Guide to Colonial Yangon

Client: Island Trader

Project: Print book and ebook design and typesetting for a new travel guide, including a bespoke cover and maps as well as a detailed index.

Date: December 2020

Cover design: The book tells the fascinating story of the people and businesses that made Rangoon one of the great cities of the British Empire through the buildings that are still around. The publisher wanted the cover to reflect the era and the location in the style of a vintage travel poster. The foreground image features an ocean liner, and the background is a stylised skyline of the city with recognisable silhouettes of the most significant buildings. I used no stock imagery, every single item on the cover is hand drawn. The typefaces enforce the vintage vibe and they are easy to read even at thumbnail size.

Interior design: The interior has a classic look. The typeface used was Garamond, which is an easy-to-read font of timeless elegance. It’s combined with Museo Sans Display for the contrasting headers. The text includes several text boxes to give a more in-depth look into why the buildings are significant. It also has ‘food boxes’ that describe café and restaurant recommendations near the sights. The text boxes are grey, while the food boxes are framed and marked with a fork and spoon icon. The last few pages of the book contain a bibliography and a thorough index.

Illustrations: Guidebooks are useless without detailed street maps, so we created at least one map per chapter. These bespoke maps are simple, clean and consistent, highlighting the relevant sights only.

Ebook conversion: I converted the book into digital files and thoroughly tested it on a variety of devices. The illustrations have metadata to make the book fully accessible.

Check out Guide to Colonial Yangon on the publisher’s website: https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Colonial-Yangon-British-Rangoon/dp/1916403328/