Rolling Paper Graphics

....José Lorente Cascales s ROLLING PAPER GRAPHICS (Gingko, $24.95) shows it was but one of hundreds of brands produced since the end of the 18th century. The origins of cigarette rolling paper booklets can be traced back to a Dominican priest, Father Jaime Villanueva Estingo (Jativa, Spain, 1765 London, 1824), the author writes. Not all papers were used for marijuana. In Father Villanueva s day, tobacco smokers laboriously and wastefully cut sections of large sheets of paper to roll their cigarettes. He devised a more convenient method of peeling small sheets from pocket-size booklet dispensers.

By the mid-1800s rolling papers were big business, and many were produced throughout the world, distinguished by unique graphic motifs. While a few of the variations in this book will be recognizable to pot connoisseurs, an overwhelming majority are unfamiliar (and no longer used). Like other small-scale commercial graphic artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (razor blade wrappers, matchbox covers), many of these were adorned with fanciful decorative typography and exotic images. This book adds another interesting subchapter to graphic design history. --Steven Heller, New York Times