Interior book design formatting insights

This article is part of my Design Diary series, which in companion content to my my How to Write and Self-Publish a travel guide book #3. In part one Choosing your fonts we looked at the process for choosing the body and heading font styles for my Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide, and in part two we’ll take a closer look at the process for choosing my page tab layout and design.

Here’s the different design decisions for creating your page tabs:

1. What font should you choose? (font family, font style, font size, and font color)
2. What tab shape should you choose? (color, style, and size)

My page parameters

To orient you to my page layout, let’s cover the available space I have for my page tabs, and the ideal positioning of them. The pink bar on the image below is positioned for two reasons.

• The pink section to the right of the page edge is the bleed mark, which means that any image or box has to extend up to or past this edge.
• The pink section within the page layout is the safe zone, which means that any text needs to be clear of this zone in order to be assured it will still print (given the leeway printers need when they’re trimming your book).

Page Tab Design – version one

I wanted a page tab design that stood out, so I used a different font than the rest of the book, and used a heavy looking weight. This initial design was added to blank pages, and I liked how it looked, but once I added my body text and heading, the page tag dominated each page and became a focal point. The important elements on each page are the headings and subheadings, and they should become the focal points. The page tab design needed to fade into the distance a little more, and become less dominant.

Page Tab Design – version two

As well as rethinking the font I used, I also looked at different variations for the tab shape, and below is a detailed summary of my thought process around each of the design decisions. Even though this page tab is a small element on each page, there are multiple decisions to make, and different directions the tab design could go in.

In order to reduce the impact of the tab shape and keep the size consistent no matter what text was being associated with it, I decided to move the text outside of the tab shape, and choose a consistently sized shape.

I replaced the font with the same font family as the body text, and experimented with a heavier and light font style, and different font colors.

• I preferred for the lighter design as it was the least distracting, which used a grey font color, and a light font style. But in my final design I opted to increase the darkness of the font color to tie into the outline of the chevron box.

Whereas the font on the right hand side of the page is angled down the page, I assessed whether I wanted the font on the left hand side of the page to angle up or down.

• I opted for the angle up version, because that seemed the most natural flow (left to right), based on a reader tilting the book clockwise to flick through the left hand tabs.

I liked the idea of a round tab design, but as the shape encroaches on the trim area, the size of the circle could vary by page, depending on the trim variances during the printing process.

• These circle shape variance would be more evident than the variances of the boxy shape I was considering, so I decided to opt for the chevron shape.

To tie the shape to the same visibility as the font weight I’d chosen, I decided I needed to go with a lighter shape rather than a darker shape.

• Initially, I chose a light grey box with a slightly darker 1pt outline so that it was still visible but no longer a dominant force on the page. But in my final version I opted for a slightly darker outline.

I liked the idea of keeping the font contained with a specific area visually, so I added a bottom line below the text, using the same color and weight as the box outline.

• I went with this style for a while, but as I wanted the line to align with the first/last letter of the destination, it meant adjusting this line length for each new destination tab design I created, which was time consuming and I decided against using the line below the text.

Page Tab Design – version three

After looking at the pros and cons of each design option for the multiple different elements in this simple page element, I settled on the following final design layout and style of the page tab.

This final version stands out enough for readers to navigate the book, but doesn’t pull the eye away from the core content on each page.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this page tab design looks like in my travel guide proof version. The beauty of these page tabs is that because the shape has bleed, it will print to the edge of the page, and readers will be able to see where each new chapter starts and thumb their way through them to find the one they’re looking for.

I hope this page tab design has been helpful when it comes to designing your own page tab design for your travel guide or nonfiction book.

My progress so far

I spent another 5 hours designing my paperback, which included formatting and pasting another 40 pages into my iStudio Publisher document, formatting another 8 chapters in Scrivener ready to import them into iStudio, and redesigning the page tabs to the final version shown above.

Lessons I learnt from this step

Additional Resources

Take a look at this Rick Steves video where he compares the content of two different travel guide series. He flips through both versions and you can clearly see the page tab design he has used for each.

Read more articles in my How to Write a Travel Guide Series

I’m putting the finishing touches on my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Series, which details a step by step approach for writing and producing your own travel guide. It’s part of a four-part series aimed at helping travel bloggers achieve passive income based on their passions and existing content.

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