A house style is the collection of guidelines that a publisher uses to ensure consistency in style and formatting across all the books they produce. It covers elements such as typography, use of illustrations, paper stock and printing techniques.
A house style is the uniformity in appearance that a publishing company—or any organization with printed materials—maintains for all its publications. A well-defined house style ensures that an organization’s publications present a consistent image to the world.
A house style usually contains specifications for such items as typefaces, type sizes, margins, indents, Justification, hyphenation, and widows and orphans. A publisher’s marketing department may also have a say in the house style, to ensure that the company’s products have a consistent look and feel.
The purpose of having a house style is to create a recognizable and consistent brand for a publisher. It makes their books easily identifiable and helps to build trust with readers. Having a strong house style can also make the production process more efficient, as everyone involved knows exactly what is expected.
There are no hard and fast rules for what should be included in a house style, as it will vary depending on the publisher and the type of books they produce. However, there are some common elements that are often seen in book publishing house styles.
Typography
The typography section of a house style will specify which fonts to use for different parts of the book, such as the cover, headings, body text and captions. It will also detail things like font size, line spacing and character spacing. This ensures that all books from the publisher have a similar and consistent look.
Illustrations
If a publisher uses illustrations in their books, the house style will specify how they should be used. This might include