By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design.

Images from By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design. By Ned Drew, Paul Sternberger, Paul Spencer Sternberger. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. 192pp., illustrations, 10.9 x 8.5".

One of the things our family love doing is finding books at the library with book covers that are new to us. When the title is well-known or previously read, the joy is even greater when a copy with a different cover (often of an earlier "vintage") is found. The library is full with covers that are absolutely brilliant, but would probably not be seen as "sell-able" in a mainstream bookstore. The inspiration is endless!

I guess it's therefore not really a surprise that this is a title I'm going to be excited about.

Images from By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design. By Ned Drew, Paul Sternberger, Paul Spencer Sternberger. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. 192pp., illustrations, 10.9 x 8.5".

By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design "traces the story of the American book cover from its inception as a means of utilitarian protection for the book to its current status as an elaborately produced form of communication art" and it's (what I see as) the mid-period - where a book cover showed the "intertwined story of American graphic design and American literature" rather than being a mere protective layer or mainly a tool to sell, which it so often is today - that I so love.

Without actually laying my hand on a copy I can't say if it's fulfilling its' promises, but I think it's a seemingly thorough look at a subject that there's strangely little books on.

By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design "features the work of such legendary figures as Rockwell Kent, E. McKnight Kauffer, Paul Rand, Alvin Lustig, Rudy deHarak, and Roy Kuhlman along with more recent and contemporary innovators including Push Pin Studios, Chermayeff-Geismar, Karen Goldberg, Chip Kidd, and John Gall".