The FAO Library is hosting an exhibition featuring some of the most striking book covers on the topic of pulses from the 1910s to the present days, illustrating how designs have changed over the decades to reflect content, attract audiences and celebrate art.

FAO invites you to visit this historical perspective with treasures found in the International Institute of Agriculture’s collection, FAO first editions and its current and worldwide monographic collection.

Visitors will take a tour through more than 100 years of publications on pulses:

The exhibition starts with examples of Art Nouveau and Art Deco from the early decades of the twentieth century, the explosion of typography in the 1950s and minimalist designs of the 1970s to the 1980s Deco style and massive use of photography in the 1990s.

The exhibition timeline shows how there is an interrelationship between book cover designs – how every period is inspired by earlier art styles and how the meaning of a cover design is shaped by previous designs.The tour ends with the book FAO has released for the IYP: Pulses: Nutritious seeds for a sustainable future. The highly decorative style of the 1910s with curvilinear plant and floral motives and the ethnic look with a nature-based colour palette of the 1960s add layers of depth to the design of the 2016 FAO publication, which transforms the beauty of these early art styles into a timeless modern look.