As designers, we have much, if not most, to learn from the past. Good design did not happen overnight. When you look at some of these vintage covers it becomes quickly apparent that a lot of thought went into each and every design here. Considering new ways to say the same thing as well as challenging your audience to think differently and creating that "Ah ha!" moment is what designers are pressed to do everyday. It's what expands the visual landscape for the population at large. if it was not for design and art, we would still be drawing stick figures on the insides of caves. Design allows and opens the door to think in new ways about familiar concepts. It makes what is commonly known and understood, new, fresh and subject to endless interpretations. Look at how a horse is rendered, for example, on a few of these covers. How does it make you feel? Would it be the same emotion if it was a photograph or a classic painting? Boldness, scale, visual abstraction, colors (see design principles)—these are the types of things that take our perception of everyday objects and images and allow us to consider them in a different way. If Design is not asking us and motivating us to consider things in a new light, then bluntly speaking—it has failed in it's fundamental purpose.
These images are from Book Worship. See more amazing vintage covers there and be amazed.
