In the early work by Boris Kustodiev - the Ex Libris for R.Notgaft, not only the depictive motive and the use of vegetal patterns as decoration, but the general artistic solution is close to the particular style relating to the World of Art movement.

Further works by Boris Kustodiev got more complexly composed, increased in size and started to look like book head-pieces. The Ex Libris for the publisher V.Anisimov is unlike any other. In it, a human figure is masterly incorporated into the space and harmonizes well with an image of piles of books, forming a decorative frame.

Dmitri Mitrokhin is considered to be the most outstanding figure among artists of the later generation of the World of Art. His early bookplates, as the Ex Libris for L.Zheverzheyev, bear clear evidence of various influences of Konstantin Somov, Alexandre Benois, and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Their favourite themes are very similar to those of the World of Art members: open books, writing materials, and scattered flowers or bouquets within a rectangular frame.
Compositions of his maturity bookplates became further complicated: these asymmetrical balance works were created with a fragmental arrangement of images, and with text placed off center. At the same time, traditions of the World of Art are still strong in the bookplates for M.Sokolovskaya and V.Zamirailo, they reveal themselves in the subject motifs, and in fine workmanship. In some bookplates such as the Ex libris for B.Tsymkovsky, Dmitri Mitrokhin focused special attention on font form, font size and font style.