Different elements of book cover designs throughout history
Different elements of book cover designs throughout history
Blog Article
Though the author themselves might have completely nothing to do with the design of a book's front cover, they are a crucial part of it.
We like checking out books due to the fact that they are very beautiful things. This is true, but the nature of beauty that we might be discussing is definitely separate to what we might be talking about if we were talking about, say, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have had books we have decorated them with beautiful book cover designs that effort to mirror the charm of what is within. This goes back for as long as the codex itself has actually been around, with middle ages monks, those charged with the defense and reproduction of the rare texts that could still be found, ornamenting each hand written text with amazingly rich and stunning styles. In fact, such was the charm held within these books that a number of these creative book cover designs were sculpted into ivory or solid gold, studded with gems, and inlaid with rivers of rare-earth elements. Individuals like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can most likely value the manner in which the beauty of these book covers was developed to match the beauty within the book.
When you truly consider it, it is rather remarkable that a book's cover, no matter how stunning it is, is able to stand so eloquently for something that is practically the total antithesis of its art form-- writing in black and white. In fact, book covers have been designed to reflect the mood of a book and appeal to its intended audience ever since the dawn of large scale publishing in the Victorian Period. Artists were entrusted with finding what makes a good book cover for particular individuals, or simply put, marketing. People like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can probably appreciate the role of marketing in creating book covers.
When we purchase a book it ends up being something extremely personal to us. It can sometimes be strange seeing a book you enjoy with a different book cover, just since it is not your book. This personalisation, and indeed ownership, of books was at a completely various level at the dawning of the era of printing, with book covers being developed by the owners themselves, and what they thought would be the best books covers for the book. They would purchase the book itself from the printer wrapped in paper, then take it to a binder who would add the covers to the customer's specs. This typically meant being clad in leather and after that etched with the name of the book, and, generally, the name of the book's owner. People like the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books can most likely value the ownership that people come to feel in relation to their books.