Designers guide to setting up board book artwork
Help for book designers.Video guide for understanding self covering childrens board book layout and printing terms.
It can be a little confusing so here’s your definitive guide!
This example book has:
COVER
- FRONT COVER: 1pp (printed pages)
- BACK COVER: 1pp (printed pages)
INTERIOR
- SPREADS: 11 – where there are 2 printed pages displayed per opening
- LEAVES: 10 – the physical pages that are turnable (excluding the cover pages) – think about a two sided tree leaf.
- PRINTED PAGES (internal ones): 22 – includes the inside of front cover and the inside of the back cover (2pp) plus the 10 leaves (printed both sides ) 10×2 = 20pp Total pp are 2 (cover pages) + 20 (internal pages) = 22 printed pages
A mathematical explanation…
If you are good with numbers, this is another way to explain board books. Below is how you can calculate.
COVER: Every board book has a cover composed of 2 pp (printed pages ) one front and one back
INTERIOR: A board book of 11 spreads, 10 leaves = 22pp. This can be calculated using the following formulae:
- CONVERT LEAVES to PRINTED PAGES
(x leaves x 2) + 2 = printed pages In our example: 10 leaves = (10 x 2) + 2. This translates to 10 leaves = 22 printed pages.
- CONVERT SPREADS to PRINTED PAGES
x spreads x 2 = printed pages In our example: 11 spreads x 2 This translates to 11 spreads = 22 printed pages.
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Do you need help setting your book artwork up for print?
Does book printing seem too complicated?
Are you
- an author who has asked a graphic designer to produce artwork for a book and they don't seem to know how to do it; or
- a graphic designer who has been asked by an author to arrange printing of a book
and it seems confusing? Help is at hand. Our trusted design and pre-press associates can make sure the book is expertly prepared for printing. This can include specifications like bleed, spine width, image resolution, spot colour, varnishes, foils, gutter width, print methods (digital or offset), paper choice and digital. Childrens board book set-up can be especially tricky.
Green Hill's service starts at just $175 - a small price to pay for piece of mind regarding you board book printing project. If it's a small issue, remediating your files for print will be free! See more details: Artwork triage
Green Hill's service starts at just $175 - a small price to pay for piece of mind regarding you board book printing project. If it's a small issue, remediating your files for print will be free!
Call the Green Hill help-line on
1300 810 131
Especially for book designers – instructions and resources
Guide to setting up artwork for a self-covering board book
Get the Indesign templates for a self-covering board book
Here we’ve provided a zip file with two Indesign templates – one for the cover and one for the interior.
You can use these to prepare artwork for your print project.
When using the templates, you’ll need to resize them so they are suitable for your design.
We recommend a 3mm bleed of artwork.