Book covers have actually always been a fundamental part of a book, right back to the time when they were drawn up by the hands of monks.
They state that a home without books is like a room without windows. For those used to being surrounded by beautiful book cover designs that is definitely accurate; books include a truly crucial, cosy feeling to a home. People have actually been embellishing their books ever since books were created, their covers, which were, and still are, developed to safeguard the delicate pages within, covered with art designed to reflect the work within. The very first book covers were decorated by monks in the middle ages, who would protect those especially valuable, unusual, handwritten works with elaborate designs made from carved ivory, typically studding them with jewels and precious metals. The care and richness shown to their decoration reveals simply what treasures books were during that period, as the CEO of the asset manager with a stake in Amazon will probably appreciate.
We are very fortunate to live in a time period when we can simply stroll into a bookshop and pick a book that piques our fancy from the shelves. Ways we select a book is very much up for debate, however judging a book by its cover can be a fundamental part of that, as it has actually likely been thoroughly developed to appeal to our tastes (if it is a book we will delight in of course). Standardized book covers date back to the Victorian period, when early online marketers and artists tried to determine what makes a good book cover, producing gorgeous fabric book covers for more refined literary works, and pulpy paperbacks for lower-brow works. A comparable system still operates today, as the founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones will most likely know.
There is something fantastic about creative book cover designs, but often the feel of a book is just as crucial. Books that have leather covers, for instance, constantly feel extremely unique, like something very old and really important. Leather book covers go back to the renaissance, when printing made books much less rare than throughout the middle ages when they had to be copied out by hand, however the ability to read and own books was still restricted to a select few from the upper classes. At the time customers did not buy their books whole, but collect them from the printers with a short-lived seam and covered in paper, before taking them to be bound by specialists. This would usually be in leather, engraved with something easy, such as the name of the book, the author, and the initials of the owner. They should have seemed like very essential, unique books indeed, as the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books can most likely envision.