Kamiloo
Artmand
Art Director · Book Design Engineer · Publishing & Branding Strategist
Twenty years inside the book — from the first pencil mark on a cover sketch to the last preflight report before the press runs. Cover to colophon, concept to campaign.
I don’t decorate books.
I engineer them.
A cover is a promise, a page is a contract, and a series is an institution. My work is to make all three hold — visually, structurally, and commercially — in Kurdish, Arabic script, and Latin alike.
Contents
Seven chapters. The craft is shown, not claimed.
The
Practitioner
Who is doing the work, what they have carried, and the standard they refuse to drop below.
Kamiloo Artmand
Born 1985 in Sanandaj, Kurdistan — Iran. Professional in publishing since the age of twenty.
I came into design through the printing house, not through a screen. From 2005 I worked inside publishers, cultural institutes, magazines and newspapers — the places where a design decision has a paper cost, a deadline, and a reader waiting on the other side. That is where I learned that beauty which cannot be produced is not design.
Since then my practice has widened across Iranian and Iraqi agencies and imprints: art direction, book and cover design, editorial systems, branding, and consulting for publishers and cultural organisations. Today I direct 360 Agency — a branding, design and media consultancy — and I founded Zanyari Pub, an imprint building encyclopaedias, knowledge titles, startup and leadership books.
I work in Kurdish (Sorani), Persian and English, and I typeset Arabic script to publishing standard. That combination — a designer who is also an editor’s peer, a typographer who is also a prepress operator, a director who is also a strategist — is what I bring to a publishing house.
Twenty years, one discipline
A career built inside publishing houses rather than beside them.
Publisher. Agency director. Consultant.
Each role sharpens the other two — which is why my design decisions survive contact with budgets, schedules and markets.
Zanyari Pub — Founder & Publisher
My own imprint. I commission, structure, design, produce and launch. Encyclopaedias, knowledge titles, startup and leadership books.
- 11 titles currently in preparation
- Series architecture and imprint identity
- Full P&L view of a book, not just its cover
360 Agency — Director
A branding, design and media consultancy. Strategy through to press-ready and post-launch, without handing the client between vendors.
- Brand and visual identity systems
- Editorial and campaign art direction
- Production supervision and preflight
Cultural & Publishing Consultant
Advising publishers, institutions and cultural bodies in the Kurdistan Region and Iran on catalogue, identity, media and market.
- Catalogue and list strategy
- Visual-identity governance
- Team building, mentorship and training
Where the depth actually is
An honest map. Self-assessed against professional publishing standards, not against beginners.
Recognition, range and reach
3rd place — National Press Graphics of Iran
Awarded in page layout: the category that judges rhythm, hierarchy and reading comfort rather than decoration.
Cross-border practice
Two decades across Iranian and Iraqi publishers, agencies and cultural institutions — familiar with both markets, both audiences, both production realities.
Trilingual publishing
Standard Kurdish Sorani, Persian and English. Arabic-script typesetting to publishing standard: shaping, kashida control, mixed-direction setting.
First-call consultant, Kurdistan Region
Positioned as a leading advisor for culture, art, publishing, media and branding — the person called before the project starts, not after it goes wrong.
The 360°
System
Publishing houses lose money in the seams between specialists. I am built to remove the seams.
One brief. One owner.
Eight domains that usually require eight people — held by one practitioner who speaks all eight languages fluently.
What can be handed to me
Any of these as a single engagement, or all of them as a continuous art-direction retainer.
Cover & jacket design
Trade, academic, reference and children’s. Full jacket geometry: front, spine, back, flaps, case, endpapers, foil and emboss specs.
Interior design & layout
Grid architecture, master pages, style hierarchies, running heads, folios, tables, plates, notes, index and appendices.
Series branding & imprint identity
Visual grammar for multi-volume sets: what stays fixed, what varies, and the rulebook that keeps volume 12 recognisable as volume 1.
