Razer Design

As I work on a book cover design for Typography, I wanted to share the way that I found best to create a file that includes the Back Cover, Spine, and Front Cover. Enjoy!

1. Create a new file.
2. Uncheck “Facing Pages”
3. Make the width of the document size equal to the back cover + spine size + front cover. For example if you want the two cover’s to be 5.3 inches each with a 0.6 inch spine, the total document width would be 5.3 + 5.3 + 0.6, or 11.2 inches.
4. Set your desired height.



5. Set columns to 2.
6. Column size should equal spine thickness (here, .6″).
7. Set margin width for top and bottom margins. I chose .25″ for the bottom and top to make room for logos, barcode, etc.
8. Set margin width for left and right margins. To create center line’s on the front and back cover, these should be one-half the cover size (ex. if you have a 5.3″ cover width, set margins to 2.65″).
9. Set bleed width as needed.

Your file now has guides for the spine, and covers. Also, if you chose, you now have center marks for both front and back covers.