Graphic Designer's Digital Printing & Prepress Handbook
by Constance Sidles
Rockport
List Price: $50.00

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Reviewed June 2005
By Daniel Fogg

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Prepress is a broad subject with lots of technical information that can be boring at times so it's a definite bonus when a book comes along that can elegantly describe the banal intricacies of halftone patterns and why they matter to you. This book has it all including sections covering fonts, printer types, digital bits, image resolution, paper types and weights, book bindings and paper folds.

Of particular note are the variety of examples images and graphics spread throughout the book to help illustrate the various technologies and processes of printing. The text itself is consistent in tone and quality although occasionally it switches from relatively basic topics like image resolution to more complex issues such as halftone versus stochastic screening. I would recommend this book as a semi-pro level book and not necessarily a "prepress for dummies" tutorial.

If I were to have one criticism for this book it's the layout and design of the pages. Oddly enough, for a book on graphic design and printing, many of the pages are not very well designed. Columns tend to fluctuate from section to section and information is split up somewhat incongruously across double-page spreads. The font is very small to read (double-line spacing helps some) and there are italic and bold variants used inconsistently throughout the text in an attempt to delineate various topics. I still highly recommend this book as a reference- just not as a front-to-back read.

Pros: Excellent coverage of technical subjects aided with very nice illustrations and photo references.
Cons: Page layout and organization is sometimes hard to read.

Final Verdict: Recommended buy.