9 Design tips to give your book a professional finish

Many people know how to write a great story. But when it comes to publishing your own ebook, how do you transform your book from a good read into a work of art where text, images, audio and video jump off the page?

In a media-rich world, visual literacy is increasingly important.

By thinking about a few key principles of design as you construct your work, you can develop the tools you need to create beautiful books.

A teacher’s perspective…

As educators, we’ve all seen those books that feature rainbow backgrounds, neon fonts and images angled across the page!  Students often make design choices because they like the look of various elements and can sometimes put little thought into their combination.

These explorations are great entry points for learning, but let’s uncover a few concepts that can help us to gain more control over the content we create.

Use these tips for your own learning, or if you’re a teacher, use them to guide your students and help them in their ability to create and communicate effectively, and develop skills that can be enhanced as they publish their own stories, ideas and information.

1. Choose a theme

There are many places you can start as you begin to think about a theme for your book. The theme is very important to communicate the ‘broad message or idea’ in your book. The combination of words, images and everything else need to be presented with a style that is appropriate to the subject.

2. Visual unity

When I am talking to students about their pages, I ask them to look at the ‘whole’ rather than the ‘parts’ and consider what they might be saying to me. This visual unity is a central element of graphic design. When all the elements in a project work together, with a balance between variety and unity, you’ve got a successful design.

Below are some examples of how titles, text and images can be combined on a page for visual unity.

3. Colours

Which colours best represent your central idea or theme? Think about what colours represent and how they make you feel as you think about your theme.

Choose a palette to work with that reflects the mood or message you want to present and use it consistently throughout your book. You may want to consider using black, white or neutral tones if you want images to take centre stage, or the content is very ‘busy’.

In contrast to the dynamic graphics on the right side of this spread above, a simple layout using a white background and a grid structure to present the images provides clarity. (Example: ‘Found It‘ – by Jason Sand).

Colour theme creator – Adobe Color CC

 More on colour design theory

4. Typeface

Choosing the typeface for your book is a big decision. The main text font needs to be suited to the type of genre you are working with.

For example, you might want to use a fun, playful font such as Comic Sans or Chalkboard SE for child-friendly picture books like the ones below, but the same font would not be appropriate for a serious discussion about scientific research.

Making sure that your font is readable is very important. Some decorative styles can be pretty, but difficult to read.

For the same reason, it is rarely appropriate to mix lots of sizes, colours and styles. Stick to a set size for the text body, and when it comes to chapter titles and subheadings, think about using a contrast.

Using the same text types throughout the book can help the reader to navigate through your ideas.

5. Placement

Every item on a page should be placed with purpose.  The way they are arranged will affect the way the book ‘talks’ to the audience. For example, positioning lots of images at various angles, overlapping each other is very casual when compared to this kind of grid layout.

Hot tip: A picture can say a thousand words – don’t be afraid to let your images do the talking by using a large size or presenting a visual element rather than lots of text.

6. Contrast

Think about contrast. The distance between objects, separating unrelated items and grouping information for clarity. Think about using size, colour, shape and proximity to make key ideas and objects in the book stand out.