The work of Masonic Traveler as a book, obviously, started with the idea penned to paper. But a lot of the energy went into the final layout and design, which isn’t an area most self publishers consider when approaching their Magnum Opus. So I wanted to take a minute and just walk through some of the work involved in putting this together. especially as it is such an expression of my deepest thoughts.
From the top, lets admit it, we all judge a book by its cover, even if just at the initial glance, and my consideration for this books cover was no different. The artwork comes from an amalgamation of places, most of it stock imagery, which I spent many an hour crafting into just the perfect look. the cover above is the final that went into production and this more colorful version was an early iteration. I did some local surveying of friends and family to get a read on what they thought about it, and most went towards the color version, but going with my gut, I decided the less colorful black and white version spoke more to the subject matter than the color version.
My next consideration was the type and treatments, which is a pretty important consideration. the title of the book, Masonic Traveler, obviously needed to be big and bold and really stand out, but the subtext title, the underlying aspect of the work, Under the Shadow of Jehova’s wing, needed to be treated with a certain degree of austerity for what it represented yet still link back to the book itself. So for the header, I chose a simple and clean font that matched the headers in the body of the book, which is done in the Trajan font. So, to make the title stand out, I used a grungie roughed up 28 Days Later font to make that juxtaposition. The mix of the elegant and lofty Trajan and the grungie, almost earthy, 28 Days made an excellent duality that I liked very much. And with the white text on the black background only served to accentuate that posture.
Moving from the outer to the inner, the aspects of being a book started to become a little more settled and a natural flow took over.
I wanted to say first that both the interior and the exterior were laid out in Adobe InDesign CS2, and all of the art was managed with PhotoShop. Like loaded weapons, I wouldn’t recommend the passive user to pick these programs up to use from the hip. Both are very expensive and daunting to the uninitiated in their use. But when used by someone with some knowledge, you can hit the bulls-eye for the layout and design for exactly how you want the book to look.
On the inside, the chapter headings utilize the Trajan font, and the body copy was a simple choice of Times New Roman. This is a pretty unadventurous choice, but a simple one that helped to offset the content form the vehicle conveying it. Also, the font is a bit larger than most, with the goal in mind that it is easier to read and notate, should the reader want to. I also opted to include a number of images that I felt encapsulated the content of that particular chapter. This isn’t something I would normally recommend to someone only because it takes a lot of work to fine tune and get just the right image. Nevertheless, the visual story was just as important to me as the textual one and I wanted to have both to tell the tale.
As you can see a tremendous amount of consideration went into the layout, all of which stretched out over several weeks (months) with tweaks and pinches here and there along the way. In the process there isn’t much room for shortcuts or deviations, as all the components need to be fit in just such a way. That’s not to say that one couldn’t use MS Word to layout a book in a self-publishing template, but the results will be less exciting and in the end much more problematic.
All in all, the process was an excellent learning tool of writing, laying out, and polishing the rough work into a shining finished composition. If you are an aspiring author, or have a work that you want to see in print, drop me an email and we can collaborate to make your work into a finished Magnum Opus. If you want to see what see what I’m talking about, pick up Masonic Traveler and see the composition as a whole creation, and then let me know what you think.
