{"id":2405,"date":"2011-11-04T09:15:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T13:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/julijasukys.com\/?p=2405"},"modified":"2011-11-04T15:06:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T19:06:55","slug":"a-call-for-beauty-in-e-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/julijasukys.com\/?p=2405","title":{"rendered":"A Call for Beauty in E-Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Illuminated<\/a><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, I finished editing the proofs of my new book\u00a0Epistolophilia<\/a><\/em>. It was a great feeling to see the text typeset, designed, and looking official (and beautiful). This, in combination with some back and forth about cover design a month or so ago has got me thinking about how books look. And whether or not, as e-books gain traction, we may be hearing the death knell of book design as a profession.<\/p>\n

My new e-reader is what sparked all this. Not long ago, for the first time ever, I paid good money for two electronic books. The transaction was fast, easy, and the product light-weight. But there was one real drawback for me: design.<\/p>\n

There is none.<\/p>\n

Instead of a carefully chosen font and luxurious white space around images to rest a reader’s eyes, the text pours into the page haphazardly. Large spaces gape between words without rhyme or reason, and endnotes (of which I am not an enemy, and yes, I realize this makes me a minority) are rendered basically unusable.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the electronic jumble of text bothers me less when I’m reading books from Project Gutenberg (like Middlemarch<\/em>). These are free, and no one is making any money off them (I don’t think…), so I don’t expect a paid designer to be in the mix.<\/p>\n

But electronic books that cost about as much as a paper copies? These too should come in contact with the hand of a designer before they reach my screen.<\/p>\n

A friend and I disagree on this point. He claims that all I have to do is play with the text on my e-reader: I can manipulate both font style and size myself!<\/p>\n

And he says this like it’s a good thing.<\/p>\n

But I don’t buy it.\u00a0It feels like a con. It feels like work that the publisher should have paid for. It feels like a designer out of a job. And it feels like disrespect for both reader and writer.<\/p>\n

And so, here’s my new call: a bit of beauty in the e-book business please!<\/p>\n

Thoughts?<\/p>\n

[Photo: Illuminated Manuscript Koran, The right side of a double-page illumination, Walters Art Museum MS. W.575, fol. 2b<\/a>, by\u00a0Walters Art Museum<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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