa 1970

a brief history of book printing and binding

Charlie: When was the last time you saw one of these?

Olivia: I don’t know. Pre-school maybe?

In preparing a workshop I’ll be giving next week at the annual conference of the Association of Personal Historians, I was looking for some images to convey how print production was done in the pre-digital era and I came across this fabulous two-part photo essay series: Typesetting 1970s style.

Those were the days of paper cuts and ink under the fingernails, kids.

Now I have no nostalgia for the 1970s – bell-bottoms and Richard Nixon figure prominantly among my reasons. But I do have a keen interest in the history of our craft and a belief that by understanding this history, we can do a better job with our contemporary tools.

For those of you planning to attend my workshop, we’ll look at historic workflow in detail and relate it to today’s cleaner and faster process. And if you won’t be in Victoria, don’t worry. I’ll be digging into this topic for many posts to come.

Other posts you may like:

First  in this series, the editorial side of 1970s publishing

a brief history of book printing and binding

how “real” women make books

Image by Idiolector / Kevin via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Image by Dan Wybrant

Image by zigazou76 / Frédéric BISSON via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

I am just wrapping up a book project that I impetuously started late last Friday evening. I have created a few books “from scratch”, but usually I function as the designer, only responsible for the photos, design, layout and sometimes coordinating with the printer. So conceiving, writing, designing and producing an entire book—alone? This was really hard!

Because this book is based on photos, that’s where I started. I knew exactly which ones I wanted to use and how I wanted to present them. Fortunately, they were already digitized, organized and optimized for print output.

But then I decided that I also wanted to use this book as an example of a visual index combining metadata stored in the image file with a thumbnail image. And while I totally get this in theory, executing it in Adobe Bridge and InDesign took a few false starts—and actually having to RTFM *.

So finally, late Saturday afternoon, I had 36 pages of beautiful images and useful metadata, but that alone does not a book make.

At this point I sketched out the other pages I wanted in the book: title page, publication information page, background on the photographer and the photographs, information about the book itself and some context about where it fits into the overall project. [Hint: this is ideally done before diving into a project, but sometimes you have to start in the middle, then go back to the beginning later.]

Now for writing the actual copy. What exactly are these pages going to say? I know there’s some material on the photographer that someone else wrote but I don’t have that in a digital file and I don’t want to disturb her on the weekend—she may not have quite the enthusiasm for this unfunded project that I do—so I re-key it from hardcopy. But the part about the book and the project? That’s all in my head, so I need to switch mental gear from typist [easy] to writer [not so much] and thinker—damn hard on a Saturday evening!

Once I had written my introductory material, I decided I needed more photos to document the genesis of this project. I knew I had them, but where? Somewhere between two computers, three external hard drives, various jump drives, CDs, and DVDs. Finally found them buried as attachments to an email. Sound familiar?

Hmmm. They’re not really as good as I remembered. So now as photo editor, which ones do I choose? As Photoshop ninja, what can I do to punch them up? As page compositor, how do I lay them out to tell the story I want to tell? Uh, what story is it, exactly, that I want to tell? [My brain is getting tired.]

Because I’m printing the book via blurb.com and the price changes when you go over 40 pages, I tried to keep it to that size, but it really wasn’t working. My original instinct was to use a square format but then I wondered if I might save some space and keep to my 40 page limit by using a landscape format. So I redid the pages in that format but I just didn’t like it. This book needs to be square.

Since the next price jump isn’t til 80 pages, now I have lots of room to play with. So I fiddle with the page margins and the typographic specifications to open up the book and give the text some breathing room.

By the time I pulled myself away from the computer late Sunday night, the images looked great, the pagination was working, but the typography was inconsistent because I kept changing my mind about the fonts, sizes, and line spacing I wanted to use. I was eyeballing, doing my typography on the fly, so I had to go back and set up style sheets to make sure all the text was set consistently. Because there’s nothing that makes me crazy like inconsistent typesetting in a book.

A little aside here: For those of you reading this who have attended one of my Print Production Workflow teleclasses, you’re probably thinking that this doesn’t sound like it has the “crisp edges” I talk about, with clear sign-offs from one phase to another. This is one of those “do as I say, not as I do” situations—and a good example of how even those of us who know better will often not do the kind of smart work on our own projects that we would if we were working for pay or as part of a team. That’s what makes it so hard when you work on a book completely alone.

The book is still not ready to send off to be printed. I have to write the copy for the title page [no, it doesn’t yet have a title, or a subtitle and I’m not sure about credits], publication and marketing information, and table of contents. I have to design these pages as well as the front cover, decide what will go on the spine and back cover, which probably involves more writing. And more design. And more photos. Maybe I will want to add some subtle embellishments on the pages. And the photos and written material I’m using that don’t belong to me?  I need to get permission to use them and find out exactly how to write the credits. Oh, yeah—it will need editing and proofreading as well.

