Table of Contents: Creative Examples

A big thank you to Vitaly Friedman’s for is collection of TOC’s! “Table of contents is often considered to be one of the most unspectacular design elements ever invented. Because of its simple, usual form, table of contents is often not given the attention it may deserve — after all, it is just a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear. But why not use exactly that and surprise the reader of a booklet, brochure, annual report or a book with some beautiful and original table of contents? In fact, many creative approaches are possible. And this post attempts to prove exactly that. This post showcases creative, interesting and/or beautiful examples of the lowly table of contents. You may want to take a look at their related posts

The Canadian Hockey Atlas

Peterson
The inside cover of A Field Guide to the Birds (Peterson 1934).

Table of Contents

Table of contents

Table of progress

Flavors
“Flavors” Mason Williams. Doubleday &Company, 1970 (design: Mason Williams).

Indice

Table of contents: Содержание

Annual report

Guide to grammatical errors
“Interesting table-of-contents page in a 1940s grammar guide, found in a thrift store in Roswell.”

Buying In by Rob Walker

indice de obras

Restart
Universe/Rizzoli, 2001. Design: Christian Küsters.

Designing Design by Kenya Hara

Glauber_Johnson 1999
Ray Johnson: Correspondences, 1999. Barbara Glauber, Beverly Joel/Heavy Meta, designer.

Be somebody
Acknowledgements, front matter, and table of contents from Lester’s Be Somebody (2008, Effing Press).

Annual report for SB bank
Designed by Danil Kryvoruchko.

“Sense, Memory” Table of Contents
“Ink. I want to use symbols to describe each of the pages content. I think I did an adequate job. In order: Introduction, Sight, Sound, Touch, Taste, Smell. The epilogue was included after this was made, but I felt it could easily be a back cover.”

Stage door
All of the lettering except or Stage Door act one, is pen and ink.

La cuisine au fils des mois by, Suzanne LABOUREUR Table

Sonic Travel Guide
Illustrated section heads and selected pages from the Sonic Travel Guide book. Content pages are absent as they contain internal information about the organization. Designed by Jenkin Hammond.

The Telephone Book
“The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech” Avital Ronell University of Nebraska Press, 1989 (design: Richard Eckersley).