One question that immediately jumped front-and-center as I started doing the layout adjustments to make the book landscape instead of portrait was – what about font size? If the book displays at page-size on the screen and I have a laptop monitor, then I’m talking something like 72.5% of the page, which means that a “normal” 11-point Times font is going to be pretty freakin’ tiny. On the other hand, if I make it a 13-point or 14-point font to show at a reasonable size on my small laptop screen, then someone with a BIG flatscreen monitor is going to have my typeface SCREAMING at them.

Thoughts?

And thanks for great, thought-provoking posts!

Grace´s last blog post…What’s important?

Your review of contemporary e-book design is very insightful. I’ve been creating and utilizing PDF technology since it became available decades-ago. I found it to be a valuable method of review/transmission of documents I was designing.

On a very minimalistic level, I agree with your suggestions about designing an e-book. However, from a creative perspective you’ve totally left out the inclusion of images, charts, graphics to enhance the content and overall visual experience.

I would like to purchase a Kindle but it only has a B&W screen and its ability to display graphic-intensive e-books/e-magazines is extremely limited.

Good luck with the new book too. The more you do them, the more you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. To learn even more, get your hands on as many ebooks as you can just to compare the different styles.

As far as design consistency, that depends. Personally, I prefer branding designs based on theme of the book itself versus the full site, though some secondary level of site-to-ebook branded design is good, as it helps maintain the consistency of image overall for both site and products.

That help? Or… just made it more confusing?