PLEASE NOTE: All CMIT modules have now been withdrawn,
and are unavailable for the 2010/11 academic year
These web pages and lecture notes are left as reference for those students
requiring CMIT modules to complete their programme only, and are not an
indication of modules currently offered.
Computer Aided Publishing I
Book Design Task
The Task
Design the pages of a book, from the title or half-title page as far as the first double page spread of the first chapter, taking into account your intended market and the nature of the subject matter.
The particular book you design is up to you. There are some suggested below, in suitable word processed form for working on.
The logo for the company Epsitula Books has to be placed at the bottom of the title page. The .JPG file for this can be downloaded by right-clicking on the image below and using the option Save Picture As...
Do not design a book cover.
The Critique
A critique of your design etc must be included. The critique can be of any length, but a guide length is about 2000 words. You can certainly write more if you wish - the longer the critique the better, as it usually shows you have really thought about the problems.
Do include illustrations in the critique if you wish. Illustrations can be particularly useful for presenting more meaningful analytical discussion of the original design(s) of the book and of any visual material you may have used.
Use the critique to state the source of any visual material, not your own, which has been used in your design.
The critique is to be word processed for the initial submission, but will be typeset in PageMaker or Indesign for the portfolio re-submission. You can of course also typeset it for the initial submission if you wish.
The critique should include (though not necessarily discussed in this order):
- An analysis of the intended market and how your design is appropriate
- A comment (brief) on the subject of the book and how your design is appropriate
- An analysis of any existing published forms of the book (include illustrations of these, and these can be at a reduced size from the original)
- The book's market stance - what sort of 'quality feel' does the book need
- The size of the book and why this was chosen
- The sizes of the margins and why these were chosen
- The typography (typeface, size and leading) and why these were chosen
- A bibliography of material you have read in connection with developing the design
- Justify what you have done, bringing out the good and bad points of the design
- ... in effect sell me (the publisher) your design.
Marking Criteria
The things I shall be looking for when marking the book design and critique are available as a Word file.
The Design Process
The design process involves first deciding on the intended market/readership, and hence the appropriate:
- Overall feel
- Book/page size
- Typography
- Layout of prelims (i.e. title page, copyright page, contents etc)
- Layout of chapter title page
- Layout of double page spread of a chapter
- Obviously give thought to margin sizes, choice of typeface, size
and leading of typeface,
style and location of page numbering etc
Available Texts
All the texts are prepared as Word files.
Look through the text in Word before bringing it into PageMaker or Indesign, so that you can more easily familiarise yourself with the material and edit it appropriately.
Some blank lines have been removed, but others are included to aid your seeing where different sections occur. It is up to you whether you remove these before bringing them into PageMaker or Indesign, but they must be removed at some point.
Obligatory page breaks are indicated by *** Obviously these symbols are to be removed in your PageMaker or Indesign version.
Some italics in the texts have been included, where the original version had them. All other forms of emphasis are up to you.
The files can be downloaded from the Web by clicking on the appropriate filename shown below under the section Texts.
If need be, alter the page numbers in the contents to match your page numbering system.
