ABSTRACT
Up until the end of the last century the school textbook only served one purpose, which was to educate; today, faced with competition from the media, it must also be attractive. The development of the textbook over the last century has been characterised, on the one hand, by greater diversity – and hence greater complexity – in the typographical methods designed to classify and establish a hierarchy of themes, and, on the other hand, by the growing use of illustrations and colour. The historical development of the textbook, however, was not linear – given the time it took to produce books and the number of years they remained in use 20 or 30 years ago. Although advances in photography techniques appeared to mean that artists' drawings were no longer needed for the production of textbooks, publishers would call on renowned artists to illustrate and beautify school books which were unattractive when compared with the illustrated magazines, by now in vogue.
