图书品种年均10%的粗放式增速，导致图书生命周期缩短和单品种盈利减少；出版单位的转企改制，加剧竞争态势；5亿网民时代的读者多元化需求，不断分流传统读者群；2010年数字出版产业突破千亿元的飞速发展，给传统出版业强烈冲击……纸质图书的出路何在？笔者认为，在强调“内容为王”的前提下，图书的形态设计升级应该被推上研究的日程。本文主要通过梳理纸质图书形态的历史演变规律，在分析图书设计现状的基础上，结合具体实例，探讨图书外观和功能升级的思路及出版企业的应对之道。首先，应当明确纸质图书设计升级的必要性和紧迫性，即这一课题研究的重大意义。其次，从图书形态的外观设计和功能设计层面展开论述，笔者认为，当前图书的整体设计理念未被充分认知、创新设计理念欠缺、设计的商业性与审美性失衡、向传统学习的设计理念不足、个性需求和批量生产之间的矛盾为最大障碍。再次，从外观设计的六面体容器（封面、封底、书脊、切口）、内文版式（目录、正文文字、图片、空白、书眉和页码等）、印刷材料、印制工艺（绿色印刷、个性化印刷、数码印刷）和装订技术（PUR胶、覆膜技术等）角度提出了一些可以借鉴的思路，并结合具体实例对图书的学习、查阅、休闲等阅读功能设计进行了探讨。面对图书形态设计的升级，出版企业该如何应对？笔者试图通过从出版企业设计方面所面临的问题角度来寻找突破点，并提出尝试之道：加强责编的设计理论培训，使其成为“半个装帧家”；注重美编封面内文设计一体化，实现图书的整体设计；考虑部门之间定期交流，提升物化创意设计水平；增设单独的手工设计部门，实现个性化的创意设计；积极推动个性化印刷，寻求批量生产模式；鼓励网络设计方案多样化，满足读者的多元阅读要求；加强体验式营销宣传，助推图书设计升级。

An average of 10% vulgar growth rate, leads to the life cycle shortenings and single variety profit reduction. That publishing units turning enterprises increase the competition situation. The multiple demands of the 500 million Internet readers constantly shunt traditional audience. Rapid development of digital publishing industry breaking through one hundred billion Yuan in 2010, strongly affects the traditional publishing industry…What’s the way out of the paper book? The author thinks that, under the premise of "content is king", the design upgrades of the book should be on the research agenda. By analyzing the historical evolution form and the present situation of the paper book design, the author mainly discusses the appearance and function of the book and the measures made by publishing enterprises in the future based on some examples. Firstly, it shall define the necessity and the urgency of the design upgrades of the paper book. Secondly, it is discussed from the appearance and function design. The author thinks that many problems are as follows: the overall design concept is not fully understood, the innovative design concept is lacked seriously, the commercial and aesthetic designs are imbalanced, the traditional design concept is insufficient, and the contradiction between the individual needs and mass production is the biggest obstacle. And then, some views are put forward from the appearance design of hexahedron containers (the cover, backbone, incision), text format(contents, text, pictures, blank, the top margin and page numbers), printing materials, printing process(green printing, personalized printing and digital printing) and binding technology(PUR adhesive, laminating technology .etc. ), and the function of reading, learning, accessing and entertaining, in order to bring people's rich experience. How publishing enterprises to deal with it? The author tries to come up with the following ways: strengthen the design theory training of Managing Editors to be "half a designer"; pay attention to the designer ’s responsibility for the cover and text to realize the integrated design of books; consider regular exchanges between departments to promote creative design level; add separated manual design department to make creative design; actively promote personalized printing to seek for batch production modes; encourage diversified network designs to make demands for readers’ multiple requirements and strengthen the experienced marketing propaganda to thrust book design upgrades.