The Visual Identity of the Book: From the Renaissance to the Digital Age (Chandos Information Professional Series) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr Christina Banou is Professor in “Book Policy and Publishing” at the Dep. of Archives, Library Science and Museology, School of Information Science and Informatics, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece. Former Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, International Relations and Extraversion at the Ionian University, she is the Director of the Post-Graduate Programme “Management of Cultural Information”. Her main areas of research interest include publishing, book policy, book history, current trends of the publishing industry, aesthetics of the printed book, reading policy. She has presented papers in refereed journals and has participated at international conferences.

Her book Re-Inventing the Book. Challenges from the Past for the Publishing Industry with a foreword by Prof. Angus Phillips has been published by Elsevier – Chandos Publishing in 2017.

Three monographs of her concerning the publishing industry have been published in Greek: Banou, Christina (2022), “Through the Looking Glass”. The Greek Publishing Companies at a Turning Point, Athens: Papazisis Publishers. Banou, Christina (2012), Gutenberg’s Next Step: The Publishing Companies in Greece at the Beginning of the 21st century, Athens: Papazisis Publishers. Banou, Christina (2008), Diachronic Features of the Publishing Industry in the Western World, Athens: Kotinos Publications.

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The book focuses on the “materiality” of the book (from printed to new forms) since the invention of printing, discussing the visual order of the page, the information mechanisms of the book, the aspects of the stakeholders in the publishing chain, convergence of media, hybrid books, reader engagement, and personalized publishing services.
The aim of the book is to

• provide an overview of the evolution of the visual identity of the book from the Renaissance to nowadays;
• focus on the first printed books so as to exhibit and explain the transition from the manuscript to the printed book and nowadays to the new forms of the book;
• discuss aspects of visual information and of the aesthetics of the book;
• enlighten the development of the printed page and of the parts of the book;
• highlight the impact of new technologies;
• interpret current issues of the publishing industry;
• further discuss reader engagement and personalized publishing services;
• point out the changes in the publishing value chain;
• introduce promotion strategies and publishing policies based on the above; and
• provide a methodological framework that can also be used in book business.