Publishing Design: Full compilation

Angelique Svetlana Pekasa / 0377365

Publishing Design / Bachelors Of Creative Media / Taylor's University

Task 1: Exercise 1 

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Table of contents

1. Lectures
2. Instructions
3. Tasks
4. Feedback
5. Reflections
6. Further Reading

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Lectures

  

Lecture 1 (Publishing Design: Format)

The Book (Historical formats)

• Mesopotamia (Iraq & Iran): This is the earliest civilization, Early forms of pictographic writing on clay tablets which originates from a counting technology.

Fig. 1.1, Mesopotamia Clay Tablets, (24/9/2025)

• Indus River Valley Civilizations (India-Pakistan-Afganistan): One of the earliest form of writing, cuneiform, which have a complex writing system written on soft clay tablets using sharp pointed tools (stylus and soot).

Fig. 1.2, Cuneiform, (24/9/2025)

• Ancient Egypt: Egyption scribes are the only people that could read and write Hieroglyphics written on papyrus and tomb walls. Papyrus is a special paper made from the papyrus plant.

Fig. 1.3, Hieroglyphics, (24/9/2025)

• China: Chinese characters was written in vertical columns on a strip of bamboo, and for longer documents, 2 lines of thread link the bamboo strips together. This later evolves to the modern Chinese character for a book. The earliest book ever printed was Chinese, using paper in a scroll format.

Fig. 1.4, Chinese Bamboo writing, (24/9/2025)

Movable Type: China pioneered this innovation, but Korea succeeded in achieveing it by creating a simplified writing system and using brass for type, making movable type printing efficient.

Parchment, made from animal hide, was invented in Turkey and used for books. It was thick and heavy, therefore it couldn't be made as scrolls, so Europeans started making parchment books.

Fig. 1.5, Parchment , (24/9/2025)

Lecture 2 (History of Print)

• 2nd - 8th century AD: 6 main classics of Confucianism were carved in stone, commanded by the emperor of China.

Fig. 1.6, Stone Carved writing , (24/9/2025)

• Korea and Japan AD 750-768: The world's earliest known printed document is a sutra printed on paper in Korea. Followed by Japan, which produced printed document in mass circulation taking 6 years to complete. 

Fig. 1.7, Stone Carved writing , (24/9/2025)

            The Hyakumanto Darani: earliest record of uses of woodblock printing in Japan, distributed to                temples around the country.

• The first printed book AD 868: It was in a form of a 16 feet scroll, which was also the world's first printed illustration.

• In the 10th- 11th Century, Chinese uses a labarous process, printing from woodblocks in reverse as in the Diamon Sutra, until the innovation of movable type that's pioneered in China but achieved in Korea.

• Saints and playing cards AD c.1400: Woodblock printing technique arrived in Europe, where a carved and inked block is layed on a paper.

• Gutenberg & Westen printing AD 1439-1457: Guttenberg developed a printing press, he was skilled in metal, enabling him to master manufacturing of individual pieces of type, creating a master copy of each letter, making moulds and a suitable cast. 

Fig. 1.8, Gutenberg & his printing, (24/9/2025)

Lecture 3 (Publishing Design: Typo Redux)

Characters in a typeface

• Swashes: makes a more expressive and decorative manner (not meant to be used in all capital)

• Ligatures: prevent the clashing of strokes

• Old-style numerals: are non-aligned, commonly used in historical texts, or used to highlight discounts in supermarkets.

• Lining numerals: modern, aligned.

Fig. 1.9, Characters in a typeface, (24/9/2025)

Legibility

First step in making type legible is chiising the right text typeface that are open and well propotioned (ensure it's meant for long form of reading). 

Fig. 1.10, Typography Anatomy, (24/9/2025)

Legibility - Special Styles

• Underline: shouldn't touch the characters which would hinders reading.

• Small Caps & All Caps: Small caps are good for subheads or the first line of paragraph. Text set in All Caps should be used in short headlines or subheads. While All caps should never be used for long sentences / for emphasis.

• Text Scaling: Never distort the font as it makes the message appear cheap. 

• Outline & Shadows: Avoid outlines and shadow, it disturb the pattern of the text. If you were to outline it, don't reach beyong 1 point. 

Legibility - Type size, line length & Line spacing

• Font size determines line length determining line spacing
• The number of characters per line should be 50 and not more than 65
• The font used: some fonts needs more line spacings in order to keep the ascenders & descenders from touching.
• The line length: longer lines needs more leading to make reading easier
• The Type size - the larger the type, the more line spacing required.
• Overly long or short lines of type, tires the readers and destroy reading rhythm.

