Home: Interior Design of a Book

You may ask, what is the 'interior design' of a book? It is the graphic arrangement of the text, and of every piece of information printed in it, from the title page in the front to the period on the last page. This includes the choice of font, the size of different fields of text, the white space around blocks of text, and the indentation of the first paragraph in the story as compared to the indentation of following paragraphs--all of which create a graphical balance; an environment for you, the reader. 

In the case of my new poetry book, Home, I have focused on several interior design details, which I illustrate in the two pages below. The odd-number pages bear the title, Home, centered at the top. The font I chose for the entire book is Baskerville (more on this font and why I prefer it to others will be posted on my blog in a separate entry.) The first letter of each story, each poem in the book is unique, in the traditional manner of illuminated manuscripts. This special attention to the first letter signifies a beginning of a new thought, and an invitation to the reader to pause before delving in. 

 I chose a fancy font for the first letter, called Kokonor. Furthermore, I placed it carefully, like a piece of art, in relation to the following letters. This can be seen in the page below, where the tail end of letter N carries the following letters, ow, embracing them. This can not be done simply by typing the letters and selecting different fonts, but rather by adding a 'text box' and carefully placing it on the page. 

The even-numbered pages of the book bear the names of the writers (my father's name, Zeev Kachel, and mine.) To eliminate confusion, the first half of the book contains my creations, the second half--his, and I credit the writer under each individual piece, as you can see in these two pages.) 

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