من الغلاف إلى الغلاف
From Cover to Cover
الصورة كبديل عن الخطّ
Image
التسلسل
Seriality
أبعاد
Dimensionality
من الغلاف إلى الغلاف
From Cover to Cover
Like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, Arabic books were not immune to the rise of the image, nor to local appetite for the imaginative world promised in and through images. In thriving bookshops and with the advent of annual book fairs in cities such as Beirut (1956) and Cairo (1969), Arabic books were increasingly on display, attracting potential readers and buyers through their covers.
Established and newly formed publishers, state-funded and independent, radical and mainstream: all vied to promote their wares to a growing transnational market of Arabic readers. Through their covers, books brought modern Arab art out of galleries and into everyday life, to be displayed on shelves, picked up, carried across cities and continents, read in various contexts—often openly, sometimes in secret due to censorship—and passed from reader to reader, each interaction adding to their social life.
الصورة كبديل عن الخطّ
Image
The most significant visual shift in Arabic books during the 1960s was the rise of the pictorial book cover. Moving away from standardised calligraphic or typeset titles, covers increasingly incorporated imagery, engaging the visual expertise of artists, illustrators, and graphic designers.
Some commissions were driven by personal and political networks between publishers, authors, and artists. Others marked the emergence of a professional practice in book cover design and illustration, led by pioneers such as Hussein Bicar, Helmi el-Touni, Bahgat Othman, and Ihab Shaker in Egypt; Abdel Kader Arnaout in Syria; and Ismail Shammout and Radwan al-Shahhal in Lebanon.
التسلسل
Seriality
The increasing volume of production led major publishers, like Dar al-Hilal in Cairo and the Arab Institute for Research and Publishing in Beirut, to employ in-house graphic designers. Modern, eye-catching covers and carefully designed graphic systems—differentiating book series, genres, and authors—created a systematic and recognisable house style, helping publishers brand their books for the Arabic reading market.
أبعاد
Dimensionality
The changing visual economy of Arabic books extended beyond the cover image. Books are three-dimensional objects, closely linked to the human body in terms of size, weight, paper, and binding. These physical qualities cater to various reading contexts, and in doing so, helped create new book markets. From low-cost paperback editions and children’s picture books that fit in the palm of a hand, to large, lavishly printed poetry anthologies and limited-edition artists’ books, each design choice shaped a distinct reader experience.