An attempt at reading book covers and what they are saying
An attempt at reading book covers and what they are saying
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Keep checking out to find a few various concepts relating to the method we see book covers set alongside their history.
We enjoy reading books due to the fact that they are really beautiful things. This is true, but the nature of beauty that we might be speaking about is definitely different to what we might be talking about if we were discussing, say, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have actually had books we have actually embellished them with beautiful book cover designs that attempt to mirror the charm of what is within. This dates back for as long as the codex itself has actually been around, with medieval monks, those charged with the protection and proliferation of the scarce texts that might still be discovered, ornamenting each hand composed text with astonishingly rich and lovely designs. In fact, such was the beauty held within these books that a lot of these creative book cover designs were carved into ivory or solid gold, studded with gems, and inlaid with rivers of precious metals. People like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can probably appreciate the manner in which the beauty of these book covers was developed to match the beauty within the book.
When you truly think about it, it is quite remarkable that a book's cover, no matter how stunning it is, is able to stand so eloquently for something that is almost the total antithesis of its art form-- writing in white and black. In fact, book covers have actually been developed to reflect the mood of a book and appeal to its desired audience ever since the start of large scale publishing in the Victorian Era. Artists were tasked with finding what makes a good book cover for particular individuals, or simply put, marketing. Individuals 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.
When we buy a book it ends up being something really personal to us. It can sometimes be strange seeing a book you enjoy with a different book cover, simply because it is not your book. This personalisation, and undoubtedly ownership, of books was at an entirely different level at the origin of the age 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 buy the book itself from the printer covered in paper, then take it to a binder who would add the covers to the customer's specifications. This usually suggested being dressed in leather and then inscribed with the name of the book, and, typically, 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 value the ownership that individuals come to feel in relation to their books.