An attempt at reading book covers and what they could be saying

An attempt at reading book covers and what they could be saying

Blog Article

Despite the fact that we might like to pretend that it is not the fact, books are inevitably judged by their covers.

We enjoy reading books because they are extremely beautiful things. This is true, however the nature of beauty that we might be discussing is certainly different to what we might be speaking about if we were talking about, for example, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have actually had books we have embellished them with beautiful book cover designs that attempt to mirror the appeal of what is inside. This goes back for as long as the codex itself has actually been around, with medieval monks, those charged with the protection and duplication of the scarce texts that might still be discovered, ornamenting each hand composed text with amazingly abundant and gorgeous designs. In fact, such was the beauty held within these books that a number of these creative book cover designs were carved into ivory or solid gold, studded with gems, and inlaid with rivers of rare-earth elements. People like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can most likely appreciate the manner in which the beauty of these book covers was created to match the beauty within the book.
When we buy a book it becomes something really personal to us. It can in some cases be weird seeing a book you like with a different book cover, merely due to the fact that it is not your book. This personalisation, and undoubtedly ownership, of books was at an entirely different level at the dawn of the age of printing, with book covers being created 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 bring it to a binder who would add the covers to the client's requirements. This typically indicated being clad in leather and then inscribed with the name of the book, and, most of the time, 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 relation 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 reverse of its art format-- writing in black and white. In fact, book covers have been developed to show the feeling of a book and attract its desired audience since the dawn of big scale publishing in the Victorian Period. Artists were tasked with finding what makes a good book cover for certain people, or to put it simply, marketing. People like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can most likely appreciate the role of marketing in developing book covers.