Book Design in the Wild: The Phlebotomist

There are many places to find book design ideals—design textbooks and blog posts seem happy to provide rules and regulations for creating the perfect book layout. But in my own study, I found that pages set up using the golden ratio and perfectly harmonious margins were hardly the norm, even when the book design worked well for the project and its audience.

I’ve also found that my custom design clients often haven’t thought too much about interior design. Often, they don’t know how to tell me what they like because they haven’t considered the choices that go into interior layouts.

Enter Book Design in the Wild, a new series of videos where I walk through an actual design and discuss the font choices, measurements, and genre-specific elements that affect book design. The first installment is a video about a science fiction dystopia: The Phlebotomist by Chris Panatier (published by Angry Robot). This book has the pinkest cover I’ve ever seen and a workhorse interior layout.

Is there a genre or book you’d like me to analyze for Book Design in the Wild? Have some questions about The Phlebotomist‘s design that I didn’t answer? Let me know in the comments!