The Spring 2025 Print Shop team’s commitment to inclusive design ensured that An Illustrated History of Green Bay can be enjoyed by readers of all ages and abilities. 

Our priority for this project was to make the finished book as accessible as possible, since many copies of Preston Taylor’s An Illustrated History of Green Bay were to be donated to Syble Hopp School, one of two Individualized Education Program (IEP) schools in the state. We looked at different options for font, page color, page size, paper type, binding, and we even looked at page-turners to make the pages easier to turn. We eventually ended up with a final product that is square in shape, with paper that is glossy enough so the color on the page pops, but stiff enough to grip and easily turn.  

When looking for fonts, we wanted something that was easy to read for people with dyslexia. Production Lead Kim Rouse revised the client’s design to fit with our vision for accessibility, which included incorporating wide margins to account for folding, rewriting some of the location descriptions for consistency, and changing the font to be more accessible. After looking through many options, we chose OpenDyslexic (https://opendyslexic.org/) font, which was designed to be more accessible for people with dyslexia. It’s also a fun font that fit perfectly with the exuberant illustrations of Preston Taylor but was still professional enough for his first published book. 

Another goal was readability: we wanted the book to lay flat without the reader having to hold the pages down. This way it would be easy for wheelchair users and people with low mobility to use. We researched many techniques in order to accomplish this, and in the end settled on creasing each page. We started by using a special creasing machine to mark the cover. Then, we were able to use bone folders in order to fold the other pages. It took a lot of work to learn how to fold so that the pages were straight and we weren’t covering up any of the content. Thankfully, we had help from people outside of the production team. It ended up being a fun project and it was satisfying seeing the finished products at the end.  

When producing this book, we learned a lot about what we should take into consideration when making this accessible for everyone of all ages and abilities. From font choices, colors, margins, and the type of paper, while keeping in theme with Preston’s mission, we landed on a design that everyone can enjoy. With the variety of images of various sizes and orientations, the idea of making this a glossy coffee table book became highly desirable to show off the illustrations and pictures. At a time when we thought making 100 copies in a week was impossible, we managed to get double that (200 copies) finished in 5 days. A lot of thought was put into this book, and we’re proud of the final product that we put together as a team.