Work Strife - Post PrePress

Client

Pan Macmillan: Book, Work Strife Balance

Background

Post Pre-press Group has been providing typesetting services to publishers Pan Macmillan for more than 20 years, and asked us to design the internal layout and undertake the typesetting of Mia Freedman’s book, Work Strife Balance. Mia is a founder and co-director of Mamamia Media Company.

Requirement

The publisher required an internal design layout and typesetting for a 100,000-word manuscript, that incorporated a lot of different elements. Services required included:

Update editorial and author corrections.
Supply PDF page proofs at each stage
Provide final Print ready files and digital files

Challenges

Challenges included designing an internal layout that incorporated many different design elements, including quotes, break out text, illustrations, conversations, tweets, phone messages and more.

Once we finalised the design, which also included a range of typefaces, it was a challenge to ensure everything was styled correctly. Each element needed to be consistently styled, but each element had its own look.

Throughout the publishing process there were many editorial changes and corrections that impacted on the flow on effect of the book. This created its own challenges when creating the ebook. There was a lot of coding involved, and we all had to accept that the finished ebook did not look exactly like the printed book, due to the limitations of Mobi and ePub formats.

Solution

We just did it.

We took our time to work meticulously through the manuscript, ensuring each element was styled to suit the evolving design.

After suppling first pages, we worked closely with the publisher to take in all corrections, and make adjustments to the text and the design. At all stages we worked within tight timeframes to ensure the final print deadline was met. The extensive corrections and changes were proofread before supplying the next round of pages to the publisher.

We also spent time researching new ePub functionality and incorporating these into the digital files.

Outcome

The Publisher and the author have a book that visually tells a wonderful story. It is not the usual ‘text only’ memoir, but a book that stands out for its design and layout.