1. Layout and Design.
Which program to use?
• Adobe In‐design, becoming an industry standard due to the popularity of the Adobe
products. Not very difficult to get to grips with if you know another Adobe program such as
Photoshop or Illustrator.
• Quark Express. This has been the industry standard for many years and is still popular with
many publishers. It is a good idea to have a working knowledge of this if you are looking to
go into publishing in the future. It is coming under increased pressure nowadays because of
the rising popularity of the Adobe CS programs.
• Adobe Photoshop. Simply the best choice for editing photographs however it is not suitable
for layout purposes.
• Adobe Illustrator. Another industry standard from Adobe, this is a brilliant program for
creating vector designs and illustrations. It is also great for quickly coming up with the page
design and layout however for the full booklet you should transfer the design over to either
Quark or In‐Design.
• Other? Whatever programs you are familiar with if you think it is suitable for the purpose it
will be easier and quicker than learning a piece if software from the beginning.
Online, On Demand Publishing Houses
Nowadays there are a plethora of online publishing houses that you can use to create books. They
use high quality, industrial scale 4 colour printers much like the ink jets you can buy for domestic
use, they are just built for larger workloads and faster turnaround.
The whole process of sending in your files and having them printed is mostly automated up to the
point where the book has to be trimmed and bound and even then this process will be largely
automated. This means that these publishing houses can deal with limited runs or even one off’s at
relatively low cost per item. This is a departure from the traditional printing methods in which many
copies of a book had to be produced and sold in order to make it financially viable.
The two most common are Blurb.com and lulu.com. I have published through Blurb before and I
have been really happy with the results. The images were clear, the bindings really good and the
delivery and print charges were reasonable.
The reason for choosing Blurb over Lulu was mainly the type of book I was publishing, namely a
photography book. They provided In‐Design templates, ICC profiles for colour correction and Adobe
Acrobat PDF Presets. This means that you could fully soft proof your book before sending off for
publishing. They also appear to have more uniform quality control over their printing process using
the same ICC and Adobe Presets for each printer where as Lulu appear to use a number of different
printers without any specific profiles installed, this may lead to variation in the quality and
appearance of images.
However, Lulu do provide very good results and they have a number of advantages over Blurb if you
are thinking about wide distribution of the travel guide. The first thing, and probably one of the
more important points to keep in mind is that they provide a free ISBN number. This is the number

2. you need of you want to sell your book over Amazon, eBay or in a bookstore. This is automatic and is
set up in the first few steps when you register with Lulu. Lulu is also tied into online sellers such as
Amazon as well as having a similar system to blurb in which people can order books directly through
the website. You do not need to keep a stock of books and send them out when bought; they are
printed on demand and distributed by the printing company.
Blurb does have dedicated software which you can download and install. This is quite idiot proof,
setting up the correct colour spaces and export presets and the results can be quite good but it lacks
the flexibility and options that you have with professional programs such as In‐Design or Quark. I
would encourage you to use In‐Design, it is fast becoming industry standard and any experience with
this program will be a good thing to have. As mentioned above Blurb provides templates in In‐design
format for all of its book sizes and cover options. Lulu does have more size options but does not
provide dedicated templates but the guidelines are clear and if you know what you are doing you
can set up a master page without too much trouble.
Links:
Quark Express
http://8.quark.com/evaluation.html
InDesign
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=indesign&promoid=GXRKH
Full CS5 Suite
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=design_premium&promoid=GRYAC
Blurb
http://www.blurb.com/uk/?ce=google_eu_brand_blurb&gclid=CIPhhrewn6MCFUg_3godH2icnA
Lulu
http://www.lulu.com/index.php

3. Initial Planning
What do you want to show with the guide and how do you plan to structure it?
• By area
• By topic
• Alphabetically
• Other?
What would be the best way to show this? Any ideas?
• Colours
• Symbols
• Other?
Page Layout.
Design of booklet.
This determines how you want the booklet to look. The decisions you take at this time effect the
whole project. It is important to set these choices in stone early on in the project. Changes made at a
later date tend to be time consuming and difficult to implement.
• Size of page
• Layout of material on page ‐ column width, photography etc.
• Text Size
• Placement of headings
• Colour choices
• Any symbols needed?
• Maps
• Illustrations
• Consistency
Take ownership of your design and have confidence in the decisions you have made. With such a
large group you will get a lot of opinions about the design and layout. As much as it is important to
listen and take on board what they say it is also important to justify your design and stand firm on
the design decisions. At this early stage you could hold a meeting to brainstorm and collect ideas
from the whole group, this way people feel that they have had an input and are more willing to
accept the design. Also it is a great way to gather ideas that you may not have considered before.

