Upcycling
Our society seems to thrive on the disposable. Yet, for ages, people have been re-using, or "upcycling," components of cast-offs to make wonderful new things. Even in the case of books, valuable old parchments had the old text scraped off in order to be used again. These were called "palimpsests." Sometimes, psalter pages were used to cover other books.
I'm lucky to have access to a steady stream of discarded maps - nautical, topographical, geological, aeronautical - and sometimes other unusual items. The papers themselves are not particularly valuable, but their representation of natural form makes them lovely cover design. It is important to have a sense of place in our increasingly fractured world, and I find that looking at maps or natural features helps us regain that sense.
