type spec.
the dark side of the brew type spec
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type spec.
Contents introduction
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type faces and setting
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document grid
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layout rules and regulationgs
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colours and images
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page furnishings and illustrations
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production
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type spec.
Introduction This book is the specification of all the rules and methods involved in the design and production of this book. The Dark Side Of The Brew is a book dedicated the craft of homebrewing and its history and values and craft. The book is meant to take on a traditional style through out the majority to reflect the traditional styles and themes through out the beer brewing history. However as the book prgresses it is meant to have a much more playful and modern design. The book is a 261mm by 192mm printed publication. I chose this size because I knew I wanted to challenge my self by having to handle a lot of type and wanted to be able to have a large enough document to be able to contain a large amount of type and still offer some white space relif.
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type spec.
Baskerville abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Regular I used Baskerville’s regular type face for the whole entirety of my body text. I chose this font because it has a really nice traditional hand style feel to it and links in well with the traditional element of the book.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Semi bold italic Used for pull quotes and paragraph section headings. I feel it gives the publication spreads a change of tone and hierachy and is more fluid and not as static for regular semi bold.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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Semi bold Used for the larger sub section headings on the pages. The boldness of the semi bold really draws the eye. I don’t feel it clashes with semi bold italic and therefore maintains the heiarhy of the page.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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Bold Used for all chapter titles and front cover or decorative texts. Largest style of the type face and therefore was just ideal to use for titles and main headings.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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type spec.
Body text The body text is set in 10pt regular with a 12pt leading. This was the size of type and leading I thought would be appropriate and easy to read based on the size of the document. It also hold the text together with out being too close.
To this day beer has retained its crown as one of the world’s most popular beverages. Throughout the years of its conception around 7000 years ago brewers worked on and refined the techniques of the brew.
Pull qoutes Set in a semi bold italic with a 20pt leading and a 24pt leading. being italic pulls it apart from the rest of the text that is in the uniform setting style.
“one of the most common and widely drank
Sub heading page titles Set in semi bold 26pt with a 24pt leading. The extra 6pt set on the sub headings helps hold its importance in the hierarchy and means it’s not battling for focus with the pull quotes. Set too small caps
working class hero
Titles Set at 26pt but in bold with a 24pt leading. Designed to be the biggest set text in the book to be used for chapter titles. Set to small caps as it bulks out the type evenly and creates a greater sense of importance.
prohibition 5
type spec.
Over the years the industrialization of the brewing industy lead to the up-scaling of brewing equipment and breweries them selves.
Captions Set in 8 pt semibold with a 10pt leading. The captions small font size keeps it look down on the hiearchy so it doesn’t draw focus but the semi bold means the type isn’t lost or ignored.
Merchants and salesmen
Paragraph headings Set in semibold italic at 12pt with a 12pt leading. The small increase in type size pulls the headings out from the body text and the semibold helps this at the same time being small enough to not draw focus from other larger headings or pull quotes.
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type spec.
Futura abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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Medium Futura’s medium type style gives a very edgy and modern/sophisticated type face and was ideal for refferences about the future and modern day brewing that was going on. Condensed medium The condensed medium offers a much more retro look to the type face. This worked well for the titles of the mob bosses who I made the pull out for.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Condensed extra bold The extra bold condensed offers the similar retro style of the condensed medium but in a much more in your face kind of way.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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type spec.
M
Made men Type set used for the ‘Made men’ section designed to be more decorative they’re set in condensed extra bold in 100pt and 180pt sizes with no specific leading as they are designed to be decorative titles.
Al Capone
profile titles set in condensed medium at a 40pt size and with a 24 pt leading although the leading isn’t significant as such as the titles are only ever confined to one line.
more than acceptable
For the future quote Set in 43pt type with a 48pt leading. mainly designed and used for a decorative page piece in the publication.
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type spec.
The grid Baseline The grid I’ve used for the book is based around the type font size and leading that I have used. I chose to use a 12pt leading with a 10pt regular text size for my body text. I thought this would be appropriate as Baskerville has quite a small x height and I didn’t want to use too much white space between lines of text. After setting up my baseline grid I began looking into making margins that I can set my baseline and brid guides to. All of the leading of all of the typefaces and styles I used were made to have multiples of 12 so that they can all aligh to this particular baseline grid.
Pull quotes and other titkes would always be aligned by base line as I feel this made a stronger line for alignment 9
type spec.
Margins The margins consist of a: 15mm top, 14mm outside, 18mm inside and a 21mm bottom. I wanted to have larger margins on the inside so it would accomodate for the fold of the middle in the book so minimal content would be abstructed by the centre folds. The bottom margin is over sized so it can frame the pages and give a good base for the content. I made the outside slightly smaller than the top to try and keep the margin layout dynamic and avoid it getting stale. However I wanted a fairly wide margin on the outside so it would allow for people to hold the pages with out obstructing areas of type of images on the page. Finally I also aligned my baseline grid to the margins. on the page.
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type spec.
Layout grid The grid layout was achieved by setting the horizontal gutter to 12pt so it corrisponded to the baseline grid leading. I then started adding horizontal rows until the guides snapped on to the baseline. This allows me to have a really tight grid that means type lines will correspond to the gutter lines of the grid and really does a good job of aligning titles and text.
Guides snapping to the baseline grid to create a really tight grid system.
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type spec.
The final grid system uses a 5 by 5 grid with 25 fields per single page with a 12pt horizontal gutter and a 18pt verticle gutter. I chose this design as the baseline dictated the number of rows and I wanted to have an odd number of collums. I wanted to use 5 as it corrisponded nicely with the rows and it allows me to use up to 4 fields horizontally and still be able to have the use of white space which breaks up the page nicely to avoid over crowding of content.