Content engineering
Restructuring manuscripts into readable architecture: taxonomy, hierarchy, reading paths, sidebars, callouts, visual explanation.
Illustration, icons & infographics
Vector-first: symbol systems, iconography, diagrams, maps, charts and data visualisation drawn to the book’s own type system.
Prepress, preflight & print supervision
PDF/X mastering, ink limits, trapping, imposition guidance, paper and finishing advice, proof review, on-press attendance.
Digital editions & Amazon
EPUB 3 reflowable and fixed-layout, accessibility metadata, device QA, KDP-ready interiors and covers, digital-first PDFs.
Launch campaigns & book marketing
Reveal sequences, asset kits, social and print advertising, launch events, retail and fair collateral, motion cutdowns.
Mentorship & team direction
Building and training in-house design teams, writing standards, running critique, and raising output quality permanently.
Software mastery
Depth, not a list of installed applications.
The files you actually receive
Every engagement ends with a package your printer, your platform and your successor can all open.
| Print master | PDF/X-4:2010 (PDF/X-1a on request) · document bleed 3–5 mm · trim and registration marks · slug with job data · overprint verified · total ink coverage held to the press standard (typically 300%) · fonts fully embedded and subset. |
|---|---|
| Colour | ICC-managed throughout · working spaces declared · profiles supplied (ISO Coated v2, PSO Uncoated v3, GRACoL, or the printer’s own) · spot colours named and mapped · soft-proof PDFs for approval. |
| Cover / jacket | Single flat file with correct spine width calculated from paper bulk · flaps, hinges and turn-ins where relevant · foil, spot-UV, emboss and die-cut on separate named spot channels · mock-up visual for approval. |
| Digital PDF | PDF 1.7 · tagged for accessibility · logical reading order · bookmarks and internal links · interactive table of contents · sRGB · downsampled and optimised for screen and email distribution. |
| eBook | EPUB 3.2 reflowable and/or fixed-layout · EPUBCheck-clean · EPUB Accessibility 1.1 metadata · semantic markup · RTL support for Sorani and Arabic · Kindle-converted and device-tested. |
| Amazon / KDP | Interior PDF to KDP trim and margin rules · cover built on the KDP template with computed spine · metadata sheet, keywords and category guidance · A+ content assets. |
| Archive | Packaged native files · IDML fallback · font manifest with licence notes · linked-image folder · colour library · a written specification sheet so any designer can continue the series. |
| Brand assets | Logo suite in vector · clear-space and minimum-size rules · colour tokens (CMYK / RGB / HEX / Pantone) · type licences and fallbacks · a series rulebook in PDF. |
The non-negotiables
- No file leaves without a preflight report
- No font ships without a licence note
- No colour is approved on an uncalibrated screen
- No series is delivered without its rulebook
- Native files always belong to the client
Book
Engineering
The invisible discipline: the part of the craft a reader never notices and a publisher pays for twice if it is missing.
A book is a sequence, not a stack of pages
Every zone below has its own typographic rules, its own pagination logic and its own production risk. I design all of them — not only the pretty ones.
The page is built, not placed
Villard’s canon and the 1/9 construction give a text block in true proportion to the page — then a baseline grid holds every element to a shared rhythm across hundreds of spreads.
Reading comfort is measurable
Type size, x-height, leading, measure and colour of the page are not taste — they are settings that either fatigue a reader or carry them for three hundred pages.
Automation is a quality tool, not a shortcut
A 600-page reference book cannot be styled by hand. It has to be built so that one change propagates correctly to every instance.
Style architecture
Paragraph, character, object, table and cell styles named by function, not appearance. Based-on chains and next-style flows so text imports already formatted.
GREP & nested styles
Run-in heads, catchwords, numerals, units, cross-references and terminology auto-styled by pattern — consistent to the last page and instantly re-stylable.
Book files & synchronisation
Multi-document book files with synchronised styles, swatches and masters; continuous pagination; chapter numbering that survives reordering.
