Proofs and f&g’s!
Kerry Martin—senior design editor over at Clarion—sent me all kinds of goodies from the print production of The Famous Nini!
Here are proofs and f&gs.
Proofs show all the spreads from a book. A spread is two pages side-by-side as they appear in the book, like Pages 14/15. The printer provides these so the art director may check them for color.
I don’t have one here to show you, but the actual press sheet is big enough to show 8 pages on each side, adding up to 16 pages, or a signature. Two press sheets equal 32 pages, the typical number for a picture book. When you see a press sheet, the pages appear not to belong together: Page 1 will be next to Page 16, Page 2 will be next to Page 15.
F&Gs—folded & gathered—are the press sheets that have been cut into 2-page pieces then scored and folded. These are gathered together in sequence (Pages 1 through 32) so you can see how they’ll read as a book. At this stage it suddenly makes sense that Page 1 and Page 16 should be next to each other.
F&Gs have not yet been stitched together or bound into a cover.
Kerry also generously sent me one of the few hardcover copies—Nini won’t be in stores til June. More info on book production here.
Very cool, John. Another fine teachable moment by John Manders. I knew all about press sheets, of course, but F&Gs was an unfamiliar term. I thought you were just ticked off about “G”s . 🙂