Tate Publishing Illustration Department Paints Mural for local school-

Tate Publishing's illustration department employees designed and painted a mural at Bishop John Carroll School in Oklahoma City. The mural shows the school mascot, an eagle, when entering the gym. The illustration department employees decided the mural fit within their talents. The design was created by Brandon Wood and Kurt Jones of Tate Publishing. The company donated materials and workers volunteered their time.

“The school was really happy to have us out to give the gym a much needed update. The illustrators did an amazing job,” said Brandon Wood, associate director of illustration.

Other Tate Publishing departments have volunteered in the community as well. The multimedia department read to Parkland Elementary students. Graphic designers visited Crossings Christian School and helped children create a tissue paper collage.

Tate Designer wins Award-

Cole Roberts, a Book cover and TMG album designer at Tate Publishing/TMG recently won an "Award of Excellence" from the College of Arts, Media and Design at the University of Central Oklahoma. This distinguished award is handed out to only 1 recipient each year, and we are proud of Cole for such an accomplishment!

Using your Book Trailer for promotion!

Since we first began offering book trailers to our Tate authors a couple of months back, one of the main questions I get is, "It looks great, but what do I do with it?" Book trailers are a relatively new way of promoting your book. The book industry is changing. The old school methods of attending trade shows is quickly going by the wayside. Our culture is quickly turning into one where exciting imagery and technology rules the day and makes the sale.

So where does one take his book trailer to be seen? For starters, I would recommend posting it to YouTube, which allows easy access for anyone to view and even leave a comment. If you have a Facebook or MySpace account, those are two other great social networking sites that have millions of subscribers. The accounts are simple to setup, and there are tons of great groups that you can join to help expand your networking. Make sure you place the direct link to your video page in all of your email signatures, and within the body of your email somehow.

Let's say you aren't so much into the online social networking. Is there hope for you? Yes! Every town should have a Chamber of Commerce meeting, where they allow residents to come and make presentations from time to time. This is a great place where you have an audience that is from your local area, will have a relationship with you, and be interested in finding out more about your book. The meeting room should have a setup that includes a projector, where you can play your book trailer (we can provide a DVD of your trailer for you to use), and then follow up with a short speech from yourself to connect even further with the other residents. Take a few books to sell, as well! In addition to the Chamber meetings, there are a ton of other meetings going on every day in every town. Rotary club, PTA, Optimist Club, etc.

Selling your book is your business, and it requires a lot of hard work. Mark Mingle recently wrote a great blog about this. Your book is your "product", and the book trailer is similar to its "commercial". Do a good job of selling your product to as many people as possible, and you will see results!

Multimedia department participates in Community Event

It's a super windy Thursday!

The multimedia crew recently went to a local elementary school to read children's books, and play the book trailers that went along with them. The kids had a great time, and they loved seeing Mark, our resident giant, read little kids story books to them! I wanted to pass along some photographs- thank you Janae for lending your camera again!

What is "whitespace", and how does it relate to Book Cover Design?

Happy March! It is warming up outside, and seems to be the perfect day to talk about what "whitespace" is. Kellie Southerland, our Conceptual Book Design Associate recently did a presentation on this topic in one of our Design meetings.

Whitespace, or commonly referred to as "negative space", is the open area in a design that helps guide your eye to the focal point. Whitespace is a visual weight, just like objects and text, and by using the whitespace effectively, it creates balance in the design. Just to clarify, it is not necessarily "white" in color.

Tate Publishing designers use this quite a bit in our design work, and I like to say that effective use of whitespace is the trademark of an experienced and gifted designer.

The book "In Lumine Tuo", by author Robert W. Bitler, designer Amber Gulilat has captured the essence of how whitespace can benefit a cover design. In both the initial and final design, your mind wants to "complete" the story of the hand reaching out to touch the light. This cover would not have held this same impact, if the hand had actually already been touching the light. Where would the drama in that be?

Initial design:














Final design:


















All this to say, Resist the urge to keep adding "things" to your book cover, just for the sake of wanting to fill space... more often then not, your book cover will lose its impact if there is not an adequate use of white space. In this day and age, we get enough competing visual stimuli, and your book's cover is not the place to add more.

It's Typography Tuesday at Tate Publishing!

Each publishing house has their own House Style, that determines how a books appearance will be constructed. Some house styles are better than others- I'm sure we have all seen books that do not quite "have it", and miss the design mark. Tate Publishing's house styles have been adapted from the timeless work of Robert Bringhurst, in The Elements of Typographic Style.

As a book enters the layout department, several items are considered to determine the typeface that will be used to construct the words on the page. These include: the word count (we want to make sure the typeface- pointsize and x-height- does not extend a book unnecessarily, therefore inflating the retail price), the genre (There are fonts that are better suited to a novel, than a technical book. Likewise, a different type treatment must be used on a young reader, as compared to a book on advanced Biblical Theology.). Additionally, typefaces must be considered if there are images in the book, and how the overall effect of imagery and type will mesh.

Just as the written word communicates to the reader, the manner it is presented also communicates. Our desire for each book that Tate Publishing crafts is that it communicate to the viewer that "this book is a timeless piece, to be treasured and revered". The irony to this, however, is that a book with with strong typesetting shouldn't stick out. The type should just mesh and blend with the words, so the reader can enjoy why they purchased the book in the first place- to read a great story.




For more insight into Robert Bringhurst- here is an interview for your enjoyment!

Tate Publishing Design Show at UCO

Last Friday our design staff went to UCO in Edmond, to participate in an event to help educate design and illustration students about "real life" after you graduate college. It was such a fun event- there was tasty treats, good conversation, and of course great eye candy from the design and illustration staff. My guys put on a great show! I've attached a few images...(and thanks to Janae Glass for bringing her camera!)