You Can Tell a Lot About These Books By Their Covers

Dorling Kindersley is a United Kingdom publisher that has long been known for valuing visuals as much as—or more than—words. Established in 1974, DK specializes in non-fiction titles with gorgeous graphics and has won many accolades, including the British Book Awards’ Publisher of the Year. Peter Luff is Dorling Kindersley’s Adult Division Art Director in charge of the lifestyle books, with such diverse subdivisions as cooking, gardening, sex, pregnancy and child care, health and fitness, and business. “I far prefer InDesign to QuarkXPress, which we used before,” Peter says. “I learned InDesign CS and still use that because the whole environment is more intuitive, together with the facility to seamlessly move between it and other adobe software—for example, almost instant output of PDFs—I find it far quicker to get ideas into shape and then circulate them when using InDesign.” “It’s difficult to quantify if InDesign has affected my designs,” he says. “But I do feel very comfortable in the environment, which seems far more an extension of my imagination than Quark ever did.”

In 2000, DK was purchased by Pearson, a colossal media group that encompasses several other familiar names in publishing, from Penguin to Peachpit Press. One of DK’s Pearson family members, so to speak, is Rough Guides, which produces travel and reference guides, phrase books, maps, and more.

Chlöe Roberts is the cover Designer at Rough Guides, a position that incorporates a mixture of picture research and design. “I do all my cover mock-ups and layouts in InDesign. When I first started doing the covers back in September 2004, we were using QuarkXPress, but we soon moved over to InDesign CS,” Chlöe remembers.

“InDesign was such an improvement on Quark, it was like a breath of fresh air,” Chlöe says. “To me,

Quark seemed clunky, slow, and frustrating, with insufficient shortcuts. It wasn’t very enjoyable to work with. InDesign has made my workflow a great deal quicker, it’s allowed me to export PDFs more efficiently, and the shortcuts have made my life a lot easier.”

“InDesign gives me a lot more scope with use of color,” adds Chlöe, “which is very important in my job. I often use InDesign’s eye-dropper tool and pick out a color from the photo. When this doesn’t get the best results, I play around with my own choice of colors from the CMYK spectrum. And I play with the transparency for the color bars on the front of the covers, so obtaining more choice with the blending is very useful.”

Intuitive, efficient, enjoyable, and full of color—it’s a list that describes InDesign and books from DK and Rough Guides.

Shelf Standouts: DK

Peter Luff says that “All of these book jackets reflect DK’s drive to create designs that are simple and bold with a very contemporary look. What you can’t see here is our use of finishes—many have matte laminate, foiling, and spot UV.” Peter created the jackets for Curry, Gourmet Grill, and Great British Menus. The other DK jackets are the work of designer Nicky Powling.

It’s A Rough Job, But Somebody’s Gotta Do it: Rough Guides

Chlöe Roberts designs all the Rough Guides book jackets. I asked her to tell me about a bit about her process. “I pick cover photos that are either striking, evocative of the region, or just beautiful to look at,” she says. “They’ve got to make someone say, ‘Wow, I want to go there.’ It’s good to turn heads away from the competitors, especially when it’s a popular destination. So it’s good to be a little quirky too.”