[elevation]

> Once you know what all the people in a top publishing company do, the difference between an amateur publication and a professional one becomes immediately apparent.

Any advise for developing this sense?

I will never work in a top publishing company but I have been able to approximate good design by first studying the fundamentals, then reproducing the layouts I see in popular media. I can make text into a beautiful book, and I see poor design choices in the corporate communication billion dollar companies.

But it feels like there’s a lot more I don’t know, and you never know what you don’t know, and it makes me wish I could absorb more from working under an expert.

[Exoristos]

There's no substitute for apprenticeship (by whatever name). Unfortunately, skills of this kind may be close to extinction. For someone like you just interested in getting better at layout design, I'd recommend something like 'The Elements of Typographic Style', by Bringhurst; this concentrates mostly on books, but much applies to other layouts. Of more general interest -- i.e., beyond layout design -- might be 'An Encyclopedia of the Book', by Glaister. There's a wealth of valuable design and print resources from the '60s - '90s if you can find them -- some libraries still have high-quality examples, but most have replaced them with much less-valuable contemporary resources. Look for book and magazine sales by university departments, businesses, etc.

[bombcar]

“A Few Notes on Book Design” is also worth a read.

https://texdoc.org/serve/memdesign/0

If you have a decent TeX distribution installed you have a copy for long flights.

[elevation]

Thank you! I have been absorbing Bringhurst methodically the past year.

I had not heard of Glaister, will be on the lookout.

Good point about library and corporate sales. My main supply of materials from the 60s has been from estate sales -- not for instructional materials, but for well composed period pieces. Older letterfaces and color palettes are so evocative; seeing the label of a 70 year old oil can with so much more personality than the products of today makes me want to bottle this style for my own future use. And it feels good to hold something back from the landfill.

[Exoristos]

Have to say I'm finding the story of your efforts so far uplifting. Keep up the good work, and good luck.

[Cassell]

The trouble with our age is that, despite the abundance of intermediate-level information, expert teachers in specific, and shrinking, professions are as hard as ever to access, if not more so.