Generated apparatus
Automated contents, cross-references, running heads driven by text variables, index markers, and figure/table numbering that renumbers itself.
Data-driven pages
Data merge and scripted placement for catalogues, dictionaries, glossaries and encyclopaedia entries — hundreds of records, one template, zero drift.
Conditional & versioned text
Language variants, edition variants and territory variants held in one document with conditional text and layers, not five diverging files.
Preflight-as-you-go
Live preflight profiles running while designing: missing links, low-res images, overset text and out-of-gamut colour caught on the day they occur.
Handover discipline
Documented naming conventions, packaged assets, IDML fallbacks and a written spec so the file is maintainable by someone who is not me.
Arabic script, set properly
Most books in Sorani and Arabic are damaged in typesetting, not in writing. I treat the script as a typographic system with its own rules — not as Latin text flipped right to left.
Correct joining and shaping, controlled kashida rather than stretched glyphs, real Kurdish characters (ڕ ڵ ۆ ێ ە) with fonts that actually contain them, and vertical rhythm tuned to the deeper Arabic-script line — these are the difference between a book that reads and a book that merely exists.
I set mixed-direction text daily: Latin technical terms inside Sorani sentences, Western numerals inside RTL tables, bilingual spreads and facing-page translations, and captions in a second language without breaking the baseline grid.
- Standard Kurdish Sorani orthography, edited to publishing register
- Bidirectional composition: RTL body with LTR terms, formulas and citations
- Digit policy per project — Arabic-Indic (٠١٢) or Western (012), applied consistently
- Punctuation mirrored correctly; quotes, brackets and dashes localised
- Bilingual architecture: parallel columns, facing pages, or flipped-cover dual entry
- Font selection audited for full Kurdish glyph coverage and licence clearance
Geometry the printer never has to question
Bleed, trim, safety, marks and spine are arithmetic. Getting them wrong costs a reprint; getting them right costs ten minutes of care.
The preflight protocol
Every file passes the same checklist before it is called a master. This is what a printer receives from me.
| Structure | Correct page count and parity · page size and orientation consistent · bleed present on all four edges · no stray objects in the slug · single-page vs. spread output correct for the binding. |
|---|---|
| Colour | Colour space enforced (CMYK for press, sRGB for screen) · no unintended RGB or Lab · spot colours reduced to the agreed list and correctly named · total ink coverage within the press limit · rich black defined and applied only where intended. |
| Overprint & knockout | Overprint preview inspected page by page · white objects never set to overprint · black text overprinting where the press requires it · trapping delegated to RIP or applied explicitly. |
| Images | Effective resolution ≥ 300 ppi for halftones, ≥ 1200 ppi for bitmap line art · no upsampled placeholders · clipping paths and transparency flattening verified · linked, never embedded-and-forgotten. |
| Type | All fonts embedded and subset · no Type 3 or protected fonts · minimum hairline and reversed-type weights checked against the paper · no overset text anywhere in the document. |
| Transparency | Flattener preview reviewed · high-resolution preset · no white boxes at flattening boundaries · effects resolved rather than left to the RIP to guess. |
| Automated pass | Enfocus PitStop Pro preflight profile matched to the printer’s specification · Action Lists applied for repeatable corrections · a certified preflight report delivered with the file. |
| Human pass | Full print-out proof read in sequence · spreads checked at the fold · running heads and folios verified against contents · greyscale proof to test contrast · final sign-off sheet. |
What the printer gets
- A single PDF/X master
- A signed preflight report
- A spec sheet: stock, finishing, spine
- A contract proof reference
- A named contact who answers
One source. Many masters.
A title is not a print job with a digital afterthought. I build the source so print, eBook and screen editions all derive from it without a rebuild.
