Art of Bookmaking

Once crafted with care, Sindhi books now suffer from poor layouts, bad typography, and errors. Can we revive the lost art of bookmaking?

—Image copyright © Nevalor Books.

Sindhi books once reflected a meticulous craft, each page carefully composed with precision and care. Today, however, many new publications suffer from poor layouts, flawed typography, and glaring proofreading errors, making reading an ordeal rather than a pleasure. What went wrong? And how can we restore the lost artistry of book design?

As I pull a newly published Sindhi book from the shelf and let its pages flutter open, I brace myself—not for the joy of reading, but for the disappointment that has become all too familiar. The text sprawls before me, riddled with errors that should have been caught in a first draft, let alone a final print. Words that sound alike but mean vastly different things are swapped without care, punctuation is scattered like an afterthought, and the very foundation of the book—its layout—feels as if it was thrown together in a hurry, as though the publisher was racing a deadline rather than crafting a literary work.

I turn a few more pages, hoping against hope that things will improve. They don’t. The headers and footers, meant to provide structure, instead exist in a state of confusion—sometimes too large and intrusive, other times so minuscule they seem embarrassed to be there at all. Some pages have no headers at all, as if the designer simply forgot. The paragraphs, too, are in rebellion. Some are squeezed so tightly together that they form a wall of text, forcing the reader to strain, while others float awkwardly apart, their spacing so exaggerated they look like they belong to a poetry collection rather than a prose book.

And then, of course, there’s the typography—the silent betrayer of so many books. Fonts that have no business appearing in long-form reading are scattered across these pages like misfit guests at a formal gathering. Some are so ornate they choke the text, making every sentence an effort to decipher. Others are dull, lifeless digital relics, with erratic kerning that causes letters to lean too close or drift too far apart. The justification is flawed, creating awkward rivers of white space between words. The text alignment shifts unpredictably. The margins—those crucial breathing spaces of a well-designed book—are either so narrow they squeeze the words into the gutter or so unnecessarily wide that they waste entire inches of paper.

This isn’t just bad design. It’s a quiet act of vandalism against the Sindhi language.

Because it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time when a book wasn’t just printed—it was built. The 1980s saw a golden age of Sindhi publishing, when names like Sindhi Adabi Board, New Fields Publication and Sughand Publishers reigned supreme, producing books that felt like they belonged in a library, not in a recycling bin. These were the days of true typesetting, when every letter was not just selected but physically placed. Each page was composed using individual metal type blocks, locked into a chase and inked with precision before being transferred onto paper with a letterpress printing machine. There were no digital shortcuts, no instant formatting fixes. Everything was deliberate. Proofreading was an obsession. If a single word was out of place, the entire composition was adjusted, because nothing less than perfection was acceptable.

And yet, paradoxically, as technology has made book production easier, the quality has plummeted. Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher, and digital printing presses have given today’s publishers an unprecedented level of control—if only they chose to use it wisely. Margins, kerning, justification, leading—every aspect of layout can be refined with a few clicks. But rather than elevating books, these tools are often wielded without care, resulting in hollow, soulless, error-riddled pages that insult both the writer and the reader.

A book is more than just words on paper—it is an experience. A well-structured book invites the reader in, guiding them effortlessly from one page to the next. It is invisible in its perfection—never distracting, never frustrating. The text should flow, the typography should breathe, the margins should balance. Headers and footers should serve their function without demanding attention. And proofreading should not be a rushed obligation but a sacred duty.

What we are witnessing today is not just a lapse in quality, but an abandonment of craftsmanship. It is a failure to respect the reader, the language, and the legacy of Sindhi publishing. And unless we reclaim that lost precision—unless we demand that books be made with the same care as they once were—we will continue to see our literature degraded by those who see publishing not as an art, but as a mere transaction.

Sindhi books deserve better. Readers deserve better. And, most importantly, the Sindhi language itself deserves better.