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Book Design Guides

Book Design 101: The secrets of paper in self-publishing

In every first-time author’s life there comes a moment when someone – or a self-publishing platform’s interface – asks a very important question: what kind of paper would you like to use for y

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Interior LayoutBook Design GuidesBlog

Book Design 101: How to prepare your manuscript to make your designer cry tears of joy

If you want to make your designer’s day, here’s a few simple rules on how you can prepare your manuscript before sending it off for formatting – four DO’s and three DON’Ts!

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ResourcesBook Design GuidesBlog

EPUB accessibility 101 – and what does it mean for authors

How to make sure that your EPUB meets the accessibility criteria? And what does accessiblity even mean?

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Interior LayoutBook Design GuidesBlog

6 formatting mistakes that make your book (layout) look self-published

The goal of correctly formatting a book is giving your reader a comfortable reading experience… but sometimes, you’re faced with a choice of “what will make the reader the least uncomfortable”

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DesignInterior LayoutUncategorizedBook Design GuidesBlog

5 ways to make your novel’s layout unique

A short guide to make your novel’s layout fun, unique, and eye-catching - with decorations, drop caps and small caps, and other methods.

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Book Design GuidesBlog

Book Design 101: File Formats You Should Know as an Author

Self-publishing means dealing with A LOT of different files – in all possible formats. Here’s short guide to all the textual and visual file formats that you might find useful as an author.

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Get in touch!

marta@martadec.eu

So I almost never did studies like this digitally. So I almost never did studies like this digitally. 

I always assumed that I will learn more drawing on paper – there’s no CTRL-Z (okay, erasers partially count 😆). There’s no Liquify tool to make quick changes. The more challenging it is, the more you learn, right?

Honestly, I feel like I learned way more this way than the way I usually draw 😅. 

Maybe it’s just a change of medium that made me look at these studies with fresher eyes. BUT - I had a lot of fun, and being able to make quick changes, flip and rotate the canvas and the reference image made the experience of painting these SO much less frustrating. I feel like that left me with more time to actually STUDY things, compare angles and curves, and notice details I would have otherwise missed. 

This was supposed to be a short project, but I think I’m going to keep doing these as warm ups – maybe I’ll get to a 100 by the end of the year! ;)

#digitalartwork #figurestudies #digitalillustration

anatomy ~ figure drawing ~ gesture sketches ~ drawing warm-ups ~ digital illustrator ~ illustration ~ drawing practice ~ digital art ~ ipad drawing ~ procreate ~ human anatomy
"The Brotherhood Rises" by Matthew Pope - a dark f "The Brotherhood Rises" by Matthew Pope - a dark fantasy novel with a young knight as the protagnist. ⚔️ 

Any illustration that allows me to paint armour immediately ends up as a favourite. 😎 

book illustration ~ book cover artwork ~ book illustrator ~ book designer ~ grimdark ~ fantasy illustration ~ cover design ~ self-publishing ~ indie author
DO these 5 things... to create a very cool and eye DO these 5 things... to create a very cool and eye-catching book cover😎 

Second part of the "5 minute typography (and composition!) lesson" series, focusing on book cover design. 

Includes: hierarchy, chaos, and communication. 😉 

#bookdesign #coverdesign #typography

book cover design ~ typography ~ composition ~ book design ~ book designer ~ book illustrator ~ book typesetting ~ graphic design