EPUB, accessibility and Amazon
Digital publishing is where most publishers still lose readers. It is a production discipline with its own standards, and I hold them.
| EPUB 3.2 reflowable | Semantic HTML5 with epub:type landmarks · reader-friendly CSS with graceful fallbacks · embedded and subset fonts with licence clearance · fluid images · footnote popups · EPUBCheck-clean output. |
|---|---|
| Fixed-layout EPUB | For illustrated, children’s, reference and design-led titles: page-mapped spreads, controlled typography, region-based magnification, and device-specific QA. |
| Right-to-left eBooks | Sorani, Arabic and Persian EPUBs with correct page-progression-direction, mirrored spreads, RTL navigation and bidi-safe mixed content — an area where most conversions fail. |
| Accessibility | EPUB Accessibility 1.1 and WCAG-aligned: real heading hierarchy, alt text written by a human, table headers, language tagging, reading order, and a published accessibility summary. |
| Metadata | ONIX-ready metadata sheet · ISBN per format · BISAC/thematic categorisation · keyword strategy · series and volume declaration · rights and territory notes. |
| Amazon KDP | Interior built to KDP trim and gutter rules · cover generated on the current KDP template with computed spine · look-inside optimisation · A+ content modules · print and Kindle editions kept visually consistent. |
| Device QA | Tested across e-ink readers, tablets, phones and desktop readers · both themes · multiple font sizes · verified that the book still reads when the reader overrides everything. |
Why it matters commercially
- Search visibility starts with metadata
- Accessible books reach institutional buyers
- A broken RTL eBook returns as a refund
- Fixed-layout protects illustrated titles
- One source keeps editions in sync
Beyond the file: a living reading app
An EPUB is a format. A smart digital edition is a product — a piece of software I design and specify end-to-end, not just a book exported to the web.
Web app edition
A browser-based reader built as a progressive web app: installable, offline-capable, and indexed by search — no store approval needed to publish or update it.
- Works on any device with a browser
- Instant updates, no app-store review
- Full-text search and deep linking
Mobile app edition
A dedicated iOS/Android reading experience for flagship titles and encyclopaedias: bookmarks, notes, adjustable typography, and offline libraries.
- Native shelf, library and sync
- Embedded audio, video and animation
- Push updates for living reference works
Desktop app edition
A focused desktop reader for large reference and encyclopaedia projects — built for classrooms, libraries and institutions running on fixed workstations.
- Runs fully offline on institutional hardware
- Handles multi-gigabyte illustrated volumes
- Single-installer deployment for schools
What makes it "smart"
Cross-referenced search, adaptive typography per reader, structured navigation by curriculum or taxonomy, and analytics on what readers actually use.
Cover
& Image
The cover is the only part of the book that has to work before anyone has read a word of it.
How a cover actually gets made
Not one idea defended — a method that reliably produces several strong, different, producible answers.
Six routes into a cover
An idea engine, not inspiration. Every title gets pushed through all six routes before anything is refined — which is why the presented options are different in kind, not different in colour.
Every genre has a voice — and a face
Character design for a book means deciding how it should sound before deciding how it should look. These are the voices I build toward.
Encyclopaedia & reference
Authority and navigability. Engraved or transitional serif with a neutral grotesque for apparatus, colour-coded volumes, an emblem that survives at 10 mm, and a spine designed to be read on a shelf for thirty years.
Leadership & business
Assertive and confident. Geometric or neo-grotesque sans, single decisive metaphor, high figure–ground contrast, restrained palette — nothing that looks uncertain.
Startup & innovation
Energetic and modular. Diagrammatic marks, systemic colour, motion-ready geometry, a cover that already contains its own social crop.
Literary fiction
Quiet and lasting. High-contrast serif, generous air, texture and material rather than illustration, one gesture held with total confidence.
Poetry
Air and asymmetry. The white space is the design. One gesture, exquisite paper, and typography set with the same care as the line breaks inside.
History & heritage
Archival and grounded. Documentary imagery, plate treatment, restrained foil rules, and a palette pulled from the period’s own materials.
