Art in Books

There was a time, not too long ago, when books were precious commodities. As such, the publishers thought about every nuance of every page – and one of the things you could find without too much effort, was art. Art at the start of chapters. Art for section breaks. The occasional line drawing taking up a page, and so forth.

My mom has given me some older books (from the early 1900s) and I love to carefully turn through the pages to see the care and detail…and all the lovely art. Which is why I was so happy when the small press I’m with started using art in the chapter starts and as the section break indicator. It’s so much nicer than blank space and bare numbers – at least in my mind.

Granted, I don’t necessarily think, “Oh, there’s no art in this book.” when I read a typically formatted book that has none. But when I stumble across something that does have art – and when I look through the proofs of my own books – I definitely notice that it’s there. I love how it helps set the tone in tiny little ways. I love how it can tie things back to the cover in other little ways. But mostly, I love that it shows a teeny bit more effort, more care — a nod to the reader that says, yeah, we know the words are the primary art here, but there’s nothing wrong with a little extra to give it a boost. We did that for you.

What about you? Do you like art in your books? Do you notice it?