Winter 2025
How books work [EXTRACT]
The Design of Books
By Debbie Berne University of Chicago Press, $22.50 Reviewed by John D. Berry
This book is not so much a ‘how to’, more a ‘how it works’. Debbie Berne is an experienced book designer and a good explainer; she puts the former knowledge and the latter ability to work to show non-designers how books get designed. She has aimed this book not at other book designers but at editors, authors, self-publishers, agents and ‘other curious readers’. It is meant to help people in other parts of the book-publishing business become better informed and more effective participants in the process. The strength of Berne’s book is in her common-sense approach to her subject and her straightforward, colloquial writing style. She invites her readers along on an exploration of how books are made.
‘Editors who are conscious of page design, or who huddle with designers or art directors when thinking through books with many elements, will structure text in the editing phase in ways that result in sensible and elegant design solutions.’ That’s the kind of help that she aims to give to editors and writers, and consequently to the designers who will have to make sense of the manuscript.
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John D. Berry, editor and typographer, Seattle, US
Read the full version in Eye no. 107 vol. 27, 2025

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.