All Bells and Whistles
Author John Ford has made it his life’s work to faithfully document the career and works of Rudolph Ackermann, the Anglo-German bookseller, inventor,
lithographer, publisher and businessman. Having already published several books on Ackermann, John came to us at Falcon and asked for our help in putting together his latest title. With a brief to create a beautifully designed full colour publication that really showcased the tremendous achievements of Ackermann throughout his life.
The
first place to start was with the copy. John supplied us with a Word document
containing all the text for the title which we flowed into a standard page
format so it could be easily read.
Once the
galley files had been prepared laser copies were supplied and John went through
and marked any corrections that needed to be made. His marked proofs were then
returned to us and transferred to the digital file.
The next
stage was to create the template for the final page design. The font was
changed to a lighter version. Since the printed copies will be of high quality
a lighter font will print well and look clean and precise on the good quality
paper. Then a wider margin was added to the outside of the page which allowed
for greater flexibility when adding the pictures.
The new page
design meant that, depending on the prominence of the image, we could easily
adjust the size to fit the layout – half page, quarter page, margin width – all
could be accommodated easily and captions added in various positions without
looking out of place.
Working
closely with John we put together a comprehensive catalogue of pictures and
then went through the galley copy, marking in the text where each was to be
placed. Many of the pictures were supplied digitally but some originals needed
to be carefully scanned and then returned.
With
everything now in place it was over to our designers to put the text and
pictures together. This can be a lengthy process but the end result is well
worth the time and effort.
Now that
the final design has been completed a set of proofs has been supplied to John
for checking and any last minute corrections. The final printed copies are
eagerly anticipated and we are sure will grace some prestigious bookshelves.
