PPN Book Spine Design (with John Berry)

Publishing Professionals Network (PPN) free professional development series.

What makes a book spine effective?
And what job does the spine design have to do?

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in a bookstore we judge most of them first by their spines. With most new books—not the ones lying out on tables or prominently displayed with their covers out, but the ones lining the shelves—the spine is all we see. The beautiful, dramatic cover, upon which great effort and sometimes even expense may have been lavished, never gets seen if a browsing book buyer doesn’t reach out and pull the book off the shelf.

Some links referenced in John's session:

W.A. Wiggins: https://letterformarchive.org/shop/w-...

Putting Some Spine in Design (John Berry, 2001): https://creativepro.com/dot-font-putt...

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John D. Berry is an editor, typographer, book designer, and design writer in Seattle. He has been president of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale), editor of the design magazine U&lc, book designer for Copper Canyon Press, and program manager for the Fonts team at Microsoft. His books include Language culture type (2002), U&lc: influencing typography & design (2005), and Hanging by a serif: a few words about designing with words (2013). After thirty years of book and editorial design, as well as writing extensively about type and design, he has become a passionate advocate for effective text typography, both onscreen and off.