So if you’ve been doing all of this yourself—writing, editing, designing, photo editing, page layout—and you’re worn out and frazzled at the end [and perhaps not as satisfied with the results as you had expected], don’t feel bad. A book is an amazingly complex conceptual and physical structure. It involves a lot of different tasks, requiring different skill sets, knowledge, experience—even different temperaments. It’s rarely easy, but always rewarding when you finally hold the printed and bound book in your hands, turn its pages, and marvel at the ingenuity of it all.

———————————————————————————-

* read the frakkin’ manual

————————————————————————————————————–

Some related posts that might be of interest:

• five workflow stumbling blocks that can trip you up
• what is workflow and who cares anyway?

———————————————————————————-

If you would like to learn the “do as I say” part of the process, you might find one of my Print Production Workflow teleclasses helpful.

————————————————————————————————————–

Image by mchristianphotos via flickr used under a Creative Commons License

… I plan to share what I have learned about how to think about a book project, organize its content [particularly images], design and produce it—and make a profit doing so.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the “making a profit” part. Many of us who love doing creative work are not so keen on the numbers side of things. Yet, it is exactly the lack of profitability that forces many of us to give up work that nourishes us and [not be too grandious, but I’m just sayin’] contributes something of value to the world in ways both large and small.

So I personally have committed to learning what I need to learn and doing what I need to do to have a business that is profitable and sustainable and moves me from a position of scrambling for work into one of executing a thoughtful plan that moves me toward more strategic goals.

And, to give credence to that old saying that we teach what we need to learn, I have put together two series of workshops specifically focused on the business side of things.

Money Matters is a series of four one-hour teleclasses that covers: Calculating Your Hourly Rate, Evaluating Pricing Models, Estimating, and Gold Is In the Details. Although I work primarily with private publishers, this series is relevant to anyone who needs to set their own pricing, create estimates and proposals, and manage projects, client expectations, and subcontractors. You can sign up for individual classes or for the entire series at a significant savings.

Print Production Workflow: In Depth is another series of four one-hour teleclasses that explores in more depth the tasks, variables, and trouble-spots you are likely to encounter throughout the seven phases of book design and production. The series is divided into 1] Book Design & Cover Design Workflow, 2] Photos, Memorabilia, and Other Graphic Elements Workflow, 3] Page Layout Workflow, and 4] Printing & Binding Workflow. Like the Money Matters series, you can sign up for individual teleclasses or for the entire series at a significant savings.

Two additional teleclass series are in the works: Design Thinking which will cover Book Design Thinking, Design Fundamentals, Typography Fundamentals, and Partnering with Professionals. Digital Image Workflow goes even further into topics addressed in Print Production Workflow such as DAM [Digital Asset Management] Fundamentals, Scanning Fundamentals, Problem Pictures, and Image Editing Fundamentals.

I’ll be supplementing these teleclasses with blog posts and resources related to these topics, which, I hope, will create a holistic curriculum for setting up, executing, and profitably completing book design projects. Here’s to all of us doing good—and profitable—work in the world.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

My original post on book thinking

and a link to  upcoming teleclasses

• The beginning of a project needs a generous amount of calendar time at the beginning. If you’ve estimated 8 hours for design, don’t think you’re going to start at 9 am and be wrapped up at 5 pm. If you have estimated a week, don’t schedule that to begin Monday morning and be completed Friday afternoon. The earlier you are in a project, the more elapsed time you want to build into the schedule.

Time to look at other books as well as non-book sources of design inspirations. Time to walk away when you’re stuck—or even when you think you’ve nailed it. Time to look at it with fresh eyes another day. [And from a profitability perspective, you are likely doing this phase of the project for a fixed fee, so you want to use your time as productively as possible.]

• There will be at least two review cycles in the design phase. And the editor/publisher/client is most likely not on standby just waiting for you to present your ideas. Build in realistic calendar time for the review-revise-review again cycle.

• Before you actually begin production—this includes photos & memorabilia, other graphics, as well as page layout work—envision how the process will go when it’s really cookin’. Move slowly and thoughtfully as you set up your forms, style sheets, templates, and systems. Make sure they really support your work so you can fly through the production phases.

With initial design, and even sometimes the workflow setup, I often need a significant block of uninterrupted time because it will take me a while to submerge myself in the problem. [The image I have is of jumping rope in grade school. Before I jumped in I would stand on the side and feel the rhythm of the rope.]

• Then, with a solid—and signed-off—design and a well-thought out workflow I can fly through the production phase. I can work for hours and sometimes have to force myself to take a break. It’s also the kind of work I can dip into for a couple of hours at a time and make some serious progress. That’s because I don’t have to figure things out; I just have to execute my plan. It’s also the most productive—i.e., profitable—phase of the project cycle.

• At the end of a project—moving into the final review before signing off—there’s often significant pressure to move quickly and sidestep or jerry-rig the carefully thought out workflow and procedures. We’re behind and we have to get this done in time for Christmas, Mother’s Day, graduation, the party—insert important occasion here! On top of the external pressure, I’m tired. I’m grumpy, and I’m possibly a little miffed that I’m not making as good a profit on this project as I had hoped. [Much more on this over the coming months.] So I disregard my carefully thought-out systems and procedures. [It’s true, dear reader. On more than one occasion, no less.] I always regret it. This is exactly the time I need to slow down and pay close attention to what I are doing so I don’t introduce even more errors.

