Department Spotlight: Claire Young
Design Assistant, Penguin Young Readers.
Essentially, design works with editorial, production, and managing editorial to design book covers and book interiors. This includes designing interior art, chapter opener art, layout, type, endpages/endpapers, making decisions about special effects like spot gloss, and oftentimes working with freelance illustrators to create original art for a book.
Step 1 – Delegating & Work Before Design:
Besides taking on their own design projects, art director(s) also delegate titles amongst the designers. Art directors are often in communication with editors and publishers, and they can be involved with reviewing manuscripts, visualizing stories, and pitching illustrators sometimes even during the acquisition process…way before a book needs to be designed! Once the title is assigned, designers receive templates from production and make sure that the mechanical Adobe InDesign file is set up and working correctly.
Step 2 – Designing:
For picture books and graphic novels, which are more art-heavy, the designer works with an illustrator on creating original art. Working with an illustrator involves a lot of communication and relaying editorial feedback to see the art go from sketches to final. Maintaining good relationships with illustrators is an important part of design’s job! Once the final art has been sent in, the designer works on choosing different type treatments and adding the text.
For novel interiors, the designer selects different font options and lays out the type. Oftentimes, manual typesetting goes unnoticed if it’s done well! When novels include art elements like a fantasy map, chapter opener art, and other decorative elements, sometimes the art is made by a freelance illustrator as well. Other times, it is up to the designer to generate these assets with stock images or ornamental fonts acquired through licensing.
Throughout this process, design coordinates with managing editorial in terms of deadlines so the book can stay on track! When a version of the book is ready to route for approval, designers will email a PDF as a “pass” to ManEd, which goes through editors, copy editors, and anyone else who needs to review. If there are changes marked up to be made, design will route another pass until everything is approved.
Step 3 – Working with Production:
When all the design has been finalized, designers pass the digital files on to production. Production then sends design proofs (sometimes digital or physical from the printer depending on the budget and publishing timeline) to review colors and layout etc. In PYR, design seems to be one of the only people who get an initial bound copy of the book to approve (as the final round of inspecting proofs), which is really cool to me!
Step 4 – After Design:
Design sends the digital files to be archived and posts art from the book as sales materials. The designer can be needed post-design if the book is translated to another language, different editions of the book are being published, or if there are reprint corrections. Any work that requires tweaking the design file can involve a designer!
Conclusion:
There are many other details of design that I’ve left out in this overview…and there are many more details that I am still learning 🙂 As a design assistant who’s always loved books and is new to publishing, this process often feels quite magical to me. So much meticulous inspection and careful thought goes on behind each book!
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