Horizontal format books

[Jason Morningstar]

I know printers don't care which edge they bind on, making horizontal layout books possible - but are they a good idea? I'm specifically thinking about a digest-sized book perfect bound on the 5.5" edge, and I can't recall any examples.  My concerns:

1. Stress on a binding, making them more prone to failure.
2. Form factor, ease of use - at the table and curled up by the fire.
3. Retail display. General goofiness.

I think a horizontal layout frees up the space in a digest-sized book, and just playing around makes me think it would allow for marginalia, which I like. What do you think? I know some folks are choosing this format in 6x9 - any anecdotal feedback?

Oh, and please don't take those mock-ups too seriously. I just wanted to see, you know, what it would look like. The final product will be in capable hands ... I'd value any feedback on this.

[jrs]

Ron talks about his choice to bind It was a mutual decision on the short edge here: [It Was a Mutual Decision] Case study for discussion

I like it; it's very flippable. 

Julie

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

A couple of random points, for the poll:

I was under the impression that Ron liked landscape format after handling a comic compilation and considering the two-up impact. He seemed to use the layout to project a certain feel onto the product, rather than because it best-served the raw textual content (ex: if he had a lot of multi-column tables with few rows). So, first and foremost, if it feels right for the game, do it. But be prepared...

First, do you want portrait, short-edge bound or are you talking landscape, short-edged bound? I think the former would be neigh-unusable, so all further advice will concern the latter.

Second, do you intend to enter retail channels? If so, you might have trouble with adoption of the format (shelves are but so deep) or you might find retailers shelving it with the bound edge up, thereby hiding your binding and product. It's better than hanging off the shelf and becoming warped, right? Conversely: if you have "deep shelf" retailers, your game could end up being more spot-able, for sticking out of the normal dimensions of the other books on its shelf. All-in-all, it could be a push; but the bigger your distributor, the less they will want to fool with wonky stuff, when they are pitching a score of new products to a bored retail owner.

Third, you have to honestly ask youself what it will do for handling. Ron's design apparently used a lot of whitespace and a very thorough per-page design so that each page was memorable. Does your game support such liberal use of paper? Or will you be trying to pack columns of text onto this layout? If the former, go for it; if the latter, you will sacrifice scanability, I think, as folks are accustomed to portrait layouts. I will presume the former, for continued discussion.

Fourth, I don't think you need worry about durability. Sure, if you just lifted it by one cover, you'd be applying the same torque as a portrait layout onto a shorter binding edge, but torque doesn't kill bindings: laying flat kills bindings (broken spines). So ask youself how much more often folks will try to make a landscape document lay flat, versus a portrait? (My guess: more often, as the swell of the facing pages is naturally higher than portrait, because it's longer, and so the gutter seems "deeper" and harder into which to read.)

Fifth, ask youself how folks will use the book, day-to-day. Will they want to have it open for reference while they jot notes onto a notepad? If so, landscape will suck, because it is so much wider than portrait, to hold open on a page. Either it's open above the notepad, making for awkward handling, or it's beside the notepad and you will likely cover half of your book with the pad, to write: more broken spines. Or are they more likely to open it and read and then close it and play? Even then, most folks have trouble holding onto a book in landscape, while reading: either the gutter "falls away" (holding two handed) or one page or the other does (holding one handed). With portrait, one can either cup under the binding and prop the book both open and up with one hand, or one can hold from behind and over, again using only one hand to both hold open the book and hold the book upright. Landscape, all you can do is try to drape it along your whole forearm, holding the far side edge, and hope it doesn't slip off. Look at it this way: you don't see many landscape cookbooks, but you see a TON of landscape art books: would your game book behave more as the former or the latter?

Fifth, why? Are you doing it just to do it? Because plenty of protrait layout books use marginalia; and one could counter with the simple observation that you will need a LOT of marginalia, to use-up space in the way that you have demonstrated. Like line-by-line commentary from English textbooks, to make it worth the space commitment. Also, landscape might be good for marginalia, but it's suxxor for footnotes. All a matter of need and use.

In closing, without knowing precisely why or for what game, all I can do is try to mention all things directly impacted by such a choice.

HTH;
David

[pells]

Hi Jason !!!

