book-design
I love the style of the book on general relativity by Choquet-Bruhat. I think it's the same as Maggiore's book on qft and Simon's on solid state physics.
I was wondering if this book design template or class is publicly available or if it is "property" of oxford university press. In the latter case, is there something close to it that I could find?
Children's books are as unique as the children that read them. They are very individualistic and would be very difficult to fit them in a class. Each book deserves its own.
Here is a draft for one (very rough, but just to illustrate that it is not that hard to develop a special template),
and here is the code to play with:
\documentclass[11pt]{book}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\frenchspacing
\newfont{\HUGE}{cmr17 at 96pt}
\setlength{\textwidth}{3.0in}
\setlength{\textheight}{5.125in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0.0in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{-0.375in}
\setlength{\topmargin}{-0.375in}
\setlength{\headsep}{0.25in}
\setlength{\headheight}{0.125in}
\setlength{\footskip}{0.25in}
\setlength{\parindent}{0.5\parindent}
\ifpdf
\pdfpageheight 7.5in
\pdfpagewidth 4.625in
\else
%\setlength{\paperheight}{7.5in}
%\setlength{\paperwidth}{4.625in}
\addtolength{\oddsidemargin}{1.9375in}
\addtolength{\evensidemargin}{1.9375in}
\addtolength{\topmargin}{1.75in}
\fi
\newcommand{\hstroke}{\rule[0.5ex]{5.0em}{0.2ex}}
\begin{document}
\newpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{center}
\setlength{\unitlength}{1.0em}%
\begin{picture}(45,16)(0,0)
\put(-0.625,0){\framebox(6.2,7.25){\HUGE \textcolor{purple}{A}}}
\put(5.875,5.625){\parbox[t]{15em}{\Huge \noindent LITTLE GIFT\linebreak
\raggedright FOR LITTLE\linebreak
FEET\linebreak
}}
\end{picture}
\hspace*{-0.6em}\rule{1.08\textwidth}{0.3ex}\\
{\small \sc by}\\
{\small YIANNIS LAZARIDES}\\
{\footnotesize Author of ``Myths of TeX''}\\
\vspace*{18.5 ex}
\rule{\textwidth}{0.3ex}\\
{\small
DOHA\phantom{ZZZZZ,}\hfill\raisebox{0.5ex}{$\bullet$}\hfill THE CAMEL\linebreak
QATAR\hfill\raisebox{0.5ex}{$\bullet$}\hfill PRESS
}
\end{center}
\newpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
\vspace*{18ex}
\begin{center}
{\em Copyright, $\mit 2011$}\\
{\sc By the Little Girl \& Company}\\
\hstroke\\
{\em All rights reserved}\\
\vspace*{18ex}
{\sc A little story book}\\
{\sc for a little girl}\\
\vspace*{12ex}
Made in the wild.
\end{center}
\newpage
\frontmatter
\thispagestyle{empty}
\vspace*{20ex}
\begin{center}
{\scriptsize FOR}\\
{\large \bf Li, Mary and John}\\
\smallskip
{\footnotesize AND THE REST\\
OF THE WORLD'S\\
CHILDREN}
\end{center}
\newpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage
\mainmatter
\chapter*{Stories of Greece}
\Large
Once upon a time there were two girls. One of them lived in Greece and the other on lived on the land of the Moon \ldots
\pagebreak
\includegraphics[width=3.5in]{children-0}
\ldots and there was a time when everyone was dressed in white\ldots
\hskip-1in\includegraphics[width=1.43\textwidth]{children-01}
\ldots and the gods had wings and there were no demons \ldots
\par
\pagebreak
\hskip-.5in\includegraphics[width=1.43\textwidth]{children-03}
\bigskip
\ldots and on the other side of the world in the Land of the Moon Wi Li was sleeping \ldots
\end{document}
You can view the pdf at crocodoc.
... and I think the books should be small to fit on small laps and to be easy for little fingers to flip the pages...
Your questions is currently not really answerable. So this is more a "meta answer" regarding your key point:
The point is: I can get a designer, which will tell me what s/he wants, margins, fonts, frames, etc. The question is, (a) can an average LaTeX user like me do that and (b) which class to start with?
I am convinced, the answers are (a) "Yes, with some help from this community", and (b) "start with the class you are currently using".
Get that designer and her specifications. Break them down into smaller chunks, prepare a minimal working example of your book and than ask dedicated questions for each aspect to implement, such as:
and so on, each of it with the respective specifications of your designer. I am more than convinced that your questions will be answered.
Regarding the class: The KOMA book class is one of the most flexible and well-designed LaTeX classes, so it probably is a good starter anyway. The main point, however, is that you are already using it. Before investing time in trying other classes, just get that specifications clear and seek for help where necessary.
Best Answer
As someone who is connected to the Department of Physics at the relevant university, I can alas tell you that it isn't explicitly public domain. I too think it's great, and would love it to be more freely available. Entirely unofficially I know that it's the pet child of several academics, who have extended it quite thoroughly, and the press were quite surprised at how much it has evolved in the past few years. One can probably approximate something similar with memoir and margin notes, although the large paper formats used by the OUP leave significantly more room for figures than, e.g., A4.