book design

Design History

Ian Atherton took over responsibility for the design and layout of the Field Guide in May 2006. He produced a range of potential designs for both the species account pages and for the book cover. These were made available on this website in order for BBS members to have an opportunity to provide feedback. Ian also gave a presentation at the BBS conversazione meeting in Hatfield in Autumn 2006. Many thanks to all members who contributed comments and suggestions. A number of new features were incorporated in response to the feedback which will serve to enhance the usefulness of the book. Some of the main points raised both at the Hatfield conversazione and by email are summarized below.

Inside pages

The final design for the species accounts was based on "design 2" which was a clear favourite with 80% of members. The use of the shaded margins for the maps, drawings and subheadings was popular, as was the single large and clear photograph. One of the most popular features of this design was the annotation of the photographs and leaf drawings. This was thought by several people to be very important, especially for beginners. However, the use of bold text to emphasize parts of the text was not popular.

An idea that came from the membership that has been incorporated is to include order names at the top of the page in colour-coded tabs. As well as helping beginners to learn how taxa are grouped, this will also aid navigation. A list of relevant NVC categories may also be introduced for some species.

A few other minor alterations have been made to the original design. The text area is slightly wider, the green stripes have been replaced with neutral 4-colour grey bars to avoid clashes with the order tabs, the authors' and photographers' names will be cited in the margin, unless they request otherwise, and scale bar dimensions now sit directly on the scale bars, all making the pages cleaner.

Cover

Members' preferences for the cover were much less focussed on one design. Overall the 'modern' designs took roughly 60% of the votes over the more traditional designs. Even some of those who stated that they preferred the 'classic look' did comment that they wouldn't throw any of the more modern designs out. There was a strong sense that the more up-to-date approach for the cover was attractive to the members and that we need to move away from traditional designs so that the book has some impact.

The use of a mossy scene rather than individual species was well received and was felt to be more appealing to beginners who would be invited in by this, rather than put off by the look of 'difficult bryophytes' on the cover. Many members commented that black and/or white were not good colours for the cover of a field guide. In the end the most popular design overall was design 9, and it is a slightly modified version of this which is presented here. The image used on this cover is not necessarily the final image that will be used on the published book.

Once again, thank you to all members who took the time to contribute their thoughts on the designs. Many of your suggestions that did not relate directly to the design of the book have been noted and will be considered in due course.