I chose this kind of format for Avalanche, but of course, this choice was already made up in the design. It wouldn't look good in "portrait" format (one page of text followed by a page of illustration). And honestly, I'm quite glad with this ! And as for the example you gave above, I prefer the horizontal format : you get a full page in front of you. That might be just a personnal opinion.

That said, I'm not quite sure you can "switch" from one format to the other : I believe you'd better have one in mind right at the beginning. And if I'm not wrong, that's what Ron did.

I don't have yet a printed copy of my teaser (should come in about a week), but I do have a "text" version (i.e. no illustrations, no layout, half the pages empty) of something like 400 pages. Well, the binding is strong enough (and trust me, I've flipped it A LOT) and yes, it is more easy to flip. You shouldn't worry about that...

Seems to me like a good choice, just like you said, it helps free space. But, what are you doing with this space ?

Something that comes to my mind : I'm a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes. It happens that they have a compilation of many books in landscape. I just love it !!! And, when I go to a bookstore, they are usually are very easy to find, because of this (they are normally put "into a pile", so you can't miss them). Well, of course, this is a known, popular product, so it doesn't bother bookstores I think.

[MatrixGamer]

I can think of reasons against landscape formatted books.

1. They don't fit well on bookselves. They end up sticking out - which I don't like.

2. As mentioned above, they are flippy. This can be an advantage but it also means that in humid environments they are more warpy. When sitting on a display shelf at a con or store this warping makes the covers curl in which obscures the cover art.

3. I don't think they read as well. There is a big difference between reading a comic in landscape and reading text. I bought the reprints of the old Traveler books from the 70's that were done in landscape and they suffer from all of the above problems.

The up side is that it is not a usual format and will thus stand out some. You may also like being different for difference's sake. Lord knows I do that to - He who is about to try selling folio games. But difference has risks. This risk is being ignored because of the format rather than attended to because of it.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[Eero Tuovinen]

Purely from a consumer perspective: I like landscape format when handling it, but hate it in storage. This is an issue when you have to index and store a hardcore nerdboy library of comics, games, books and other stuff. I like books where spine is on the long side, the book is a standard size and stacks easily, but will also stand up vertically on a shelf. The typical comic book trade paperback is ideal in this regard, not the least because that's a typical dimension for the stuff I've had to store.

But as I said, I think landscape is very fine for use and aesthetic reasons. It's a shame you can't just read it and throw it into a bag of holding afterwards. Then I wouldn't mind the awkward shape.

[amicitia]

There's no right choice when it comes to landscape versus portrait. Both are valid design choices and as I used to tell my students when two or three designers debate an aspect of a layout they are likely to differ and in the end only one of them will leave the room alive...

My tuppence worth...

From a design perspective landscape offers some interesting challenges, which are not necessarily impossible to overcome, but require some innovative design solutions. There are some key questions to ask yourself. Does the content of your piece benefit significantly from a landscape layout? Are you creating more work for yourself by choosing this layout? Is the choice of landscape essentially a gimmick rather than trying to develop a unique design solution for your content?

The most common problem with landscape is that designers actually lose more of the page than they gain. Landscape pages tend to be designed as single stand alone pages which may have design elements in common with other pages in the document, but which are essentially isolated from the rest of the work. This can create problems for readers scanning through your work as the flow across and between pages is naturally broken by the necessary size of the inside margins and the landscape layout itself.

The more traditional Portrait layout allows for the designer to use both pages as a double page spread (DPS). This gives the designer more options as a 6 or 8 or 12 column grid format (the more complex the better) can be used across both pages. Sidebars and illustrations can be easily integrated into the design.The best aspect of this style of layout is that the information flows from one page to the other easily.

The cardinal rule for layout and typographic design is that readers should be able to access the information they need as easily as possible. The design can (and should) create flavour and interest, but the reader must not at any point need to work hard to get the information they need. However, the fact that they are interested in picking up an RPG book in the first place does give you some limited license with the design as they are likely to make the effort to read it. I hasten to add that accessible doesn't mean boring...

Most landscape designs I encounter, including the old Traveller books, tend to suffer from these problems. Many also tend to have very long line lengths which further increases the work for the reader.