Legibility - Character & word space

• Kerning: Inter: character spacing creates a more pleasing look to the entire text.
• Word spacing: consistent word spacing provides even typographic "colour", referring to overall lightness and darkness of the text.
• Italics: used with prudence, creates emphasis within text.
• Capitals: Capital letters lacks visual variety.

Legibility - Alignment

• Flush left: gives even letter & word spacing making readers locate each new lines easily.
• Flush right: difficult to find each new line, not recommended for large amount of text.
• Centered: very formal appearance, fine if used minimally, not to be used for large amount of text.
• Justified: can be very readable if spacing between words are consistent and gaps(rivers) do not interrupt the flow of the text.

Legibility - Alignment

• Widow: single line of text at the top of a new page separated from its paragraph.
• Orphan: single line of text at bottom of a page separated from its paragraph.

Lecture 4 (Publishing Design: The Grid)

• Raster System: grid dividing 2D plane or 3D space into smaller parts. The fields of compartments maybe the same of different size.

Fig. 1.11, Raster System, (24/9/2025)

• Purpose of the grid: to solve visual problems in 2D or 3D by arranging the surface and spaces in the form of a grid the designer is favorably placed to arrange texts, photographs, and diagrams in a coherent and functional manner creating compact planning, suggesting orderliness.

•  Readability & Legibility: The Grid helps make the user experience seamless. It allows the work on the pages to do the talking clearly and logically with elegance.

Lecture 5: (Publishing Design: The Grid)

Publications consist of 3 major elements: type, color, image (hold by format and grid)

• Variation: when using all these 3 elements in a grid system, it's important to give variation within the layout but also maintain consistency across the book.

Fig. 1.12, Variation, (24/9/2025)

• Creative use of the content will make the contents shuffled in a consistent but varied manner. 
• Surprise the reader at every turn, don't be predictable. A good book takes its reader on a journey without the reader even knowing it.

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 Instructions

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Task 1: Exercise

Exercise 1

In this exercise we were tasked to choose a size for our book that we are going to make for the final project. The size should be bigger than A5 but smaller than A4.

Fig. 2.1, Exercise 1, (Week 2, 01/10/2025) 

After several trials and going to the library to find the right size, I decided to go with 210 x 175. I feel like it will suit my book more, because I want to put photos in it instead of illustrations or a mix of both, and it's width is perfect for me to put photograph in it.

Exercise 2

In this exercise we were task to fold an A4 paper 8 times in order to help us visualize the layout of offset printing and how 1 A4 page could make a 16 page book. After dividing it into sections, I cut the folded sides and staple the middle of the paper to make it a book. Below is the process on how I do so.

Fig. 2.2, Exercise 2, (Week 2, 01/10/2025) 

Exercise 3

In this exercise we were task to divide a page by using the Van de Graaff method. This method forms a layout which gives guidance and grid, maintaining balance across different pages when used. For this task we use 2 A4 papers and taped them together to form an A3 paper where we draw the grid on.

Fig. 2.3, Exercise 3, (Week 2, 01/10/2025) 

Exercise 3A

For this exercise we need to digitalize the Van de Graaff in Adobe Indesign, the size of the paper should be the size that we decided to use for the book. I carefully followed the tutorial of how to do so, shown below is the process work. 

Fig. 2.4, Exercise 3a, (Week 3, 09/10/2025) 

Fig. 2.5, Exercise 3a, (Week 3, 09/10/2025) 

Shown below is the outcome in PDF document.

Exercise 4: Form and Movement

For this exercise, I watched the youtube tutorial made by Sir. Vinod. I began to exploration in order to get an idea of what and how my book design will be like. This exercise was made back and forth, in a span of several weeks as my ideation and exploration progressed through my final task. After making the 3000 words, I went back to this task to input some text in it to visualize it better. Shown below are the compilation of the progress.

Fig. 2.6, Exercise 4 all black, (Week 4, 16/10/2025) 

Fig. 2.7, Exercise 4, (Week 4, 16/10/2025) 

 Task 2: Content generation

For this task we were required to write a 3000 story about any of our chosen topic. For this task I choose to write about my mom's journey. She's been fighting ovarian cancer for now 4 years and counting, and I feel like writing about it could help someone else feels like they are not alone, something that many people feel when they are going through hard things. I am a christian and God have been with me all the time throughout this journey, His timing is perfect, He is always on time, and because of that I know that I am never alone. Shown below is the 3000 words that I wrote.

