A try at reading book covers and what they could be saying

A try at reading book covers and what they could be saying

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Although we might like to claim that it is not the fact, books are undoubtedly judged by their covers.

We enjoy checking out books since they are extremely stunning things. This is true, but the nature of beauty that we may be discussing is certainly different to what we might be discussing if we were talking about, for example, 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 effort to mirror the charm of what is within. This goes back for as long as the codex itself has been around, with medieval monks, those charged with the protection and procreation of the uncommon texts that could still be discovered, ornamenting each hand written text with astonishingly abundant and stunning designs. In fact, such was the appeal held within these books that many of these creative book cover designs were sculpted 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 most likely value 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 ends up being something really very personal to us. It can often be unusual seeing a book you love with another book cover, merely due to the fact that it is not your book. This personalisation, and certainly ownership, of books was at an entirely different level at the dawning of the age of printing, with book covers being designed by the owners themselves, and what they believed would be the best books covers for the text. They would purchase the book itself from the printer wrapped in paper, then bring it to a binder who would bring in the covers to the client's specs. This typically suggested being clad in leather and then etched 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 value the ownership that people come to feel in relation to their books.
When you really think of it, it is quite amazing that a book's cover, no matter how stunning it is, manages to stand so eloquently for something that is practically the complete antithesis of its art format-- writing in white and black. In fact, book covers have actually been designed to reflect the feeling of a book and attract its desired audience since the advent of big scale publishing in the Victorian Period. Artists were entrusted with finding what makes a good book cover for specific individuals, or to put it simply, marketing. Individuals like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can most likely value the role of marketing in creating book covers.