A few things book cover design points out about books themselves
A few things book cover design points out about books themselves
Blog Article
Books might be comprised of words in plain old white and black, however they are also the colour covers that they are adorned with.
We enjoy reading books because they are extremely gorgeous things. This holds true, but the nature of beauty that we might be speaking about is certainly separate to what we might be talking about if we were speaking about, say, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have had books we have actually embellished them with beautiful book cover designs that attempt to mirror the charm of what is inside. This goes back for as long as the codex itself has been around, with middle ages monks, those charged with the protection and replication of the uncommon texts that might still be found, ornamenting each hand composed text with remarkably rich and lovely designs. In fact, such was the appeal 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 precious metals. Individuals like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can probably value the way that the beauty of these book covers was developed to match the beauty within the book.
When we purchase a book it becomes something really personal to us. It can in some cases be strange seeing a book you like with a different book cover, just due to the fact that it is not your book. This personalisation, and indeed ownership, of books was at a totally different level at the dawning of the era of printing, with book covers being developed by the owners themselves, and what they believed would be the best books covers for the text. They would buy the book itself from the printer covered in paper, then take it to a binder who would bring in the covers to the customer's specifications. This normally meant being dressed in leather and after that engraved with the name of the book, and, generally, the name of the book's owner. Individuals like the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books can probably appreciate the ownership that individuals come to feel in regards to their books.
When you really consider it, it is rather amazing that a book's cover, no matter how stunning it is, is able to stand so eloquently for something that is almost the complete antithesis of its art form-- writing in white and black. In fact, book covers have actually been designed to reflect the ambiance of a book and interest its intended audience since the start of big scale publishing in the Victorian Era. Artists were charged with finding what makes a good book cover for particular people, or in other words, marketing. People like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can probably appreciate the role of marketing in developing book covers.