Printing A major use of the arabesque style has been artistic printing, for example of book covers and page decoration. Repeating geometric patterns worked well with traditional printing, since they could be printed from metal type like letters if the type was placed together; as the designs have no specific connection to the meaning of a text, the type can be reused in many different editions of different works. Robert Granjon, a French printer of the sixteenth century, has been credited with the first truly interlocking arabesque printing, but other printers had used many other kinds of ornaments in the past. The idea was rapidly used by many other printers. After a period of disuse in the nineteenth century, when a more minimal page layout became popular with printers like Bodoni and Didot, the concept returned to popularity with the arrival of the Arts and Crafts movement, Many fine books from the period 1890–1960 have arabesque decorations, sometimes on paperback covers. Many digital serif fonts include arabesque pattern elements thought to be complementary to the mood of the font; they are also often sold as separate designs. Notes References Canby, Sheila, Islamic art in detail, US edn., Harvard University Press, 2005, , , Google books Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, 650-1250. (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001) Fuhring, Peter, Renaissance Ornament Prints; The French Contribution, in Karen Jacobson, ed (often wrongly cat. as George Baselitz), The French Renaissance in Prints, 1994, Grunwald Center, UCLA, Harthan, John P., Bookbinding, 1961, HMSO (for the Victoria and Albert Museum) Rawson, Jessica, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon, 1984, British Museum Publications, Osborne, Harold (ed), The Oxford Companion to the Decorative Arts, 1975, OUP, Tabbaa, Yasser, The transformation of Islamic art during the Sunni revival, I.B.Tauris, 2002, , , Google books External links Abdullahi Y., Embi M. R. B, Evolution Of Abstract Vegetal Ornaments On Islamic Architecture, International Journal of Architectural Research, 2015, Archnet-IJAR Arabic art Arabic architecture Visual arts genres Visual motifs Moorish architecture Islamic culture Islamic architectural elements Islamic art Ornaments Arab inventions