Design of Books

 The Design of Books: An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers- Debbie Berne

The University of Chicago Press

Release Date: March 12, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Design is central to the appeal, messaging, and usefulness of books, but to most readers, it’s mysterious or even invisible. Through interiors as well as covers, designers provide structure and information that shape the meaning and experience of books. In The Design of Books , Debbie Berne shines a light on the conventions and processes of her profession, revealing both the aesthetic and market-driven decisions designers consider to make books readable and beautiful. In clear, unstuffy language, Berne reveals how books are put together, with discussions of production considerations, typography and fonts, page layouts, use of images and color, special issues for ebooks, and the very face of each the cover.  

The Design of Books speaks to readers and directly to books’ creators—authors, editors, and other publishing professionals—helping them to become more informed partners in the design of their projects. Berne lays out the practical steps at each stage of the design process, providing insight into who does what when and offering advice for authors on how to be effective advocates for their ideas while also letting go and trusting their manuscripts with teams of professionals. She includes guidance as well for self-publishing authors, including where to find a designer, what to expect from that relationship, and how to art direct your own book.
 
Throughout, Berne teaches how understanding the whats, hows, and whys of book design heightens our appreciation of these cherished objects and helps everyone involved in the process to create more functional, desirable, and wonderful books.

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Whether you're an author or just someone who loves books, at some point you've probably wondered about what goes into designing a book's cover. But how many of us think about the rest of the book? 

Somethings might seem obvious once you start thinking about them: cookbooks or picture books need extra work on the interior pages to make things look good. Otherwise, how hard can it be? There can't be that many decisions to make, right? 

Professional book designer Debbie Berne wrote The Design of Books to show readers, writers, editors, and anyone else interested in designing books what's involved in the process. She wanted to bridge the knowledge gap between her world and everyone else. And she does an amazing job. She shows the reader the myriad design decisions every book has to go through: both outside and inside. From colors and images to fonts and spacing, how the type of paper that gets chosen can effect the reading experience, how the number of pages automatically makes other choices happen. Little illustrations throughout the book teach us design jargon for page numbers, spaces, headers, footers, etc. in charming ways. Ebooks get their own chapter and I was amazed at the thought that has to go into things I would never have imagined– and how designers have to take into account things that aren't in their control! It turns out book designers are rather like my own profession, editors– when we're really good at our jobs, you don't notice our work at all.

One of the must-read chapters is the last chapter "The Design Process", where Berne walks us through the design process a manuscript takes from author to finsihed product in both the traditional and self/hybrid publishing worlds. If you're considering publishing a book, I can't stress how much you need to read this to get a feel for the decisions that get made, when they get made, why they get made, and when (or if) you as an author get to have a say in that process. And the sort of feedback that works best for the designer you're working with. It's the kind of education we all need, and probably most of us only find out we need it after we're completely lost and confused in the middle of publishing something.

Berne uses her own experiences and a sense of humor to make what could have been a very dry textbook something fun, readable, and memorable. The Design of Books is a must-read for those curious about how books are designed and those considering publishing a book themselves. Go into the process with a baseline knowledge of how your manuscript will become a book and how you can impact that design!

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