Book page design brief

One of the most important things is to have the perfect page design for your book. It’s the invisible structure that supports your words.

This set of questions is to help you to brief me to create your page design. It asks you practical information and creative questions too, and it provides a starting point from which we can collaborate together.

Name

First Name

Last Name

What's the title and author name that should appear on the title page?

You may want to base this on the cover design. If I'm not working on the cover, then you'll need to ask your cover design to create the title page design in a PDF file.

What size is your book pages and how many words or pages do you anticipate for your book?

You may not have the number of pages yet so don't worry if you don't. I'll find this out when I set the pages. Your number of words would be helpful.

Where are you getting your book printed (if applicable)?

Or are you thinking of an ebook? I need to know before we kick off as this affects the set up of the document and the font choices.

Do you have a brand or series style I should include, and permission for me to use?

If another designer has created your brand or a cover, check you have copyright clearance with them or it should be on the contract.

Would you like me to cost in a concept design for the first chapter and/or prelims?

If so please email me the file, it doesn't have to be a final edited version but something close to it.

Who is your target readership?

The audience is one of the most important parts of a brief, for the preferences of different target groups vary widely. You can’t sell the book with a cover that applies to a completely different audience — and you can’t appeal to everyone. When it comes to defining the audience, you need to think about both demographic and psychographic (attitude and lifestyle) attributes. The demographic attributes are gender and age mostly. The psychographic is rather about their attitudes — their likes, dislikes, preferences, habits, generic lifestyle facts about them.

Do you have any preferences as the author?

You're welcome to send me ISBNs or links to images you like. Ideally try to make a collection of the styles within your genre that you like. Four to five is enough. Do say what you dislike too.

Where is your audience? Do you need to be mindful of cultural sensitivities?

I can help with this, please ask.

What's your budget? It's okay to be honest, this means I can give you best advice on approach to save us both time.

And lastly what stage are you at and are there any milestone dates I need to know about?

Are you still writing? Development edit? What's the publication date you'd like to aim towards?

Book cover design brief

One of the most important things is to have the perfect cover for your book. It’s the attention grabber, the split-second decider when the reader considers whether to give one more second of their precious time or to keep scrolling or browsing.

This set of questions is to help you to brief me to create your cover. It asks you practical information and creative questions too, and it provides a starting point from which we can collaborate together.

Name

First Name

Last Name

What's the title and author name that should appear on the cover?

What size is your print cover (and do you have the spine width yet?)

You may not have the spine width yet. If I'm designing the inside pages, I'll know this by third proofs when we've agreed on the page extent.

What size is the ebook cover (if required)?

Where are you getting your book printed (if applicable)?

Do you have a brand or series style I should include, and permission for me to use?

If another designer has created your brand or a cover, check you have copyright clearance with them or it should be on the contract.

Can you include a synopsis here or by email to me?

This is the main part of your brief when you give me a short description of your book. It is usually a synopsis or a short description. It’s could be similar to a book pitch that you might use with book agents. You need to be concise but thorough with it so they can understand your objectives and its potential market. You can also send me a sample chapter/s if you like.

Who is your target readership?

Do you have any preferences as the author?

You're welcome to send me ISBNs or links to images you like. Ideally try to make a collection of the styles within your genre that you like. Four to five is enough. Do say what you dislike too.

Any preferences on a illustration based cover, photo cover or typographical cover?

Where is your audience? Do you need to be mindful of cultural sensitivities?

I can help with this, please ask.

What's your budget? It's okay to be honest, this means I can give you best advice on approach to save us both time.

And lastly what stage are you at and are there any milestone dates I need to know about?

Are you still writing? Development edit? What's the publication date you'd like to aim towards?

Logo and branding questionnaire

To help me to help you, may I ask a few questions about your business? There are no wrong answers here, if you’re not sure I can make suggestions during the design process. Drop me an email or we can chat on Zoom if you have any questions.

Name

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

What package do you require from Hello Lovely?

There's a range of options but if you can't see what you want, then please get in touch, happy to be flexible to suit your needs.

What's your story?

We all have a story and makes us all unique. Why do you do what you do and what's your personal aim? If you struggle with this question then try 5 words that define what you do. Can you add more details to those five words?

What words describe your business or product?

Do you have a mission statement? This is a sentence or two that explains your company’s goals. It should also weave in some information about what your organisation is and why it exists.

Who are your competitors?

Understanding the marketing and competition helps. What are they good at (nope, that's not a nice question) and what do they do badly? What do you like about them? It'll help to form where your business sits.

Who are your target customers?

Visual communication is about delivering your business values to your ideal customers. Pause for a moment and think about your ideal client. What services do you think they want from you? What is their demographic (keeping in mind that different groups of people identity with different fonts, logos and colours)?

What is the benefit of your product/service? Does it save your customers money? Does it help them increase ROI? Think about how exactly you’re helping your target audience.

Do you want to use your existing brand colours or a particular range of colours?

Are there any colours that you do not want to use?

Does your logo or business have a tag line?

Is your tag line to appear with your logo on all of your branding?

Can you list five brands or logos you like and why?

Website design questionnaire

If we’ve been working on other areas such as branding, then this q&a is a little less thought-provoking and more practical! It’s based around the form of the website and the finer details and builds on our previous communications around what the website will represent - your business, product or service.

Remember

If I haven’t worked on your logo design, I’ll need logo files, branding guidelines if you have them, including colour and font details.
If the website is a re-design, you will need to check that your host allows multiple installs of WordPress so we can create a second fresh install of WordPress to create a development site (and keep your current site live).

Any questions, please drop me a line or feel free to say you don’t know. You may not have all the answers and I’m happy to chat further!

Name

First Name

Last Name

Can you list the pages you'd like on the website? Such as home page, about, work with me, landing page, blog, contact, testimonials... anything else?

How's your text and images coming along? The main bulk of the work will be completed when these are ready, but if you need help with them let me know as I have many contacts to support you or I can offer some suggestions when it's on the page..

Are there any other elements you'd like? Newsletter sign-up? Regular forms? Galleries? Inst and/or Twitter feed? If you're not sure yet that's okay, we can add in later!

Do you have social media accounts set up and would you like these on the site? If you need help with adding and connecting please note this below and we'll discuss options.

Is there any template or theme you would like me to use or are you happy for me to select for you?

Any essential plug-ins you need to retain (for clients who require a redesign)

Any website likes or dislikes? Use this space to list urls of any sites you love and a couple of words on why if you like.

Do you have a specific date by when the site needs to be live or any timeline in mind?