Academic & technical
Rigorous and legible. Strict grid, taxonomic colour, numbered plates and figures, and a cover that signals precision rather than persuasion.
Children & young adult
Warm and character-led. Illustration with a distinct hand, high-saturation palette tested for print gain, and titling that a child can read across a room.
Colour is a decision, not a preference
I place a title on a field of temperature and gravity before choosing a single swatch — then check the choice against culture, category and press behaviour.
From screen to sheet, predictably
A colour decision is only worth making if it survives production. I work ICC-managed end to end: declared working spaces, calibrated display, soft proofing against the printer’s own profile, and a contract proof as the reference everyone signs.
Palettes are built as systems, not collections: a base tonal ramp, one signal colour used at low coverage, and rules for where each may appear. This portfolio itself is built on the ramp shown here — a single base hue, extended into a working scale.
- Working spaces declared and profiles supplied with every file
- Spot colours specified with CMYK and RGB equivalents for every channel
- Ink limits held to the press standard; rich black defined once and reused
- Duotone and tritone treatments for economical but distinctive plates
- Foil, spot-UV and emboss designed as separate named channels
- Digital palette tokens exported for web, social and eBook use
One grammar. Twelve volumes. Zero drift.
Series design is my strongest ground. The skill is deciding precisely what is fixed — the invariant that makes the shelf read as one institution — and what is free to change so each volume still has its own face.
Drawing is not decoration
Everything I place in a book is built, not borrowed: symbols on a grid, icons with one consistent logic, diagrams that explain rather than illustrate. I work vector-first end to end — every mark, chart and illustration exists as clean, editable objects, never a flattened raster standing in for one.
Icon systems
Drawn on a shared pixel and optical grid: one stroke weight, one corner logic, one terminal treatment. Tested at 14 px and at 140 mm.
- Keyline, solid and duotone variants
- Optical rather than mathematical balance
- Named, versioned and delivered as a library
Symbols & emblems
Marks for imprints, series and institutions — constructed geometrically, corrected optically, and reduced until nothing more can be removed.
- Constructed from the book’s own type
- Works in foil, blind-emboss and 1-colour
- Legible at spine width
Infographics & data
Charts, maps, timelines and process diagrams built to the book’s grid and type scale, so a figure never looks imported from elsewhere.
- Data checked before it is drawn
- Greyscale-safe encoding, not colour-only
- Captions and sources set as first-class type
Illustration
Editorial and narrative illustration in a controlled hand — vector, textured vector, or hybrid — always matched to the title’s voice.
Image editing & retouch
Restoration of archival material, compositing, colour matching across plate sets, duotone treatments and print-aware sharpening.
Asset systems
Every visual delivered in the crops the project will need: cover, spine, social square, story, banner, retail thumbnail, and print advertisement.
Cover work
Drop your finished covers into assets/img/ using the file names shown and this board fills automatically.
Content
& Strategy
Design that begins at the cover begins too late. The most valuable work happens while the content is still shapeless.
Turning a manuscript into an architecture
Before a single page is set, the content is audited, segmented and rebuilt as a navigable structure. This is where difficult books become readable ones.
How I direct a list, not just a title
The engagement model I use with publishers who want a whole catalogue lifted, not a single cover fixed.
A book launch is a designed sequence
Most titles are designed beautifully and launched carelessly. I build the campaign as part of the book, from the same system, with the same discipline.
Advice that reaches the balance sheet
What publishers actually hire me for beyond design hours.
List & catalogue strategy
Which categories to own, how to sequence a list, where a series is stronger than a standalone, and how to make a catalogue legible to booksellers.
Format & economics
Trim size, extent, paper, binding and finishing chosen against unit cost, shelf presence and shipping reality — design decisions with a price attached.
Standards & governance
Written house style, typographic standards, preflight profiles and approval gates, so quality does not depend on who happens to be free that week.
