Covers and dust jackets from the „Golden Series” of FNP Monographs – an attempt to analyze of the graphic creation process

Abstract

The subject of the analysis undertaken in the article are the covers and dust jackets of books belonging to the “Golden Series” – “Humanities Monographs of the Foundation for Polish Science”. The author takes into account three stages of the graphic development of the series, named after the dominant colours – the brown style (1995–2004), the brown-gold style (2004–2011) and the gold style (2011–2020). Numerous imperfections of the first one, which emphasized the prestigious character of the series by the archaizing cover, are revealed, both in terms of design and typographic inconsistencies. The author then states that while the introduction of the golden dust jacket and graphic photographs in the second style has increased visual attractiveness of the series, one cannot speak of a comprehensive graphic creation process until the third stage of the aforementioned evolution. The categories of motifs appearing on the dust jackets are also described, with an attempt to find patterns between their selection and the topics discussed, as well as to interpret examples from particular categories. Comparing projects from the second and third stage, the author comes to the conclusion that the former group was based mainly on illustrations from the inside of the books or on relatively simple visual associations, while the latter is the result of creative work and intellectual effort – getting acquainted with a specialist publication – and the character of these projects, sometimes fully abstract, is challenging for the recipient to interpret.