• The back and forth of final review/revision/review again is not going to happen in the span of a few hours. Everyone involved should have quality time with what we hope is the final layout before being handed off to the printer. Don’t rush it!

So, here’s the Cliff Notes version of this post:

• build in a good cushion of calendar time in the design phase and at end of the page layout stage—the final review cycles,

• then go like a cheetah in the middle, turning out enhanced photos and composed pages lickety-split.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

five workflow stumbling blocks that can trip you up

And while this isn’t technically a post, you might be interested in attending my free teleconference for May: Q&A on Print Design & Production

Last week I did a teleclass called Workflow: key to a profitable personal history business and in the process of preparing for it, I put together a list of seven phases of the book design and production process, along with the tasks and milestones in each phase.

Here is a portion of it:

Although this may seem like overkill, it actually is clarifying. The thinking process that breaks the Cover Design phase into discrete units of work defines when one task is completed and the next one begins. It has, as a friend says, “crisp edges”.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Break the overall project into phases. For the book design I do for private publishers, I have seven phases: book design, cover design, photos & memorabilia, other graphic elements, manuscript & other copy, page layout, and printing & binding.
2. Break the work of each phase into discrete tasks that can be expressed in the form subject – verb – object: Who does what and what tangible product results?
3. Use a controlled and consistent vocabulary. Although there are fourteen tasks listed above, there are only seven verbs: develop, prepare, present, review, provide, refine, sign-off. These verbs are used consistently throughout all seven phases of the workflow process. [There are some other verbs used in other stages, but my point is that prepare always refers to the same thing, as does present as does sign-off.
4. Assign each task to only one person. if more than one person needs to be involved in a task, as in the example above for sign-offs, create a separate task for each person. I did, in fact, break this rule in the first task above. [Hey, it’s my project, my teleclass, my blog!] That’s because that task requires the designer and the editor to work together in real time. Think of this particular WHO as one organism, two cells.
   
5. Complete each phase with a formal sign-off. This says: we all agree to move on to the next phase and, should we return to this phase, we understand that it can affect costs and schedules—usually not in a good way. While this certainly can be done via email, pdfs and electronic signatures, consider the impact of using actual paper and pen. We don’t do much of that anymore, except in real estate transactions and when giving informed consent for surgery, so it has a certain gravitas to it.

After you’ve done this exercise once, you’ll then have a conceptual template that can be easily adapted to future projects. [More on this in a future post.]

Some related posts that might be of interest:

what is workflow? and who cares anyway?

five workflow stumbling blocks that can trip you up

You might also find my upcoming teleclass—a freestyle Q&A session—helpful.

Youtube is an invaluable source to help us visualize a process. Here is a curated overview of book printing, from letterpress, the same process that produced the Gutenberg Bible, to the Expresso Bookmaker, and back to contemporary letterpress and hand binding.

If you have just entered book production in the past five years, where all you’ve known is Word and InDesign and blurb, this shows you the amount of hand-work that went into creating books and why they were so precious.

For those of you who participated in the teleclass, notice the workflow aids in the commercial printing, such as job jackets and tickets, physical stations, and quality control.

letterpress

I mentioned in the teleclass that I love factories with clankity-clank machinery, so this video from John Kristensen of Firefly Press in Massachusetts is almost-heaven to me. [Heaven would be actually being there amidst the font drawers and presses.] He mentions the problem of “too many choices” with computers. But even within the limited scope of hand-set type, you will see the exacting [some might say, obsessive] attention to detail.

traditional [commercial] printing & binding

Depending upon your generation, this video might be delightfully retro or just downright irritating [“men” in the press room, “girls” in the bindery.] Nonetheless, it is a very good overview of traditional printing and bookbinding on a commercial level. It also provides a historic context for some of the language still used in digital page composition.

Feminist side note: Interesting that in an era when virtually all women were secretaries and typists, few are pictured as linotype operators.

Another video from the same 1947 series, shows more historic context and the high level of skills once required* . Just because the mechanical tasks are being taken over by computer programs does not lessen the need for judgment and a trained eye. And, even though we no longer have formal apprenticeships, that doesn’t eliminate the need for experience.

*This language—“a growing industry, high on the list of those offering stability of wages and employment, …and real opportunities for advancement.”— evoked the same emotional response—sadness and a sense of irony—as Shelley’s poem Ozymandias.

inline binding

The production of C-Span’s book on Abraham Lincoln. shows the same process as previously, only much faster with fewer operators.

expresso bookmaker

And the same process again, this time printing one at a time in a fraction of the space. Because there is little human intervention, there is also no real quality control, a given in print on demand [POD] publishing.

fine hand printing & binding

Now to come full circle to the Pictorial Webster’s: Inspiration to Completion

This man shares my soul in his love for these engraved blocks and the opportunity to organize them and print with them. I just love all the jigs they use. You can see how labor intensive sewn signatures are. However, the good news for personal historians, is that we often produce fewer than 50 books. So this is certainly an option to consider for some projects.

Other posts you may like:

print production circa 1970