What was life like for your ancestors 2,000 years ago?
“Paul is an experienced veteran. He tapped his expertise to make excellent suggestions, ask probing questions, and even took the initiative to make little adjustments. Each of these little things came together for a very satisfying result.”
Project Backstory
What do you do when you want to tell your family story? Not just a couple of generations back, but really tell the story, over two-thousand years worth of history? As any genealogist knows, unless you happen to be related to nobility, finding records going back more than five or six generations is challenging.
Author David Koehler knew there wasn’t any nobility in his family tree; his German ancestors were likely peasants. Most people were. So rather than tell his family story, he decided to set out and tell everyone’s story—the story of everyday people.
And so begins David’s story, and many years of research.
David came to me on the referral of another designer who had started working on the project, but wasn’t able to complete it. And that is fair—not every team of creatives can work well together. As it is, David’s thorough, methodical and careful nature is very compatible with my own detail oriented, perfectionist tendencies. We hit it off right away.
With the manuscript complete, edited to his satisfaction, David already had some ideas for the cover. We sat down together to review some image ideas for the book, and both quickly fell in love with the painting, “Celebrating Peasants,” by an unknown artist from the 18th or 19th century. It would be the anchor for our cover.
Cover Development
The colors and the energy of the animated characters were clearly apparent, fitting with one of David’s key lessons: the Middle Ages weren’t all gloom, plagues, and death. But how to make this image work best for the cover, especially in light of the rather lengthy title David had chosen?
I created three variations, all of which utilize the preferred Garamond typeface that David selected. As a rule (and out of self-preservation), I never share covers that I’m unwilling to work with. All three of these had different strengths—from more designerly on the left, to bolder on the right. In the end, given the relatively academic nature of this book, I think the compromise between a traditional text-over-image approach in the middle was a good choice.
Details Always Matter
For David’s cover, there are a couple of subtle creative elements to enhance the finished result: a German manuscript and a special ligature. The excerpt of an illuminated manuscript, in German, from the Walters Art Museum’s collection of “Saints’ Lives,” serves as the background texture.
Details differentiate a good design from great work, and ligatures are one such opportunity. The ligatures, such as the “Th”, are often built into a well-designed font. But the typography, especially of a cover, can sometimes lend itself to more unique combinations. After all, a title isn’t just a group of words, but a piece of illustration in its own right. The “y-G” link is just such an element. Almost imperceptible, but it is a clear sign of something that doesn’t come from less attentive design.
But Don’t Ignore the Back Cover
For physical sales, the oft-neglected back cover is the second most important part of a book’s physical marketing. That said, there is a fairly standard set of requirements: book synopsis or marketing copy, author bio and photo, publisher insignia, and barcode. I like to make sure they are visually integrated with the cover and well bridged by the spine.
That stark divide between spine and back cover helps the legibility of the smaller back cover text, and is hidden when the cover is wrapped around the actual book block.
Interior Layout & Typesetting
A well-designed interior layout and typography should enhance the book, complementing the style of the writing, and guiding the reader through the story, even in a non-fiction historical reference work such as this.
Every book has a story because every author is a storyteller. Way-finding elements, such as tables of contents, image credits, and other reference and bibliographic materials, are common to a book like this one. All must work as an integrated system, being valuable to the reader while never getting in the way of the reading experience.
Interior work is something often neglected by first-time publishers. Fortunately, an avid reader and collector himself, David understood the advantage of a well-designed and typeset interior. For The Story of Everyday German Peasant Life, I needed to incorporate 165 images—photos and drawings, some in good shape and some … in need of some work.
It was a long process, and in the end, we were resource-limited. However, I managed to accomplish quite a lot with the available budget, and helped to create an absolute gem of a book.
“Working with Paul on my book project was a pleasure. He listened well, asked good questions, and then told me exactly what he was going to do and exactly how much he would charge. We connected perfectly in each of our meetings. I think the excellent communication laid the foundation for producing a professional-looking book.”
