Folio

Say what
you see.

Every printed page, in a novel, a magazine or a coursebook, is made of things with names: the gutter, the running head, a widow, the bleed. Learn the names here, each shown live on a page you can change, then use them to tell a designer, or an agent, exactly what you want.

11 chapters · 139 terms · read in order, or dip in

FEATURE
The last
ferry

Every winter the island loses its boat for three months. We made the final crossing with the crew.

Words by Hana Ruiz · Photographs by Sam Okoro
LOWTIDE · WINTER
“We’ll be back in March,” the captain says, as if the sea had agreed.
25

Tap any part of the spread to learn its name.

The shelf

The words are the same for every kind of book. The examples come from these seven, all invented and each drawn to its real size, so you meet them again from chapter to chapter. The last chapter follows the coursebook to see every word at work.

Contents

  1. 1The book12 termsThe book as a thing you hold: its edges and cover, its size, how its pages are folded and bound, and the paper they are printed on.
  2. 2The page10 termsWhere things sit on a page, the space around them, and the edges a printer cuts.
  3. 3Parts of a book13 termsWhat comes before the main text, what comes after, and the order a reader expects to find them in.
  4. 4Type11 termsChoosing letters: typefaces and their families, how big type is measured, and the extra letters hidden inside a font.
  5. 5Setting text14 termsSpacing letters, lines and paragraphs, and breaking them well, so that a page of text is easy to read.
  6. 6Layout and hierarchy14 termsGrids, the order a reader sees things in, and the elements that sit around the text.
  7. 7Pictures12 termsChoosing, cropping and placing pictures, and getting them ready for print and the screen.
  8. 8Colour and print12 termsHow four inks make every colour on the page, what paper and press do to it, and what a printer needs from you.
  9. 9Designing for readers11 termsWhat makes a page work for the person reading it, and the words for saying why one does not.
  10. 10Making the book14 termsFrom manuscript to printed copy and ebook: the edits, the proofs, the files a printer and an ebook store need, and the numbers that identify a book.
  11. 11The coursebook16 termsEvery word in this course applies to any book. Here one genre, the coursebook, uses them all, and adds the words only coursebooks have.