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.
Where to start?
The 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.
Tweaking the page design
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.
The importance of preparing well
John had downloaded many of the images for his book from the internet, but this practise is fraught with problems. Not only were there copyright issues but, because most websites only show thumbnail images of the originals, they were nowhere near good enough quality for printing purposes. Because John was in touch with The British Museum (the copyright owners) and they were enthusiastic about the publication of his book, we urged him to find out if we could use the original images. They happily agreed, which meant not only did we have fantastic quality images but there were no copyright issues.
The final product
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.
Once the final design is completed a set of proofs was supplied to John for checking and any last minute corrections. The final printed copies were a triumph and we are sure will grace some prestigious bookshelves.
A book launch fit for a king
With final copies printed and advance orders starting to roll in John organised his book launch at The British Museum. Excited scholars and other interested parties were eager to attend and copies were sold to customers from around the world.