With all apologies to Smashing Magazine …

Smashing Magazine has posted the results of a survey they took, “35 Designers x 5 Questions”, that I found almost as helpful a piece to use as a starting point for brainstorming as any I have ever read. The one hitch is that it’s for web designers—although maybe not. When I find myself in a funk and don’t know where to start, it really makes no difference to me what creative endeavor I read about.

Nevertheless, I thought five such questions aimed specifically at book designers—and it would be helpful if respondents mentioned whether they were aspiring or actually have books they designed in print—might make for a goldmine of ideas for when any of us is stuck in a creative rut. As it happens, I stopped at four.

So, again, with all due apologies to  Smashing Magazine, here are my five—uh, four—(sometimes multi-part) questions for book designers, adapted from their own five for web designers:

   1. Name the first aspect of designing a book that you give priority to once you accept a project and sit down to start.

   2. Has InDesign proven to be the Quark killer for you; and, if so, what was the feature that did it; or do your clients determine which software you use?

   3. What”s the first font comes to mind for body text each time you begin a book design project; and do you usually stick with that choice or say something like, “Yes, I really like that font, but it”s time to work with something else”?

   4. Name one design-related book you highly recommend to book designers—please don”t suggest Tschichold’s The New Typography (Die neue Typographie) as I am just up to here with that book, as much of an earth-shaker as it was.

That”s all I have. Let’s see what you’ve got.