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Generative eBook Covers

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Re: Generative eBook Covers

#21

Post by nl »

I wonder if it would be possible to generate a cover based on the plot?

Character name detection is pretty easy

Gender detection for the characters depends on the year of the book, but is possible with reasonable accuracy (although one would need to be careful of translations).

Key scene detection in text isn't something I know much about. I've read some research on recognising emotion in text, and it might be possible to use something like that on a rolling basis to find the most important parts of the book.

Using that information to create an illustration... would be challenging.

I can imagine algorithms to draw the character by extracting descriptions from the book. Putting them into the context described by some key scene would have a few additional problems.

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#22

Post by derrasterpunkt »

Genmutant wrote: post #19
gioele wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

yellow: classic works of the German language and other languages translated into German

red: classics in their original foreign language

orange: bi-lingual books

blue: study guides

green: original historical sources with explanations

magenta: non-fiction (politics, history, society, natural sciences, art, music or religion)

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclam

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#23

Post by riordan »

teach wrote: post #3

Is there an online demo? Would love to play with this! (And I swear it's not just because I currently have an eBook without a cover....)

For ebooks without images [10Print inspired]: https://github.com/mgiraldo/tenprintcover-p5

For ebooks with images [Gutenberg]: https://github.com/mgiraldo/tenprintcover-p5

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#24

Post by gluejar »

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…

Based on the "publicatations" on your web site, you should spend less time on covers and more on spell checking. (Sorry, I hope that's not too mean.)

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#25

Post by vwoolf »

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…

This is a tangent but interesting given that you cite a Franklin library book: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/498519163988496384 :

@paulg

When I got rich I let myself buy nice editions of books. But I notice the books I read are mostly cheap paperbacks.

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#26

Post by walterbell »

userbinator wrote: post #18
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...

These are a great balance of similarity and differentiation.

Is there software which models the human perceptual system, e.g. algorithms that have been trained on fanous art?

Related: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/an-intelligent-algor...

"For their research, the team chose 1,700 paintings by 66 artists, covering the 15th to the late 20th century. Using a technique that analyzes visual concepts called "classemes"—wherein objects, color shades, subjects' movement, and more are marked—the researchers created a list of 3,000 classemes for each painting, data which The Physics arXiv Blog compares to a vector. Then, they used an artificially intelligent algorithm to evaluate the vectors and look for similarities or overlapping qualities among the 1,700 paintings. ArXiv adds, "To create a ground truth against which to measure their results, they also collate expert opinions on which these artists have influenced the others."

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#27

Post by walterbell »

nl wrote: post #21

I wonder if it would be possible to generate a cover based on the plot? Character name detection is pretty easy Gender detection for the characters depends on the year of the book, but is possible with reasonable accuracy (although one would need to be careful of translations). Key scene detection in text isn't something I know much about. I've read some research on recognising emotion in text, and it might be possib…

There was a "book genome project", but recently acquired by Apple and shut down.

http://www.tapor.ca/?id=349

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-buys-booklamp-2014-7

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#28

Post by tripzilch »

TheCoreh wrote: post #7
arjie wrote: post #5

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

I think the problem is with the color relationship. The resulting shape is actually pretty cool.

Agree. Picking complementary colours 180 degrees separated in HSL space almost always creates an (IMO) clashing combination.

102 degrees would have been more sensible, while providing sufficient contrast.

Using a different, more perceptually-based colour space would be even better.

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#29

Post by mga »

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…

Thanks for the words of support! These are two other interesting generative cover projects: http://variable.io/generative-covers/ http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2008/july/faber-find...

Worth noting our effort is mostly a side project that supports the _real_ project which is the ebook reader app

Re: Generative eBook Covers

#30

Post by mga »

tripzilch wrote: post #28
TheCoreh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is with the color relationship. The resulting shape is actually pretty cool.

Agree. Picking complementary colours 180 degrees separated in HSL space almost always creates an (IMO) clashing combination. 102 degrees would have been more sensible, while providing sufficient contrast. Using a different, more perceptually-based colour space would be even better.

Fortunately the code is available for you to play with:

https://github.com/mgiraldo/tenprintcover-p5

This other project has some interesting geometric explorations:

http://variable.io/generative-covers/

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