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Generative eBook Covers

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Re: Generative eBook Covers

#11

Post by gioele »

bane wrote: post #10

I applaud this effort from the sense that generated book covers all seem to be so ugly and undesigned. There's nothing wrong with a generic, but well designed book cover. I mean, how many virtually identical hardbound books are there sitting on people's bookshelves...and they look beautiful instead of ugly. http://bibliotique.net/images/080511-aa-1.jpg http://www.dargate.com/cat/248_auction/248_images/1722.jpg The di…

Reclam Verlag may be the best example of beauty coming out of minimalistic, well designed book covers:

http://sprachkreis-deutsch.ch/2013/06/30/reclam-verlag-folgt...

http://www.phantasienreisen.de/2012/02/19/reclam-klassiker-i...

Book wall: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reclam_Universalbibli...

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#12

Post by tjradcliffe »

Both cover design and interior layout are insanely challenging. I run a small press (everybody needs a hobby: http://www.siduri.net) and the amount of time spent on covers is way out of proportion to everything else.

In an ideal world, the artist has to a) understand the book and b) create a cover that sums it up and c) produce an alternative version that isn't too heavy for the e-book.

The difference between e-book requirements and print are huge, and a few of the recent Penguin e-books I've bought all have the same cover (the Penguin logo) which looks to me like the editors just punted on the issue.

So I applaud this effort. The problem they are solving is much more difficult than it looks from the outside, and they are doing an impressive job even though the results may look less than ideal to some. Things like Project Gutenberg would be considerably enhanced if they had decent covers, and any scheme for auto-generating them that isn't positively awful [] would really help.

[] I've gotta say the first purely geometric covers in the article aren't quite my cup of tea.

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#13

Post by girvo »

bane wrote: post #10

I applaud this effort from the sense that generated book covers all seem to be so ugly and undesigned. There's nothing wrong with a generic, but well designed book cover. I mean, how many virtually identical hardbound books are there sitting on people's bookshelves...and they look beautiful instead of ugly. http://bibliotique.net/images/080511-aa-1.jpg http://www.dargate.com/cat/248_auction/248_images/1722.jpg The di…

Yeah, interesting! It'd be cool if you had a generative book cover that was fed the author name (and maybe some other information) as a seed, where the function gives output from the same author to have the same colour, or patterns, or something, that created images similar to the gold leaf patterns. That's actually sounding quite interesting, I might have a go at it!

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#14

Post by Johnythree »

As a avid reader (and collector) of old books, one thing I hate is these fake computer generated book covers.

If no cover is available, I would much prefer a simple text label.

When I do find such a book, I waste no time in stripping off the cover.

Putting a fake cover on an old book is akin to vandalism.

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#16

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

arjie wrote: post #5

In my opinion, those geometric shape covers are some of the ugliest things I've ever seen.

Agreed, they remind me of 70s psychology books: https://www.google.de/search?q=seventies+psychology&safe=off...

I hereby coin the term "depressionism" - you heard it here first, folks!

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#18

Post by userbinator »

akavel wrote: post #17

Made me remember a series of books from '70s-'90s in Poland (about computer programming), somewhat similar in style, although I thought they were more so before googling. In case you'd be interested: http://imgur.com/JvhuomK http://imgur.com/Ktnec4l

On first glance, those look almost like an Arabic letter. I suppose that for more abstract topics like programming, an abstract-looking cover is pretty common.

Also similar, this set of famous theoretical physics books: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sj0HK_o3hD0/TlhDu7sl_FI/AAAAAAAAAh...

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#19

Post by Genmutant »

gioele wrote: post #11
bane wrote: post #10

I applaud this effort from the sense that generated book covers all seem to be so ugly and undesigned. There's nothing wrong with a generic, but well designed book cover. I mean, how many virtually identical hardbound books are there sitting on people's bookshelves...and they look beautiful instead of ugly. http://bibliotique.net/images/080511-aa-1.jpg http://www.dargate.com/cat/248_auction/248_images/1722.jpg The di…

Reclam Verlag may be the best example of beauty coming out of minimalistic, well designed book covers: http://sprachkreis-deutsch.ch/2013/06/30/reclam-verlag-folgt... http://www.phantasienreisen.de/2012/02/19/reclam-klassiker-i... Book wall: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reclam_Universalbibli...

They replaced the old design? I liked that more. But I didn't know they had ones which are not yellow. Do you know what the different colors mean?

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#20

Post by Genmutant »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #12

Both cover design and interior layout are insanely challenging. I run a small press (everybody needs a hobby: http://www.siduri.net ) and the amount of time spent on covers is way out of proportion to everything else. In an ideal world, the artist has to a) understand the book and b) create a cover that sums it up and c) produce an alternative version that isn't too heavy for the e-book. The difference between e-book…

I like the O´Reilly books, they just use a different animal on the cover for each book.
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