Synopsis On the website for the Random House Modern Library book series, there are two lists, one of the 100 Best Novels, the other for the 100 Best Nonfiction books (I’m referring to the Board’s Lists, not the Readers’ Lists). From these two lists (with a total of 200 books to choose from), I’m asking you to choose three titles, and to design the covers for paperbound editions of those (front, back and spine, with no flaps). If you haven’t, you won’t have time to read the books, but they are all well known and you can easily find articles and other information about on Wikipedia and other sites. http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/shapeimage_3_link_0
600:3030 Section 2 graphic design two | problem 4
 
This problem will be critiqued in class on Wednesday, November 9. Revisions are due one week later.
registration marks
Eventually, by setting up the file this way, when you export it as a PDF and designate the printer’s marks, you’ll be able to see the trim edge, bleed edge, registration marks and so on. These are marks the printer needs in order to prepare the cover for printing, so it’s important to know how to do this. Here’s how all those things will look (this is one that I sent to the printer recently).
FRONT
BACK
spine
11 in
8.5 in Problem Specs For convenience, we are going to design all the book covers to print at the same (somewhat miniature) size. The front and back covers will each measure 6.5 inches tall by 4 inches wide. The spine on each of the books will be 1 inch wide. Although you may originate (or at least adjust) images in Photoshop, we want to build the cover layout in InDesign, then export it as a press-ready PDF, complete with all the printer’s marks. When you open a new document in InDesign, choose 8.5 x 11 (letter) landscape. Also, choose “more options,” and under that, type in a bleed margin of .125 in (1/8 of an inch) and a slug area of 1 in.
trim edge and
bleed edge marks
color swatches
grayscale swatches
barcode
To prepare for this problem, you need to browse examples of book covers designed by the finest designers. Here for example is the Book Cover Archive, where there are posted more than 1300 of the best book cover designs in recent years. Here are some other helpful links—
 
Book Cover Archive Blog
Smashing Magazine
You the Designer
 
Other notes In doing this, we need to include (or a least to simulate) all the usual information that is found on the front and back covers and spine of a paperbound book. We can fake the barcode easily enough. And as for the paragraph text on the back, you could already write a synopsis, or use the content information on its Wikipedia article. Anyway, we want to do the paragraph typesetting in InDesign, not Photoshop, because Photoshop is raster-based, and we can get much sharper type in InDesign or Illustrator.