Capability building
Recruiting, briefing, mentoring and reviewing design staff and freelancers — raising the level of everyone who touches the list.
Bilingual publishing
Practical strategy for Kurdish–English and Kurdish–Arabic programmes: parallel editions, co-editions, translation workflow and dual-market covers.
Digital transition
Moving a print-only house to a print-plus-digital pipeline without doubling the work: one source, semantic structure, automated outputs.
Awards & positioning
Preparing titles and submissions for competitions and fairs — presentation, documentation and the narrative that makes work legible to a jury.
New imprint launch
From name and identity to format architecture, first list, production partners and launch — the full construction of a publishing brand.
Decisions at the scale of a sector, not a title
Beyond any single book: representing publishing at the tables where policy, rights and national programmes actually get decided.
International book fairs & delegations
Representing imprints and institutions at national and international book fairs — stand design, rights meetings, and delegation-level presence, not just a table of stock.
National publishing policy input
Advising institutions and ministries on catalogue direction, production standards and cultural-publishing strategy at a programme level, not a project level.
Cross-border rights & co-editions
Structuring co-edition and translation-rights arrangements between Kurdish, Iranian and international publishers so a title can travel without losing its design integrity.
Sector leadership & jury roles
Judging, mentoring panels and industry juries for design and publishing competitions — contributing to the standard the whole sector is measured against.
A unified visual identity for Kurdistan Region’s curriculum
A flagship initiative I am currently designing: one coherent design system spanning Grade 1 through Grade 12, so a student’s textbooks read as a single national body of work from the first year of school to the last.
Evidence
The imprint, the agency, and the work itself.
Zanyari Pub
A publishing house built to prove that Kurdish knowledge publishing can meet international production standards.
Zanyari Pub is my own imprint, founded to produce the kind of books I spent twenty years wishing existed in Kurdish: encyclopaedias, structured knowledge titles, and serious work on startups and leadership. Eleven titles are currently in preparation.
Running it means I do not only design books — I commission them, structure them, cost them, produce them and take them to market. When I advise a publisher, I am advising from inside the same chair they sit in.
- Encyclopaedias and multi-volume reference works
- Knowledge and general-interest non-fiction
- Startup, entrepreneurship and venture titles
- Leadership, management and organisational thinking
- Bilingual and translated editions for the Kurdish market
Encyclopaedia
Multi-volume, colour-coded, emblem-led. Designed as an institution rather than a set of books.
Knowledge & Leadership
Trade formats with a systemic cover grammar and a shared typographic voice across the list.
360 Agency
A branding, design and media consultancy — the structure through which I serve clients who need more than a designer.
360 Agency exists because clients kept asking for the same thing: one person who could hold strategy, art direction, production and launch together, and be accountable for the result rather than for a deliverable.
The agency works across publishing, cultural institutions, education and commercial brands in Iran and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq — with the same method regardless of sector: understand, structure, systematise, produce, transfer.
- Brand strategy and visual identity systems
- Editorial and publishing art direction
- Campaign design and media production
- Production supervision and print management
- Consultancy, training and team building
Accountable for outcome
One contract, one owner, one standard — from the first brief to the printed sheet and the launch asset.
Two markets, one studio
Fluent in the production, language and cultural expectations of both the Iranian and Iraqi–Kurdish markets.
Interiors, systems and identities
Spreads, grids, icon libraries and identity work. Replace the slots with the strongest eight pieces you have.
At the desk, at the press
Twenty years of process: sketches, proofs, press checks, teaching, and the studio itself.
A multi-volume encyclopaedia
⟨Project name⟩ · Zanyari Pub · reference programme
The problem. A reference programme has to look like an institution from volume one, while volumes two to twelve are still unwritten. Any design that depends on knowing all the content fails immediately.
The insight. Authority comes from invariance. Fix the format, the grid, the titling cut, the foil rule and the emblem lockup; leave only a signature mark and a tonal step free to vary. The shelf then reads as one body of work while each spine remains findable.
