Book structure, format and the flatplan

Before you design a single spread, you need to decide what kind of object the book will be: its size and shape, how many pages it has, how those pages are grouped and what parts it contains besides photographs. These decisions are partly creative and partly technical, because printers work with fixed press sheets, folding machines and binding equipment. A format that fits the press efficiently can cost far less than one that wastes paper. This lesson covers the anatomy of a book, common trim sizes and orientations, how pages are printed and folded into signatures, why extents come in fixed multiples, and how to plan the whole book page by page in a flatplan. Prices and sizes given here are typical examples; always confirm with your printer.

The anatomy of a book

Most books, including photobooks, follow conventions that readers recognize even if they cannot name them. You can break conventions deliberately, but it helps to know them first.

Many photobooks keep text off the image pages and place captions at the back, so the pictures can be read without interruption. Others integrate text closely, especially photo-text books. Funders often require their logos or acknowledgement wording; check grant agreements before finalizing the copyright page and back matter. In Canada, books with public funding frequently carry an acknowledgement of the Canada Council for the Arts or a provincial arts council, each of which publishes logo and wording guidelines.

Trim size and orientation

Trim size is the final size of the page after the book is cut. It strongly affects how the photographs are experienced, what the book costs, how it is shipped and where it can be shelved. Small books feel intimate and portable; large books give images presence but are heavy and expensive to ship. Orientation matters too. A portrait-format book suits vertical images; a landscape-format book suits horizontal images; a square book treats both equally but displays neither at full size.

In Canada and the United States, many printers and print-on-demand services list sizes in inches, while European and Asian printers usually work in millimetres. Canadian printers often quote both. Choose your size early, because it determines the layout grid, image sizes and paper usage. Measure books you admire and handle them before deciding.

How books are printed: sheets and imposition

Commercial offset presses do not print one page at a time. They print several pages on each side of a large press sheet. After printing, the sheet is folded so that the pages come out in the correct order, then trimmed. Arranging pages on the sheet so they read correctly after folding is called imposition. The arrangement looks scrambled on a flat sheet: some pages are upside down, and facing pages in the finished book may be printed far apart.

A sheet folded once makes 4 pages, folded twice makes 8, and folded three times makes 16. The folded section is called a signature. Most photobook printers work in signatures of 16 pages, sometimes 8, 12, 24 or 32 depending on page size, paper weight and press. Thick papers do not fold cleanly in large signatures, so books on heavy paper may use 8-page signatures.

Imposition has creative consequences. Pages printed on the same side of the same sheet go through the press together, so their colour is controlled together. The two pages of a spread usually come from different parts of a sheet, or from different sheets, except at the centre of a signature. On a long run, the press operator balances ink across the sheet, and an image that crosses a spread may show a slight colour shift between its two halves. Printers can advise which spreads fall at signature centres, where a full-bleed image across the gutter will be most consistent, and which sheets carry the most demanding images so that press checks can focus on them.

Why extents come in multiples

Because books are built from signatures, the total number of pages must normally be a multiple of the signature size. With 16-page signatures, extents of 96, 112, 128, 144 and 160 are efficient. A book of 100 pages would require six 16-page signatures plus a 4-page section, which adds handling and cost. Printers can often add 8- or 4-page sections, but each additional section adds folding, gathering and makeready. Saddle-stitched zines need a multiple of 4, because each folded sheet adds four pages.

Plan the extent early and treat it as fixed once quoted. If the sequence grows, it may be cheaper to add a full signature than to squeeze images; if it shrinks, it is usually better to add blank pages or text pages as deliberate pauses than to leave a short final section. Ask your printer for the preferred signature size for your trim and paper.

Sizes that fit the press

The previous example shows why printers often recommend standard trim sizes: they divide press sheets efficiently. A book that is a few millimetres larger than a standard format can waste a large share of each sheet, and paper is often the largest single cost in a photobook. Before fixing a custom size, ask two or three printers which nearby sizes are most economical on their presses. Print-on-demand services offer a fixed menu of sizes and papers; designing to one of those sizes from the start avoids reworking layouts later.

Inserts, gatefolds and special elements

Photobooks sometimes include special elements: a gatefold (a page that folds out to show a wide image), a tipped-in plate (an image printed separately and glued onto a page), an insert on different paper, a booklet bound into the book, a loose print, or a poster folded into a pocket. These can add great value to the object, but most require handwork or additional processes and increase cost and risk.

Use special elements when they serve the work, not as decoration. A gatefold that unfolds a coastline across a metre of paper can be the emotional centre of a book; a gatefold used because it seemed impressive can feel gimmicky. Request quotes with and without special elements so you can see the real cost.

The flatplan

A flatplan is a page-by-page map of the whole book, usually drawn as rows of small rectangles representing spreads. It shows which pages carry front matter, plates, text and back matter, where signatures begin and end, where special elements fall, and which spreads contain which images. Designers, editors and printers all use flatplans to coordinate.

To build a flatplan, start with the extent and the signature size, mark the signature boundaries, then place front matter and back matter. Next, place the plates using image codes from your format edit, following the sequence and pacing developed in lesson 2. Note blank pages, text pages and special elements. Finally, check the flatplan against the printer's imposition to see which spreads fall at the centres of signatures and which images share press sheets. Keep the flatplan updated through design and proofing; it becomes the master reference for checking that nothing has been lost or duplicated.

Covers, jackets and spines

The cover is the book's first impression in a shop, on a table and in an online listing. Options include a printed softcover, a hardcover with a printed paper-over-board case, a cloth-covered case with a foil-stamped title, and a dust jacket over a hardcover. The cover should be legible as a small thumbnail on a website, because many books are now discovered online. The spine needs the title and author legibly printed if the book is thick enough, usually above about 5 mm or 0.2 in, because most books in shops and libraries are shelved spine out. In English-language markets, spine text usually runs from top to bottom, so it reads correctly when the book lies face up; many European books run bottom to top. Lesson 5 explains how to calculate spine width from paper thickness and page count.