Help with Textbook Design

[Peacey]

I'm just starting to try and design a textbook I have written, and was wondering if anyone (more experienced than I!) would mind having a quick look at my initial drafts. They're hosted at http://www.learnsomestuff.com/newdesign.pdf

Just to give you some context - the text is on the Sociology of Development and iis used in an A4 "magazine" format in sixth-form colleges. The design so far is for "main content" - there will also be a layout for title pages of each column, based on this design but with some form of header bar. Pages will also eventually contain inset boxes for extension readings and activities (i.e. taking up a third of the top right-hand corner of the left page.

The audience is sixth-formers - so 16 to 18 year olds mainly. I want to keep the "dense text" feel of a "real textbook", but to get away with this it needs to be relatively slick - and I can't get it right

Any hints, observations, criticisms, etc. would be much appreciated.

[Cwilk]

To liven it up a bit and give it some air, I'd add a little more margin all around. Opening up your leading will also help give it a better feel. The font itself doesn't say 16 to 18 yo. I know that the US is different than other countries, but personally I prefer a serif font for your main body text.

Your header font would look nicer if it complements the other fonts, but don't use the exact same font. Doing this will give the page a little more edge.

Also your text columns do not line up. It looks amateurish if they don't match at the top and bottom for a textbook driven page. There's also nothing wrong with staggering the columns to match up and then add photos or sidebars in.

[Peacey]

Thanks for your comments Cwilk, they're really helpful.

I'm going to have a tinker with the margins and the header font tomorrow - now that you make the comment, I think it was "lack of air" that was making it feel wrong. I'd usually go for a serif font - but I've found that, oddly, students winge less with sans-serif fonts (they're used to having material boiled down to bullet points for them and don't like pages full of text at all, I think sans-serif makes it "feel" simpler for them). I'll put images in once I've got the design down; my plan was for each double page spread to have at least one in-set box containing an extension reading or image to break the text up a bit.

Could you clarify a couple of points for me (as you can probably tell, I'm an amateur at all this). What does "opening up your leading" mean? Also, when you say that the columns don't line up, do you mean the second column of the first page should be moved down so that it lines up with the text, rather than header, of the first column?

Thanks again,
Mark.

[Cwilk]

The leading is the space between each of the lines. When you see 11/16, that means that the font is 11 points and the leading is 16. You should be using no more than an 11 point size.

And as for the lining up; I notice you have a header on the second column, but lining up the text so that each column is straight across from the other should look fine without worrying about the header.

[Peacey]

Fantastic, thanks a lot - I'll mess with those ideas tommorrow too.

[Zaoris]

I think Christina told you some important stuff, so follow her advice. You have to work on the design of your magazine, by adding colour and some nice effects without causing problems to the eye (if you know what I mean)
Look here Adobe . Download and look over it, you might feel inspired.
Good luck!

[Peacey]

Is this any better? ...
http://www.learnsomestuff.com/newdesignv2.pdf

I've increased the margins and leading space, and changed the header font - and tried to line up the column text.

There are extra inset features to add, just so you can see what the "elements" of each page are, this is the format I'm currently using...

http://www.learnsomestuff.com/lss/up...EE1C681805.pdf

[Cwilk]

Looks very good. I still think that the columns need to line up, but I see that your subheads (since they are a different size) push the leading to be different. So you'll just need to set the leading on the subs so that they will help your columns match up.

Other than that, I think it looks nice. Also, did you change the font on the top folio?

[Peacey]

I changed the colour so that all of the page "furniture" was in the brown/red whilst the main content was black

[Cwilk]

That was probably a good change. Please post it when you get the chance. : )