The system. A modular field for entries, plates and tables; a named style architecture with GREP-driven terminology; automated cross-references and index markers; a colour-coded volume scheme that survives greyscale.
The result. New volumes can be produced by any trained designer against a written rulebook, at a fraction of the first volume’s hours, with no loss of quality.
A leadership list, rebuilt
⟨Client / imprint⟩ · trade non-fiction · catalogue art direction
The problem. A list of strong titles that looked like eight unrelated books. Booksellers could not recognise the imprint, and each new cover restarted the design argument from zero.
The insight. The list did not need a stronger cover; it needed a grammar. One typographic voice, one image treatment, one compositional logic — with enough freedom inside it that no author feels flattened.
The system. A cover architecture with fixed titling zones and a variable image field; a duotone treatment that unifies photography from any source; a spine system designed to be read as a run; templates and a written rulebook for external designers.
The result. Cover production time reduced substantially per title, approval rounds cut, and — most importantly — a shelf that finally looks like a publisher rather than a folder of files.
Working
Together
How a remote senior designer becomes an internal one — in practice, not in principle.
Distance is a logistics problem, and it is solved
I have worked across the Iran–Iraq border for over a decade. Here is exactly how the collaboration runs.
| Time zone | I work from Iran (UTC+3:30); the Kurdistan Region and Iraq are UTC+3 — a 30-minute difference. Our working days overlap almost completely, so there is no asynchronous lag, no overnight waiting, and no scheduling friction. |
|---|---|
| Availability | Full-time equivalent availability on retainer, or defined project blocks. Daily presence in your channel during your working hours, and a guaranteed response window agreed in advance. |
| Communication | Whatever your team already uses — Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Google Meet, Zoom. Weekly art-direction review, milestone gates, and written decisions after every call so nothing depends on memory. |
| Project management | Trello, Notion, Asana or your own system. Every title tracked by stage: brief · concept · design · composition · preflight · master · launch. You always know where a book is. |
| File exchange | Shared cloud workspace (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Creative Cloud Libraries) with a fixed folder architecture, naming convention and version discipline. Large masters via managed transfer with checksums. |
| Review & approval | Annotated PDF proofs, shared review links with comments, and colour-managed soft proofs. Physical proofs shipped to your office and reviewed together on a call when colour is critical. |
| Production liaison | I speak directly with your printer, in their language and their file terms — preflight profiles, ink limits, imposition and finishing — so your production manager gains a colleague rather than another approval step. |
| On-site | Available to travel for launch weeks, press checks, fairs and workshops when a project genuinely needs a body in the room. Everything else is genuinely better done remotely. |
| Continuity | All native files, libraries, templates and documentation live in your workspace from day one. If I disappear tomorrow, your team can keep publishing — that is the test of a professional handover. |
Practical advantages
- Only 30 minutes of time difference
- Cultural and linguistic fluency in both markets
- No agency overhead on top of the work
- One accountable person, not a rotating team
- Senior-level output at freelance flexibility
If you also need someone to raise the team
I do not only produce work. I have spent years making other designers better, and I can carry that responsibility for you.
Team direction
Setting briefs, assigning work by strength, running critique that is rigorous without being cruel, and holding a standard that survives deadline pressure.
- Written creative briefs
- Structured critique sessions
- Quality gates before delivery
Mentorship
One-to-one development for junior and mid designers: typography, grid discipline, production literacy, and how to argue for a design decision.
- Individual development plans
- Portfolio and craft review
- Production shadowing
Standards & training
House style manual, typographic standards, preflight profiles, template libraries — plus the workshops that make the team actually use them.
- Written house standards
- InDesign automation training
- Prepress and preflight workshops
Hiring & assessment
Reviewing portfolios, designing practical tests, and interviewing candidates so you hire the designer you actually need.
Process design
Rebuilding the path from manuscript to master so work stops being rescued at the last stage and starts being right at the first.
