Editorial · 2023
Paper Lanterns
A first picture book, a first time author, and one printing run to get it right.
- Client
- Paper Lanterns
- Sector
- Children's publishing
- Year
- 2023
- Scope
- Book design, Illustration direction, Typography, Print production
The brief
The manuscript was eleven hundred words about a blackout in a tower block. The author had a small advance and no second chance at the print run.
Everything had to be decided on paper before a single plate was made.
The move
The book is printed in two inks, and the story is told by which one is missing. Pages before the blackout carry both; during it the warm ink drops out entirely, and it returns page by page as the neighbours light their windows.
Type is set large enough to be read aloud across a room, on a measure short enough for a four year old to follow with a finger. Two inks also kept the run inside the advance, which is why the idea survived the estimate.
The printer talked me out of nothing. That is how well specified it was.
2
Inks used across the whole book
3
Printings in the first eighteen months
32
Pages, none of them reset after proofing
What we made
- 01Book design and pagination
- 02Illustration direction
- 03Two ink separation and print specification
- 04Cover and jacket
- 05Press supervision