Science book upgrade

Our client is the epitome of the smart, enthusiastic, and zany science teacher most of us wished we'd had in middle school. (See a video of the author teaching a coiffed TV anchorman how to balance nails here.)

The author knew that his published book did not reflect his approach to teaching science at all—it completely lacked energy. So he came to us with a vision of a user-friendly, clean, and photo-driven redesign (think good looking cookbook) meant to appeal to moms who want to do these kitchen-table experiments with their kids.

A new trim size, a 4-color interior, and a focus on photography made the exact same material work in a whole new way.

Here are a couple of pages each from his original and my redesign.

Some title changes do require a redesign

Unlike the presentation book I wrote about last week (see it here), this title change required a redesign. As you can see below, the old arrows with the new title made no sense at all. (See the original comps here and here.)

I was quite happy with the original white cover, but I'm pleased with the new yellow version as well.

Titles change

As it goes with publishing, after I presented designs and the author picked a favorite, the book's title was changed. Luckily the original approach (see it here) was primarily typographic, so the title change did not require a complete redesign.

The main problem I faced with the new title was how to deal with the crashing letters—the capital S and M, and the lowercase g and a. I ended up 'interlocking' them, and interestingly this is now my favorite part of the design.

Before...

The client provided this design but wanted to see a more 'bestseller-looking' type treatment. Shopping for fonts was fun.

This is the original type treatment.