The Reasons Why Creative Book Cover Designs Are A Two-thousand-year-old Tradition.

[Ruland Mcquiston]

From the Middle Ages to today, book covers have worked to protect, show, and celebrate the works within.

When the Renaissance led to the re-birth of intellectualism throughout Europe, books became much more commonplace than they had been for the past one and a half thousand years. This remained in big part to the development of the printing press in the fifteenth century, however likewise rising literary rates amongst the continent's greater classes. One might not buy a book with covers included, and would instead buy the book 'naked'. After being printed, the pages would have been arranged by hand, then provided a short-lived seam and wrapped in paper. After purchasing a book, the consumer would take it to a binding specialist who would bind it in as extravagant a book cover design as the customer might manage. This typically suggested leather etched with the consumer's initials, however wealthier clients may invest in gold and silver trimmings or exceptionally detailed styles.

It was not up until the Victorian age and the birth of the publishing market that books began to look more like those that the hedge fund that owns Waterstones and the firm with a majority stake in World of Books know today. With an explosion in literary rates and industrialisation, artists were employed for the first time to find out what makes a good book cover. They would embellish some gorgeous fabric book covers with designs that reflected the high art of the day, with the very first paperbacks (nicknamed Penny Dreadfuls for their cost and literary worth) embellished with campy cartoons that showed the narratives they held within. Whilst the intentions behind creating such covers were probably for more marketable issues, it continues a tradition in which the book is celebrated and reflected in its art work, a tradition that has lasted over two thousand years and will continue long into the future.

Do you evaluate a book by its cover? These days, it's nearly difficult to imagine purchasing a book from the investment firm with a large stake in Amazon for it to get here without a book cover. That's due to the fact that this expectation isn't simply limited to the twenty-first century, there has actually never ever really been a time when books lacked their creative companions. During the dark ages, when knowledge was a rare thing to discover, monks across Europe devoted their lives to the preservation and security of antiquity's books, fastidiously copying and writing them out by hand and decorating them with beautiful book cover designs that reflected their hallowed significance. With styles engraved into ivory inlaid with jewels, silver, and gold, the books were akin to treasures in a cultural, intellectual, and actual sense. This began the long tradition of art adorning books, maintained the Renaissance and Victorian eras right through to the world we know today.