I have designed both portrait and landscape pieces. The landscape pieces I have worked on tend to be items like Annual reports. The information in these pieces is limited and can be easily displayed on the two pages (top and bottom) that the reader is viewing before turning the page to an entirely new topic. If your RPG content fits this model go for it - landscape will work for you. If not think hard about how you can make it work across the whole published piece.

I shall flee the room before another designer enters :-) ...

PS: David Artman asks all the right questions.
PPS: I do like experimental design pieces that challenge our sense of what communication should be - but is that what you want to do with your RPG?

[Jason Morningstar]

Thanks very much, everybody.  I definitely got the feedback I needed, and I appreciate it.

For a little more detail on the project, I have no interest in design for design's sake and want a functional product in the digest form factor.  This project (Grey Ranks) will really benefit from marginalia or some other mechanism for providing additional detail, historical context, and play suggestions.  We tried to do this in a two-column traditional layout but there is just not enough room.  One option I've used in the past and may again is just breaking this stuff out in text boxes interspersed in the larger document in the traditional portrait format.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

I have no interest in design for design's sake and want a functional product in the digest form factor.

Not to seem pushy, but functional how? That adjective is not detailed enough to be meaningful. Cookbook or art book? Frequent quick reference or relaxing perusal? Of course you don't have to answer me, per se, but the answer will all-but-dictate the right orientation for the product.

We tried to do this in a two-column traditional layout but there is just not enough room.  One option I've used in the past and may again is just breaking this stuff out in text boxes interspersed in the larger document in the traditional portrait format.

That's often how it's done. One other thing you could consider is using facing pages for marginalia: right-side (odd) pages would be the straight rules, no flavor, few examples; and the left-side (even), facing page would have your line-by-line notations and specifics and examples. Sort of unconventional in RPGs, but of proven utility in annotated text books of classic fiction.

And in closing, I'd like to emphasize something that amicitia touched up, because it is probably the only hard, objective truth that impinges upon this rather subjective decision: scan line length. The paperback novel is the size that it is because someone, somewhere determined that line length to be the most comfortable to read, mainly because the eyes do not have to move much. When your eyes have to move more than about 5" to read a line, then have a tendency to "jump" and lose the line (or lose the line wrap, re-reading the same line or skipping one). If you actually have to turn your head, too, forget about it.

So no matter how you finally orient the book, pay due repsect to line length limits, be it with multi-column layout or with use of text boxes or with facing page tricks.

HTH;
David

[Jason Morningstar]

Not to seem pushy, but functional how?

I just meant that there is a body of knowledge on best practices, and I'm not interested in being experimental with my layout just to be too cool for school. 

In playing around it seemed like a 5x5" block of text was a nice size.  On a page 8.5" wide that leaves plenty of room for a second narrower column.  Thanks for your thoughts, Dave.

[Editor Drew]

Just FYI, there are scientific (or at least data driven) reasons that most publications are printed on portrait size paper...it has to do with studies that have been conducted on character count and information retention. I don't have the data information set for these experiments, but the short of it is that there is an asymptotic relationship between the two: the average reader retains less information the higher the character count in a given line is.  Has something to do with eye musculature fatigue over an extended period of reading time.  So, if you are printing with standard margins, in a typical textbook, you'll statistically be making it more difficult for the average reader to retain the information provided within. On a printed page, there are ways to get around this: you can go with a larger font size, print in two columns, or widen the margins on the page.  All of these factors will affect other aspects of a text including either bulking or reducing the page count and illustration sizing.  I'd suggest mocking up the costs involved in both the standard portrait layout and the landscape layout that you are thinking about.  I'd wager that you'll wind up paying more for the finished product landscape style book with all other production costs being equal.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

You're correct, Drew; you want about 65 characters per line, or about 10 words. More than 14 gets physically challenging to read.

What that means is that you have to move to more columns per page. Probably two. It's not a problem, though; it's a design decision.

The biggest issue in my mind is the destruction of the binding. With the greater leverage of the longer pages, coupled with the narrower binding edge, a perfect binding will disintegrate pretty quick.

This won't be a big deal when a POD publisher starts making sewn hollowback bindings (like Steve Jackson's GURPS 3rd ed. softbound main books). But while we're dealing with perfect bindings, we'll have this issue.