TEXTS
| THE ALCHEMIST | The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is the story of an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of a treasure as extravagant as any ever found. It is a transforming novel about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path and above all, following our dreams. |
| ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS | Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. First published 1872. A classic. |
| ANIMAL FARM | Animal Farm by George Orwell. Rejected by such eminent figures as Victor Gollancz, Jonathan Cape and T.S. Eliot (at Faber & Faber), Animal Farm was finally published to great acclaim by Martin Secker & Warburg on 17th August 1945 in an edition of 4,500 copies. One of the best established and widely read masterpieces of our time, it has sold since then many millions of copies in over 70 languages; and its immortal satire - 'contre Stalin' as Orwell himself wrote to his French translator - remains as vivid and relevant today as it was on first publication. |
| BEOWULF | The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, completed in the eighth century and set in the heroic societies of fifth-century Scandinavia. Against the background of feuding and feasting the hero Beowulf kills Grendel and Grendel's mother, but in killing the Dragon is himself killed. |
| CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Mr Wonka's inventions are out of this world. He's thought up every kind of sweet imaginable in his amazing chocolate factory, but no-one has ever seen insidea! Charlie Bucket can't believe his luck when he wins the trip of a lifetime around the famous chocolate factory. |
| CHARLOTTE'S WEB | Charlotte's Web by E.B.White. Published 1952. The tale of how a little girl named Fern, with the help of a friendly spider, saved her pig Wilbur from the usual fate of nice fat little pigs. A copy of the book is available to look at in the CMIT office. |
| DICKENS CHRISTMAS CAROL | The Christmas Books of Charles Dickens, including the beginning of A Christmas Carol, published in 1843 |
| FAMILIES AND HOW TO SURVIVE THEM | Familes and How to Survive Them by Robin Skynner and John Cleese first published in 1983. It takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors about all the problems of family life, childhood, love and marriage. If you want to know what makes us what we are and why relationships sometimes work and do not work I can recommend this book! |
| FIRE OF LONDON | The Great Fire of London in 1666 by Walter Bell, first published 1920. The first main historical account to be published on the Great Fire. A copy is in the University library at 942.1 BEL |
| GARDEN PARTY | The Garden Party (and Other Stories) by Katherine Mansfield. A collection of short stories published in 1922. The last book to be published in Mansfield's lifetime. |
| LORD OF THE RINGS | The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien, first published 1954. The first chapter of Book One, The Fellowship of the Ring. |
| MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM | Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream - need I say more! |
| OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CRIMINOLOGY | A major reference work and textbook on Criminology, including the history of the discipline and topics as diverse as policing, juvenile crime, crime statistics, drugs and crime, the media and crime, feminism and criminology, comparative criminology, and crime and modern social theory. |
| PRIDE AND PREJUDICE | Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen, published 1813 |
| SAN MANUEL BUENO, mártir | San Manual Bueno, mártir by Miguel de Unamuno. The author presents a character who one day discovers he can't believe in god any longer, and thus finds almost everything in his life has lost meaning... His desperation is deepened because he is priest to his village, and is convinced that the loss of religious faith can only bring bad things to people's lives. Thus, he conceals his anguish. A book of questions, with plenty of room for readers to search for their own answers. |
| SENSE AND SENSIBILITY | Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, published 1811. |
| THE SPECIALIST (PRIVVIES) | The Specialist by Charles Sale first published in 1930. It tells the story of Lem Putt who built outside loos (privvies) in a very entertaining manner, with use of American country vernacular (which is not at all vulgar!). |
| STUART LITTLE | Stuart Little by E.B. White. A children's book first published in 1945. By the same author as Charlotte's Web. Stuart is the son of Mr and Mrs Little, but he is a mouse. The book is about his adventures. A copy of the book is available to look at in the CMIT office. |
| Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg written about 1210. It is the original version of the love of Tristan and Isolde, on which Wagner based his famous opera | |
| THE WARDEN | The Warden by Anthony Trollope, published as the first of the Barchester Chronicles in 1854. It deals with the various problems faced by the Cathedral community of Barchester, particularly that of the warden of some almshouses. |
| YEATS POEMS | Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. The title is self-explanatory. The ones provided in this file were written between 1889 and 1904. |
- If you want a book not listed here, there are two ways you can work on it:
- If you have a copy of the text, the relevant portions can be scanned
in - see me if you want to do this.
The front matter can be added and suitably edited from the file prelims.doc
Remember to place the Epistula Books logo at the bottom of the title page (see above).
- Many texts are available in electronic form over the Internet.
There is a searchable index of
these.
Through this you can download a copy of the relevant text. Remember to add and suitably edit the front matter available in the file: prelims.doc