4. Set up of a Master Page.
This is the main page you set up to define the headers, footers, bleed, column height and width,
gutters, page numbers and of course the size of page. From this all the other pages can be
duplicated and the layout is consistent throughout.
• Size of page
• Bleed
• Gutter
• Header
• Footer
• Page Numbers
Organizational Structure when setting up the design aspect
of the project.
Style guide.
This is something quite separate from the design and layout of the booklet. This is a set of
instructions you give the writers concerning how you want the text.
• In what format
• With what information
• The layout of the information. For example: if it is a place of interest; a bar, club or building ‐
how is that information conveyed to the reader. Address, contact info, website address etc.
This should be consistent throughout the publication so people know what to expect when
they are flicking though the booklet.
For Example
www.whokilledbambi.org
Eberswalder Straße 26, 10437. Berlin.
Tel: +49 4849 4574.
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 12pm – 8pm
U-bahn Eberswalder Str.
• Guidelines for photographs
Hold a meeting to discuss this with everybody on the program. It is essential that they understand
what the style guide is and why it is so important to stick to it.

5. Photography.
Of course you will want to include photographs in the booklet. The good thing is, with everyone
having a digital camera nowadays, it is really simple to gather good photographs around the city
from everyone in the group. If they are writing an article tell them to also take a picture of the place
when they are there.
It is also good to take as many pictures around the city as possible, these are great for the front
covers or when you are in need of a generic picture.
The pictures also need to be organized and categorized otherwise it ends up in a lot of work and
time wasting when doing the final layout.
It is also essential that you use pictures that are of a sufficient quality for printing. This means 300
dpi or above. However do not go to big otherwise the end file size of the booklet will become
unmanageable.
Availability and accessibility of the material you want to put
into the booklet.
Another thing to set up early in the project is a system in which you can store and access the
material you want to include in the booklet. This is mainly concerned with the text and the
photographs you want to use.
A good way to do this is to set up a Google documents account for the project. In this you can define
folders that correspond to the layout you have decided on. The members of the group can then log
in and put their articles or photographs in the correct folder where you can access it quickly and
easily.
Make it clear that the articles should be in the correct format, edited and if possible proofed before
they are deposited in the folder.
Also make it clear that miscategorised, unfinished or articles that do not adhere to the style guide
will not be used. It is the responsibility of the writers to take charge of their work and ensure that it
is ready to simply be copied and pasted into the publication.
You really have to be quite hardnosed about this. Trust me, you will have more than enough work by
the end of the project without others making work for you.

6. Proofing.
You should find out which members of the group are good with spelling and punctuation and if any
have had experience with editing and proofreading. It is very important that the articles are gone
through thoroughly and any mistakes corrected before it is handed over to the designers for the final
layout. Going back over these things when the final layout is done is a pain and it is much better to
get as many mistakes corrected as early on as possible. However you will still need to go over the
document as a whole when it is finished. You will be surprised how many mistakes you will find.

7. Decide on the Publishing Company you wish to use.
• Blurb?
• Lulu?
• Other?
Set up a firm Style Guide. Set Up Google Docs Account.
Let everyone know the password and login name. Put this
together as part of the Style guide and email it to everyone.
Decide on the way in which you are going to produce your
publication.
• InDesign?
• Blurbs dedicated software (Booksmart)?
• Other?
Decide on the Layout and Design of your book. How will
the book be set out?
• By Area?
• By topic?
• Other?
Set up a Master Page. This is the basic look for the bulk of
the book. Cover, Intros etc can come at a later date. It is
essential that you pin down the look and layout of the book.
ARTICLES to be send in until certain days...proofeader
only works the 2 days after the deadlines...
1. TBD
2. TBD
3. TBD