We offer a range of book and publication design and production services, from development of a design concept to layout and typesetting of your publication or book. We also offer photo and transparency scanning and basic photo-retouching, DTP artwork and barcode generation, file preflighting using standard PDF presets or your own in-house presets, and generate print-ready PDF files that are technically compliant and offer trouble-free printing.

Book cover design

People do judge a book by its cover, so professional cover design is essential, especially when selling through bookstores. We will create an eye-catching cover that helps your book stand out and communicates the content of your book.

Our cover design service includes:

• the search for, and purchase of, a suitable image from an online photo library or commissioning custom-made artwork from an illustrator
• at least three different design ideas to choose from
• the addition of cover text, back cover blurb, typographic styling, barcode, QR code (if required), about the author, and social media logos (if required)
• multiple proofs until you are happy with the final design
• the supply of a final print-ready PDF of the full colour with spine, trim marks and bleed
• the supply of front cover jpg file for ebook conversion, website and marketing purposes
• author support and recommendations

Book interior design and stylesheet setup

We design an interior look and layout for your book, and then set up the required templates and style-sheets for text formatting. This process includes deciding on fonts, heading styles, line and margin spacing, design elements, as well as setting up a text formatting stylesheet for typesetting to ensure consistent application of styles and elements throughout the book. This is an essential part of book production and gives a book its professional interior look and feel.

Typesetting and layout

Once we have set up the design template and stylesheets, your book is professionally typeset (formatted). During this process, we check for text orphans and widows, resample images and convert them to the correct colour space (e.g. greyscale or CMYK), scan photos and artwork if necessary, and ensure that the design guide is adhered to throughout. It is very easy to tell self-published books from those that aren’t simply by looking to see if the book has been professionally typeset or not.

We adhere to traditional publishing standards when typesetting and are happy to work to our clients’ own in-house design and typesetting specifications, where necessary, providing files that meet their own preflighting standards and print profiles.

Our typesetters also format manuscripts correctly for ebook conversion to ensure accurate and trouble-free viewing across a range of devices.

Major clients we have been service providers to:

DTP artwork

In-house we offer general DTP artwork services including logo and icons design, redrawing tables, graphs and pie charts, and creating more simple illustrations. Complex artwork, including illustrations and photography, is outsourced and project-managed by us should that be required.

Graphic design

Our book and publication designers have had extensive experience working for traditional publishing houses and magazine groups, locally and abroad. We have also done a lot of work for corporates and commercial businesses. Some of our work can be seen in our online portfolio on this site.

We offer DTP and design services for:

• Books and coffee table books
• Portfolio books
• Catalogues
• Magazines
• Newsletters
• Brochures and flyers
• Manual and reports
• Courseware manual
• Product instruction books and leaflets
• Education and academic books
• Websites and online content

ISBN / ISSN assignment and barcode generation

If we are acting as your production service provider, or if you are using our Quickfox Pro publishing option, we apply for an ISBN or ISSN on your behalf and generate a barcode for you. We also generate stand-alone barcodes for authors who have already obtained their ISBN or ISSN. In the case of ISSN (used for serial publications), we can generate barcodes with add-ons for each issue. Volume discounts are awarded.