making ebook covers for fun

[holyscream]

I was at a social event last the weekend (everybody please clap) and caught a cold I’m still recovering from, so this’ll be short.

I really love Project Gutenberg and will occasionally browse one if its categories and download whatever seems interesting (ebook of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the original cuneiform, anyone?). Quite a few Gutenberg ebooks come with default covers that can only be described as… visually confounding. The clashing color combinations and oddly squished-looking font are particularly fascinating to me. But I like that they have covers at all. Anyways, being the visual creature that I am, I like to make time to create my own covers for these books. Here are a few of them:

Images used

• Frederic Leighton – Pavonia (1859)
• Théodore Fort – Battle, Knights on Horses (1840s)
• Guide de voyage à Constantinople sur le Danube (1859) + Arnold Schulten – Wasserfall in den Alpen mit figürlicher Staffage (1874)
• Bronzino – Portrait of a Young Man with a Book (1530s)
• G.B. Croff – Progressive American Architecture, plate № 56 + Peter Olexa @ Unsplash + Anandu Vinod @ Unsplash + David Maier @ Unsplash
• Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl – Souls on the Banks of the Acheron (1898)

The red G is a Project Gutenberg logo by Dianakc that I thought worked better as a publisher logo than the more official ones.

As you can see, I’m a huge sucker for cover designs using public domain paintings, which I see pretty often with publishers of older crime and literary fiction. Lady Audley’s Secret and Under Two Flags probably take the most direct inspiration from real cover designs I’ve seen while the others were just me throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

They were all created for fun, but I always appreciate concrit. But before anyone mentions it, I’m aware of the anachronism of some of the covers, those were conscious choices. :D