I really like the new scientific book design used by Wiley. You can find an example here. I would like to use this layout style for my thesis, so I was wondering whether there's something available (perhaps similar to tufte-book or classicthesis) implementing this design. If there isn't, any help to identify and code the used fonts, header styles, page numbering style etc. would be much appreciated. Thanks!
[Tex/LaTex] New Wiley LaTeX style
book-designfonts
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"Modern" is a somewhat loaded term. You probably want to distinguish between:
- what's functionally modern in the sense of the most technologically cutting edge or elegant ways to get TeX et famille to do your bidding. E.g., via LuaTeX, XeTeX, ConTeXt, LaTeX3, fontspec, microtype, etc.;
- and, contra what's technologically modern, what's stylistically modern (in the sense of leading edge ideas for thesis/book/document design).
You'll get lots of very good info about functional "edge of the envelope" possibilities just by typing some of the keywords mentioned in point 1 above (LuaTeX, etc.) into the searchbox at the top of this page, following links on and off this site, then asking more directed questions here as and when you'd like to learn more. You'll find that the quality of responses increases the sharper the questions you ask.
Another approach might be to search out those users with specialties you're interested in (Joseph Wright for LaTeX3, Aditya for ConTeXt, Harald and Ulrike for seemingly impossible solutions to raw TeX problems, frabjous, Lev Bishop and Andrew Stacey for academic writing, Stefan and Will for, gosh, everything ...) then "follow" the line of the questions they've answered by chasing them individually through their Users pages. This, I think, would be more fruitful than holding out for a consolidated "reference (book, free pdf, website) that would summarize the working of 'modern' latex for scientific works".
As for what's stylistically modern package-wise, you'll probably find ClassicThesis about as close to the edge as likely to be accepted in a science-oriented masters thesis (actually, probably closer to postmodern than modern). Otherwise, check out Tufte-Book for a raft of stylistically interesting ideas.
I would consider (La)TeX to be ideally suited for exactly the purpose you mention. It is definitely flexible in the sense that you can follow a very basic approach of typesetting simple elements (you mention paragraphs and figures), and tweaking the layout at a later stage (table of contents, margins, stock-size). The latter is typically obtained via the addition of packages in your document preamble that enriches the document's content.
Perhaps, as a start of why to choose (La)TeX above other alternatives, you could read the CTAN: What are TeX, LaTeX, and friends? entry. Listed there you'll see the "reasons most often cited for using TeX, [which may be] grouped into four areas: Output Quality, Superior Engineering, Freedom, and Popularity."
Even if your eventual output is void of mathematics, the output and layout (in my opinion as well as yours) is "legendary". Perhaps, just to start you off of seeing what is possible, consider reading up on the memoir documentclass by reading the documentation. Others will definitely suggest other styles and flavours, giving credit to the flexibility across many platforms. memoir also provides sufficient functionality to mould the page sizes and layout in order to "stick to certain strict [publishing] rules". However, other options also exist by means of the geometry package. Consider reading the package documentation - it provides a rich mean of configuring your paper stock, trimming margins, text block, headers, footers, etc.
From a very basic point of view, your document would have the following structure:
\documentclass{book}% or \documentclass{memoir}
%<preamble filled with packages and other goodies>
\begin{document}
%<your future lulu.com masterpiece>
\end{document}
Like anything, you'll have to get used to the way things work in (La)TeX, just like you originally did when you fiddled with typesetting in MS Word. But there is a multitude of resources out there to help (from this Q&A to the comp.text.tex forum, to the CTAN). Also consider, as a taste test of some future possibilities, viewing the TeX Showcase.
Best Answer
The text in the sample you linked is in FF Scala and the headings are in FF Scala Sans, which you could use with LuaTeX and fontspec.
These are both great typefaces, but unfortunately they have only a few basic mathematical symbols and lack a full Greek alphabet, so they might not be the best choice if you have a lot of maths in your thesis. Finding truly harmonious matches would be pretty hard, and the solution Wiley's cobbled together isn't great (notice, e.g., that "ϕ" in displayed and inline formulas has been borrowed from different typefaces).