A quick example of ways the grid can be used to construct areas of text or pictures and make use of white space.
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type spec.
Layout: Rules and Regulations Text areas The type areas for my publication all follow the sizes of either 2 grid fields or 3. As my book is fairly text heavy I wanted to make use of the 3 field grid text areas as the 3 field grid areas met the criteria of having 8-10 words per line on average therefore making the text easier to read, as it is not disruptively short lines of type or overly long and stale lines. the 2 fields of text areas I feel are most effective for pull quotes and on spreads where large images may take up alot of the page area or to fill white space left by pages consisting mainly of a large 3 field text block. The only exception for this rule is on page 61. I enlisted a central colum split so I could break up the large amount of text needed for that spread and be able to keep the colums slightly smaller so they could be less intinidating to to read through, as aposed to a 4 or 5 field text block.
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type spec.
Ranging All the ranging for my text boxes except the titles and chapter introductions is ranged left with a ragged right. the ranging helps keep type flowing and helps with my lay out as most the type areas are positioned to the left of either the margins or images and the ranged left helps fram this and give the sense of uniform to the layout. The centre ranging on the chapters works because it draws focus to a central point that would be the chapter title and information.
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type spec.
Alignment All the text boxes and images all conform to and sit with the boundires of the grid, which is more obvious in some places than others but they all generally sit on the grid guides. Even on the more the more playful layouts towards the end of the book to represent the more modern style and playfulness with home brewing the text and images all sit within the grid lines. However I would always play with the layout I could get within the boundires of the grid to arrange text and images in dynamic and new places to keep the pace of the book fresh and to avoid it getting stale.
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type spec.
Inserts The insertes section for the profiles of the ‘made men’ during prohibition is based on a section of the grid then cropped out to be placed in the middle of the book. The thin line that appears was originally a guide for cutting and using as a reinforced section for binding on. However early attempts looked clunky and unclean as you could the extra paper un the centre folds so I just decided to bin the cut outs straight away in the book with out them.
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type spec.
Colours And Images Here are the colours and tones that I used for my book publication.
C=30, M=80, Y=73, K=32 A dominant colour in the book used for illustrative/decorative type pages. I wanted to get a colur reminicent of old and rustic pubs and the rich reds/browns that go with traditional things.
C=3, M=38, Y=95, K=0 A golden yellow taken from the ‘American Homebrewers Assosiation’. I thought this colour way would go nicely with the maroon and be a nice framing colour and add a bit of contrast.
Black used for the cover and type and for page furnishings and frames. Looks good with type and adds to the whole attmosphere linked with the ‘Dark Side’ of the book.
Paper/white I knew I wanted to print on crisp clean white paper and this helped when wanting to print out in white.
C=15, M=100, Y=100, K=0 Red used to highlight the key words in the ‘push for the future’ quote page. Offered a nice highlighting colour and was very complimentary.
C=0, M=71, Y=87, K=0 Orange used for the background page of the ‘push for the future’ quote. I wanted to have a colour that went with the golden themed ales and beers without getting too close the golden yellow pictured above. Also good colour to brighten up a page of text by using on pull quotes. 17
type spec.
Photos For the Brewers Droop section and the D.I.Y. section I had taken all the photos myself. To edit them I had placed them photoshop and adjusted the thresholds and levels to achive an optimum quality from the photos I had gathered.
unedited
edited
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type spec.
Page furnishings and illustrations Illustrations I wanted to add some small illustrative design elements to the book so that they could be a theme running through the book. The bottle cap silhouette for the chapter number markers and the bubbles outline illustration inspired by the carbonation process of the beer just shows a more playful side to the book and is a nice thing to carry through the whole pulication.
Decorative pages The idea behind these pages was to catch the readers eye and draw it to a particular phrase or subject that was relevant to the chapter content. They offer a nice change of pace and break up the book in parts that me very text heavy
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type spec.
Headers and footers The headers were designed with the double page spread in mind as they would state the title of the book and the other the current chapter. The other function was to act as a framing device for the pages at the top and the bottom, having them in the middle of the pages also added to the balance of the piece as well I feel.
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type spec.
optical punctuation I incorperated the ‘optical’ punctuation setting in the story sub menu in Indesign to allow the text to be more flush with the ranged left side and pushing the quotation marks out over the grid line.
optical alignment
non optical alignment
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type spec.
Carriers For the pull quotes I set up an underline set to 12pt (a baseline field width) under the quote to act as a way of giving it a base rather than it seeminly floating on the page.
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type spec.
Production Printing For the printing I had to export the Indesign file as a PDF set for pages and then go on to duplex laser print the pages I needed and complete with crop, registration and bleed marks. After inital tests on an ink jet printer it was obvious I had to print on a laser as the fine serifs on the small body type became washed out, especially on white text that was over an image
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type spec.
Paper stock The paper stock I originally choose was around the 140gsm range, which I thought would be a little too thick once cropped down to the book page size. In the end I chose a 120gsm satin paper that was brilliant white, with a thicker 300gsm satin card for the cover piece.
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type spec.
Binding For the book I decided to perfect bind all the pages. I decided to perfect bind because it’s the most popular method of binding for magazines and small/short publications. There a fewer complications involved in my opinion as opposed to other publication styles of binding such as with saddle stitch the setting for print can be a nightmare as well as having to account for factors such as creep.
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type spec.
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