The proverb says “Rivers need a spring.” As a designer, to get a vision for where I’m headed, it sometimes helps to be reminded of where the craft originated.
To that end, I point you to an educational website called the Rare Book Room, where you will find high resolution digital images of over 400 of the world’s rarest books and manuscripts. (It was originally Octavo, a company founded by John Warnock, one of the founders of Adobe Systems that sold the book images on CD-ROMs.)
Today, versions of the imagery are free. The collection includes materials on everything from Art and Architecture to Reference and Religion by everyone from Aesop and Aristotle to Willughby and Wyclif.
A few examples…
At the top of the screen:
Jean Midolle, Album Historique et Religieux, 1837–1838…
Below: Wycliffite Manuscript, The New Testament, 1400–1450…
Ericson Photograph Collection, 1880–1925 (below)…
A printed broadside of the United States Bill of Rights, 1789 (below)…
Posted in AUGUST 2020 / Chuck Green is the principal of Logic Arts, a design and marketing firm, a contributor to numerous magazines and websites, and the author of books published by Random House, Peachpit Press, and Rockport Publishers. All rights reserved. Copyright 2007-2020 Chuck Green/Logic Arts Corporation. Contact.
Thoughts?