VU Special Collections - How to access and use: 2024 Current Exhibition at VU

The Victoria University Library Special Collections exhibition Book covers: Capturing people’s attention showcases a selection of interesting book covers from the collections. The selection is designed to provide insight into how and why book covers may capture the attention of the reader and encourage them to further explore the content of the book. 

The art of book covers uses a variety of ways to jump out at a potential reader, and the techniques used can vary by book subject or genre. For instance, horror book covers tend to shock, whereas children’s book covers prefer to delight, and leather-bound law tomes aim to impress (or intimidate!).

Illustration, typography, materials, composition and use of colour can all set the tone to influence the reader and pique their curiosity.  

The style of book covers can also assist in grouping together authors, genres or series of books. Having a consistent cover style can act as a visual shorthand, allowing the browsing reader to quickly locate the kind of book they are looking for.  

In this exhibition, you will see a range of different books, including fiction and non-fiction, propaganda and protest publications, hardcovers and paperbacks and books for all ages of life. Some will invoke nostalgia, others will aim to persuade you to a political position, and others will simply seduce you to open to the first page

 

Victoria Univeristy Library Special Collections exhibition Book covers: Capturing people’s attention can be view at Footscray Park Campus, building P, Level 2 of the library from August to November 2024.

Below is a selected few themes:

Poems, Essays, Fables

                    

When a book theme is of little interest, key to a good book cover is to provide an image which hopefully grabs the audience’s attention. Strong imagery, style of font use, being creative where objects are place on the cover assists with providing a unique and visual style.
Examples above, provides different ways book covers were designed to grab the audience’s attention.
Victoria University’s Special Collections has many types of these book designs within the different Collections.
        Travel
Many travel books provide an image based on a theme to try to catch the audience attention. Some travel books may contain a map of country or a landscape image on the endpapers. Images/photos are used to draw upon an audience’s memory senses. To support the photos, often brief anecdotes, historical details, or flashbacks from the author’s memories are use.
Chapters are used to highlight certain themes, such as travelling from one town to another town, and reflect on what the author may discovery.
Victoria University’s Special Collections has many travel books within the different Collections.
Australian

Some book covers try to capture the image of what a character should represent. Example on left, the ‘Australian Bush Man’ here represented as what make a true bush man - hardship, remoteness, mateship, and resourcefulness.
Victoria University’s Special Collections has this series within the Verrill Collection.
Thinker's Library

  

These hardcover books were published between 1929 and 1951 by the Rationalist Press Association in London. Design in a brown clochette, with grey dustjackets for a print for one shilling.
The design in the author’s name, the title of the book and the image of the Rodin’s The Thinker. These books cover subject areas from General Philosophy, General Science, History, Fiction and Religion.
The book jacket spine includes the series name, the series number and price.
Victoria University’s Special Collections has this series within the Verrill Collection.
Little Blue Books

Little Blue Book was published from the late 1900s to late 1970s by American publishing company Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company, target at the educated and working-class American men.
Works included literature, ideas, common sense knowledge and different points of view. They were designed to fit into a shirt pocket. The books were promoted via newspapers and magazines. Many were sold through bookstores and as mail orders. Victoria University Special Collections has the ‘Little Blue Book’ series within the Rationalist Collection.
Everyman's Library

 

These book covers were designed by the London publisher Joseph Malaby Dent in 1906 for reprints for classic literature from the Western Canon (a collection on works from literature, music, philosophy, and arts). Genres include Science, Fiction, History, Poetry, and Drama. These book covers were designed with endpapers (hard covers either side of the books providing a beautifully created illustration). Each genre is identified with a different logo on the front).
Mr. Dent quoted the books ‘to appeal to every kind of reader: the worker, the student, the cultured man, the child, the man and the woman’ so that ‘for a few shillings the reader may have a whole bookshelf of the immortals; for five pounds (which will procure him a hundred volumes) a man may be intellectually rich for life’. Victoria University’s Special Collections has this series within the Verrill Collection.
Collins Pocket Classics

These book covers were designed as an advertising tool to catch the audience attention. A book included the author’s portrait, a series number and price on the spine.

Inside the book cover would contain the full list of the titles published (in author order). Victoria University’s Special Collections has a few Charles Dickens classics from this series within the Verrill Collection
Women's Biography

These hardcover books were published by Raintree in 1979 as a library resource to provide equity, inclusivity and accessibility for all learner and communities.
Each book in this series provides a brief biography of women prominent in women’s movements including politics, human rights, business, and science. Each book cover is design by Jackie Denison.
Victoria University’s Special Collections has this series within the Crow Collection.