 Task 3: Book

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Feedback

Week 1 (Introduction)

Week 2

Week 3: 

• General feedback: advertisement falls on the most prominent page, do the book in CYMK.

Week 4:

• General feedback: To balance your work, use a hint of grey in your font, use 80 or 90% K (CMYK). It will naturally make the book lighter. And using sans-serif font makes a book lighter, but maybe your story doesn't need a sans-serif font so use it depending on it. To highlight a page you can break the grid you have chosen. 

Week 5:

• General Feedback: Finish the exercises and finish the 3000 words

Week 6

• General Feedback: Make sure that you prepared all your illustrations/photographs for your book

Week 7:

• General feedback: don't USE PNG, if u want transparent use EPS or PSD file. InDesign only like EPS PSD or GIF or CMYK. Don't use JPEG. 

Week 8:

• General feedback: Make sure that you have flowing text, and later on export as Adobe PDF spread and include bleeds, print in A3 with multiple pages in it.
• Specific Feedback: Don't copy the text one by one, make sure that the text is a flowing text as it will way easier to edit, and it makes sure that there nothing will be missing from the original text. When doing the layout, make sure to stick if you use 2 columns for the text use 2, if you suddenly use one it will break the rhythm. You can also add rectangular color to it so that there will be something flowing from one page to the next.

Week 9:

• General feedback: Make the black color of the text registration black, as it will effect to the printing.
• Specific Feedback: Make a bit of an adjustment for some pages so that the pictures have an alignment with the text beside it. Make the back cover text 2 point size smaller, this will make people take a look at it with more intention. Other than that everything is ok. 

Week 10:

• General feedback: Make sure that the book is printed asap. All printer shop will always have a problem so just stick to the one that you print initially.
• Specific Feedback: All good, you can go ahead to print.

Week 11:

• General feedback: Presentation is next week, you can present using ppt or just pictures, basicly anything to help you present. 
• Specific Feedback: Need to reprint as the 

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Reflections

Task 1 ( Exercises)

Experience

All the exercise that I did within the first few weeks feels like a re-introduction for typography, since Indesign was required. It was a great way to start the module as I forgot a huge part of Indesign because of the holiday that we have and because it have been quite a long time that I haven't touched Indesign. 

Observation

All the exercise gave me a better understanding of how to make a book, which is very useful for me to get an idea of what I should do for my final task. For Exercise 1, I went to the library to look through and observe different books to get a better idea of the dimensions I wanted for my own book in the final project. On exercise 2, I observed the layout on how a book could be printed and how facing pages works. 

Findings

I find it very interesting to see and observe other books, how different dimensions reflects the contents of the book, and how the dimensions of the book effects the illustration in it. 

Task 2 (Content generation)

Experience

For this task we were required to make a 3000 word content/story for the final task. For me 3000 is a lot of words, I'm never a good writer. The only topic that I could imagine myself writing that much about was about my mom's cancer and her journey through all the operations that happened. And so that's what I did, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was, and because of that I actually got reminded a lot of how God have been good throughout everything. 

Observation

I observe that writing that much takes a bit of time, it's not that hard but it just takes time. And by the end of it I observe that I do make a lot of small mistakes that could be preventable as I write it not at one go so sometimes I forgot what I wrote beforehand. 

Findings

I find this task different from the rest, it doesn't require me to design something, it requires me to write which was something that I haven't been doing in a very long while. I find that my writing was very rusty and inconsistent throughout the story. 

Task 3 (Book)

Experience

Making the actual book was very exciting for me. I was very satisfied with the results, even though a lot of complications happened during printing the book in Mummy Design. It was quite hectic as the first print was a fail because the words was in registration black and the printer in Mummy doesn't do registration black and they didn't told me beforehand. They only told be that there's something wring with the file over and over again. And it kind of cost a lot to reprint it. However after some drama there the final book was finished and I'm satisfied with the results of it.

Observation

During the making of the book, with feedback given by Ms. Vitiyaa, I observe that giving a bit of color (in this case yellow) in a black and white book makes a huge difference. It gives highlight to the images within it and the stripes of yellow on the pages gives a sense of continuity from one page to another. It really changes how the book looks and feels. 

Findings

I find a lot of things while doing this task, I never know that I could actually write that long and write something that's heavy. And when doing this task I find how layout could gives feeling, how making a page more empty with a lot of spaces gives a quite feeling and how breaking the margins creates highlight to the text or contents within it. Overall I learned a lot while making this task, I find this module very exciting as I never know that I could make a book, let alone a book with such a heavy topic.