Terry,
Have you considered using thiner paper for the pages? Providing this does not create see through problems or problems with turning flimsier paper, that might give you your 50 gms.
David
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> On 28 Nov 2014, at 12:00 pm, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear Gunnar, Carlos and Verdian,
>
> I'm trying to use design to address a problem of anti-competitiveness of
> American commercial globalisation.
>
> The practical design problem is retypesetting a book (B5) to reduce its
> weight by 50gms (2oz). This requires losing 14-15 pages. It's a text book so
> the most obvious way is to go to two columns. While this is happening it
> seems useful to use best practice from research and evidence to add to
> conventional design to improve readability.
>
> And the problem of anti-competitiveness of American commercial
> globalisation? I knew you were going to ask.
>
> In this case, the problem is of losses for small specialist publishers
> outside America selling through Amazon at numbers too low to use a US
> distributor.
>
> When books from overseas are sold through Amazon.com to a customer in the
> US, Amazon allows publishers only $3.99 postage. Real postage cost from
> Australia for book over 500gms is $29.70. This makes specialist mid-cost
> text books from publishers overseas uncompetitive to sell in the US.
>
> However, the under 500 gms postage is $14.10, which, although the overseas
> publisher is losing $11.11 per book, makes sales possible. Hence the
> re-typesetting.
>
> Amazon could simply arrange that all postage is at cost from anywhere in the
> world. It could use the same web software for this that publishers use. In
> fact, Amazon does this for books sold outside the US. For books sold inside
> the US, however, Amazon chooses to have a fixed price for postage.
>
> This means American publishers benefit at the expense of overseas
> publishers.
>
> The resulting design outcome of Amazon's position is globally
> anti-competitive. It acts as a protectionist policy in favour of US
> specialist publishers and against similar overseas publishers.
>
> The above Amazon protectionism is also supported by the general US design
> of processes for anti-terrorism security that cost overseas publishers
> significantly in time and effort compared to publishers within the US.
>
> You could regard the above as examples of political design. In depth, the
> issue might make an interesting design case study. There are two reasons:
> the political global anti-competitive dimension;, and the idea of using
> design activity in one realm (in this case publishing) to respond to
> oppressive pressures brought to bear via design of processes in another
> realm (in this case book distribution and sales).
>
> From here, however, redesigning to reduce book weight is easier than
> changing American or Amazon globalisation policies!
>
> My interest is in whether there is formal research analysis and evidence
> offering particular design guidance over and above the conventions of
> typesetting design practices. I'd be particularly interested in research
> analyses relating to ratios (margins, gutters, font size, x-height, leading,
> inter-paragraph spacing etc) in double column layouts for maximising
> readability.
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
>
> ---
> Dr Terence Love
> PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
> Director,
> Love Services Pty Ltd
> PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
> Western Australia 6030
> Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
> Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
> [log in to unmask]
> --
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gunnar Swanson
> Sent: Thursday, 27 November 2014 11:35 PM
> To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
> research in Design
> Subject: Re: Request - resources on double column setting of books
>
> On Nov 27, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for good info on setting books in double column.
>>
>> I know many of the usual multi-column conventions (min 35-40
>> characters, column width in picas > point size etc)
>>
>> I'm having difficulty finding any good research on readability and the
>> like of double column setting for books (other than bibles) .
>
> Terry,
>
> What question do you have about two-column layouts in books that you hope
> someone has answered?
>
> I can't think of any specific references but I'm suspicious of typographic
> rules (as opposed to typographic rules of thumb) anyway. There are a lot of
> variables and they are interconnected enough that studying any single aspect
> is much more difficult than most researchers on type and reading seem to
> want to admit.
>
> The sort of material and reading affects page size. The sort of audience and
> assumed reading conditions affect type size. The choice of typeface affects
> type size and set width. The set width affects optimal column width. Optimal
> column width and page size affect the number of columns. . .
>
> Reader (and publisher) expectations affect choices. Books that tend to be
> larger and more complex (cookbooks, textbooks, etc.) commonly have multiple
> columns. Smaller books (novels, etc.) tend not to. The size of book is
> affected by the size of press sheets and presses, the budget, etc. but also
> by assumptions about how the book will be used. (Novels tend to be held
> fairly closely, cookbooks tend to be looked at from a distance when
> preparing food, travel guides need to be carried around, etc.) A reader of a
> novel might find a two column layout to be odd this disconcerting but I
> suspect that would wear off after a couple of pages of reading.
>
> Even the nature of the the writing affects choices. Shorter sentences and
> quicker reading seem to work well with shorter measures. The narrow columns
> of a newspaper would be distracting for writing that has longer sentences.
> Longer words would also mean that narrower columns would be difficult to
> justify. In the case of flush left settings, narrower columns combined with
> longer words make distractingly irregular rags. (Choices about hyphenation
> also affect such decisions.)
>
> That adds up to many books having a wider column than is optimal for the
> type size. The standard fix for that is additional leading since the
> discomfort of reading long line length is the chance of skipping or doubling
> lines; because the eye has to skip back a greater horizontal distance,
> adding a greater vertical element makes getting lost less likely. (I don't
> know that I've seen research confirming that and typographic wisdom is chock
> full of specious folklore but I'll stand by that one.) Since more leading
> means more pages for the same text, that solution often gets rejected along
> with the wider margins that would have given a smaller measure, visual
> relief, and a good place to grab the book.
>
> Even if you follow a bunch of rules, trying variations and testing them by
> having them read by representatives of the target audience under realistic
> conditions will be worthwhile. A lot of people have tried to systematize
> knowledge to avoid trial-and-error and subjectivity but, at least so far,
> they have failed.
>
> But now I am curious: What question do you have about two-column layouts in
> books that you hope someone has answered?
>
>
> Gunnar
>
> Gunnar Swanson
> East Carolina University
> graphic design program
>
> http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
> 1901 East 6th Street
> Greenville NC 27858
> USA
>
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>
>
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