Page 52 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

World History–

About the Design

Page Design ism, into the modern age. In addition, because we had
Designing a cover for an encyclopedia of human history also talked about “big history” during our first conver-
is a daunting task. It was essential that we convey the sation (“big history” is history since the Big Bang, and
breadth of the human experience over time, not simply its main exponent is David Christian, one of our edi-
use a patchwork of images from particular times and tors and author of This Fleeting World, the book-within-
places. It was Bill McNeill, the senior editor, who sug- a-book in Vols. 1 and 5), she created a background for
gested cave paintings as a possible inspiration. Standing the cave art stone that shows the whole cosmos, the
on his porch one day, as we said good-bye after a meet- setting for human history.
ing and the lunch he invariably prepares, he said,“Maybe The display font chosen for the design of this book is
cave art would do it.” He wondered if we could, some- Journal, which has a rough-hewn quality that makes it
how, use cave art to show the main eras in human his- compatible with the stone texture motif taken from the
tory. A tall order indeed, but it inspired us to come up cover. It also has a contemporary and accessible feel.
with the basic concept you see here. The font selected for the actual text of this book is
It was serendipitous that cover artist Lisa Clark, for- Wilke, which has a rich, worldly feel, yet remains highly
merly with Harvard University Press, turned up that legible. It also has a contemporary feel but with sufficient
week at Berkshire Publishing. Lisa truly understood what classical resonance to suit a work of world history.
we were trying to accomplish in illustrating World His- Interior pages were designed by Jeff Potter of Shel-
tory and took our rough ideas to create a vivid cover burne Falls, Massachusetts.
that takes us from the foraging era, through agrarian-

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