The Notebook

What is a book, or what can it be? Modern technology allows for a lot of experimentation when creating a book, from cover to size to material etc, but, obviously this wasn't always the case. Nowadays almost all of our books are made from paper, but the widespread use of paper as writing medium didn't come about until the mid 3rd century AD, and as for being available and used around the world not till later. (It was used before this, the earliest recorded in China, being used for for wrapping and padding). Paper was then adopted as the norm, but during the 15th century as the Reformers and others fought for the right to access of holy scripture for the masses, and with the invention of the Guttenberg printing press, paper became a mass medium, until today we use over 300 million metric tons of paper per year worldwide.
However, our ancestors around the world had to find other materials to record on, the most famous of which being papyrus



Papyrus was produced and used as far back as 3000BC, and was made by taking long thin strips from the stem of the papyrus plant, soaking them in water and while still wet making 2 sheets on on top of the other, on vertical, one horizontal, by laying them side by side with the edges overlapping. The strips are then hammered into place and left to dry under pressure. At gun point. Just kidding. Under something heavy. This was, especially in the Egyptian delta where the papyrus plant flourished, the most popular form of writing material until the 1st centuries BC and AD, when it had a new rival in parchment, made from soaked then dried, hair-less and stretched animal skins.



Parchment had been around since the 6th century BC but only became popular in the first century BC as prices for papyrus and overharvesting of the plant lead to many adopting it as a replacement.
Much of the ancient biblical texts of that time were written on parchment, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in the 1950's, which were rolled up and placed in jars and hidden in caves near Qumran, a small plateau near the north western shore of the Dead Sea.



They share a common premise with the Jewish scrolls, like the Sefer Torah scroll, which is opened and read in Jewish meetings. Scrolls consist of lengths or pages of either papyrus, parchment or paper attatched together in a long roll and secured at each end to a stick (albeit a very ornate and attractive stick. But still effectively a stick).

Other earlier methods of recording include the process of carving or etching into a material, such as wood




Or sheets of metal which are then bound and held by metal rings. The Book of Mormon, a religious text for The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon religion) which dates back to 600BC and discovered in 1820, was written on golden plates and talks of plates made of brass. More recently ancient texts have been found on metal plates, such as these found by Monash University's excavation at Ismant el-Kharab Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt




SO....that all being said, today people manipulate all sorts of materials to form 'books' no longer out of necessity as was the case in Ye Olde Times


Brings a whole new meaning to making a book out of wood!


This is just a cover, but the colours of the metal bring a real earthen feel to the subject, and the also quite mystical.

Some by Brian Dettmer




Sam Winston (he did the artwork for Muse's third album Absolution which was brilliant, in both senses. His work is more about playing with type and form, but also with the paper its written on)


Gerorgia Russell





Others