‘A popular museum for ocular art’ is one of the descriptions of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital in this book, demonstrating that it has its eye on being more than just an ophthalmic institution. Here we can see how the hospital profiles itself as a client for photographers, artists and architects. In all of this, looking after the poorly sighted patient is the main priority, and this was also a priority for the book designer. The hospital building is all about light, clarity and colour, and the same goes for the book. One striking feature is the apparently random succession of different types of paper, a challenge to the reader’s sense of touch. There is also, of course, a page of Braille. Under the hard plastic of the dust jacket we find the sensuously soft Sense from the paper collection of Proost & Brandt. The photographs of the interior are never sharp, as if we are looking through the eyes of someone with poor eyesight. The typography of the texts is large and nicely legible.

The solution chosen for the bilingual text is idiosyncratic: the Dutch text reads in the usual direction, but the English translation runs from back to front. This means that the two versions of the same text meet in the middle of the book, but since the illustrations run through the entire book in no particular order the two languages have equal status.

Bronze medal, Best Book Design from all over the World, Leipzig 2007