Capability measurement
Clear, visible measures of design quality and production reliability, so improvement is demonstrable rather than claimed.
I grew up in a house where books were the furniture. Before I could set type I knew the smell of a fresh signature, the weight of a good paper, and the particular silence of someone reading. I did not choose this work — I was raised inside it, and then I spent twenty years learning to deserve it.
A book is the only object I know that holds a stranger’s mind and hands it to you intact, decades later. Designing one is not decoration — it is custody.
A cover is a promise. A page is a contract. A series is an institution. My whole discipline is making sure that none of the three is broken by the time a reader gets there.
Everything in this portfolio — the grids, the preflight profiles, the colour fields, the rulebooks — exists to keep those three promises.
Why I want to work with you
You are looking for a senior designer who can carry book covers and their content. I want to make the case that you are actually looking for something slightly larger, and that I already am it.
For twenty years I have worked at every point of the chain — inside publishers, magazines and cultural institutes, with Iranian and Iraqi agencies, and now as the founder of my own imprint and the director of my own consultancy. I have set a 600-page reference book and I have stood next to the press while it printed. I have designed a cover and then written the campaign that sold it. That range is not a list of hobbies; it is the reason my design decisions hold up under production, budget and market pressure.
What I would bring you is not more hours. It is fewer failures: fewer covers that die at thumbnail size, fewer files rejected by the printer, fewer series that drift apart by the fourth volume, fewer eBooks returned because the Sorani text renders backwards. I remove the seams between specialists, because I have worked in every one of those roles.
I would also bring the language and the culture. Standard Kurdish Sorani, Persian and English, and Arabic-script typesetting done properly rather than approximately. Your readers will not have to forgive the typography.
Remote is not a compromise here. There is a thirty-minute time difference between us. Our working days overlap almost entirely, I already work across this border, and I hand over files, templates and documentation that live in your workspace rather than mine. If you need me in the room for a press check, a launch or a workshop, I will be in the room.
And if what you need is not only a pair of hands but someone to lift the whole design function — to build standards, train the team and direct external designers — that is the work I most want to do. I would be glad to talk it through properly with you.
What you get in the first 30 days
- A full audit of your current covers, interiors and production files
- A written visual strategy for the list, not opinions on one cover
- Two titles taken end-to-end as proof, through to preflight
- A preflight profile agreed with your printer
- A template and style library your team can use immediately
- A clear plan for the next twelve months of the catalogue
I’m ready
when you are
I would genuinely enjoy a proper professional conversation about your list — not a pitch. Bring your hardest title.
Availability
- Remote — full working-day overlap (30 min time difference)
- On-site in the Kurdistan Region for launches and press checks
- Freelance retainer, project engagement, or fractional art direction
- Working languages: Kurdish Sorani · English · Persian
- Portfolio, references and native files available on request
Kamiloo Artmand
Twenty years inside the book. Cover to colophon, concept to campaign. Kurdish Sorani · English · Persian.
- Cover, jacket and case design — full geometry
- Interior design, grids and master pages
- Series branding and imprint identity
- Genre-led typographic voice and character
- Concept routes: typographic, metaphor, symbol, photographic, illustrative, systemic
- Baseline and modular grid architecture
- Type scale, H&J and micro-typography
- GREP, nested styles, book files, automation
- Arabic-script and bidirectional setting (Sorani, Arabic, Persian)
- Icon systems, symbols, infographics, vector illustration
- PDF/X-4 print masters, ICC-managed
- Enfocus PitStop preflight profiles and certified reports
- Bleed, trim, safety, spine calculation, imposition
- EPUB 3.2 reflowable and fixed-layout, RTL-safe
- Amazon KDP interiors, covers, metadata and A+ content
- Content engineering: taxonomy, hierarchy, reading paths
- Catalogue and list strategy, format economics
- Launch campaigns and full asset kits
- Colour psychology and palette systems
- Team mentorship, standards and training