New Looks for Old Books
March 6, 2016 8:27 AM Subscribe
Recovering the Classics is a crowdsourced collection of original covers for 100 great works in the public domain, designed to increase interest and access to classics in e-book format.
A project of the NYPL and Digital Public Library.
"Why? Sadly, many of the greatest classics in the public domain are left with poorly designed or auto-generated covers that fail to capture what makes these books exciting and inspiring to us. So we invited illustrators, typographers, and designers of all stripes to create new covers for 100 of the greatest works in the public domain."
via Streets of Salem.
A project of the NYPL and Digital Public Library.
"Why? Sadly, many of the greatest classics in the public domain are left with poorly designed or auto-generated covers that fail to capture what makes these books exciting and inspiring to us. So we invited illustrators, typographers, and designers of all stripes to create new covers for 100 of the greatest works in the public domain."
via Streets of Salem.
Interested in buying Recovering the Classics ebooks for your library? We can make custom ebooks with covers by your local artists.That seems like a really neat idea.
Less of a fan of their site's mobile-centric design, though.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:06 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I liked:
Winesburg, Ohio
Red Badge of Courage
Dubliners
Jude the Obscure looks like maybe that's the DVD cover for the late night Showtime softcore take on the classic novel and also maybe hints at why cousin Sue feels revulsion toward sex and marriage both.
posted by notyou at 9:06 AM on March 6, 2016
Winesburg, Ohio
Red Badge of Courage
Dubliners
Jude the Obscure looks like maybe that's the DVD cover for the late night Showtime softcore take on the classic novel and also maybe hints at why cousin Sue feels revulsion toward sex and marriage both.
posted by notyou at 9:06 AM on March 6, 2016
Cute, thanks for sharing!
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 9:11 AM on March 6, 2016
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 9:11 AM on March 6, 2016
Just a note, there are multiple covers for each title. Clicking on the main title brings alternative covers for that title into view.
posted by Miko at 9:43 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Miko at 9:43 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]
Some of these covers are... oh boy. The Price and Prejudice covers are particularly gross.
Some of them are quite good too. I'd pick out more but the direness of the interface on this page is making me sad.
posted by selfnoise at 12:41 PM on March 6, 2016
Some of them are quite good too. I'd pick out more but the direness of the interface on this page is making me sad.
posted by selfnoise at 12:41 PM on March 6, 2016
They range from decent to dire, with many shades in between. Most of them are better than an auto-generated cover or text page, but not all. Jude the Obscure looks like the kind of book you wouldn't want to be seen reading on the bus, and The Metamorphosis cover seems to miss the point of the story.
I like the Don Quixote cover, but it's not clear how all that color would reproduce in black and white on a Kindle. (There are a number of alternate covers that are so dark they'd barely show up in greyscale.) The Grimm's Fairy Tales cover is also neat, but I also like the Germanic text style alternate version.
It's interesting to see how different artists attempt to "cover" the same well known stories. The Call of The Wild, for instance, should be an easy one: just do a picture of Buck. He's a specific type of dog that should have a unique appearance, and the cover could help readers picture him in their minds. But only one of the covers does this. Most of them are stereotypical wolf images or purely abstract designs. Classics Illustrated did a better job in the 1950's!
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gets a similar treatment. The top cover is a fairly generic design emphasizing a river. Not bad, but not really unique to the book, either. It's a story about Huckleberry Finn and Jim getting into trouble on the Mississippi, but none of the covers depict that. This cover is from a juvenile edition, but it feels more true to the book, imo.
Wow, this was way longer than I intended! Better stop for now.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:40 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I like the Don Quixote cover, but it's not clear how all that color would reproduce in black and white on a Kindle. (There are a number of alternate covers that are so dark they'd barely show up in greyscale.) The Grimm's Fairy Tales cover is also neat, but I also like the Germanic text style alternate version.
It's interesting to see how different artists attempt to "cover" the same well known stories. The Call of The Wild, for instance, should be an easy one: just do a picture of Buck. He's a specific type of dog that should have a unique appearance, and the cover could help readers picture him in their minds. But only one of the covers does this. Most of them are stereotypical wolf images or purely abstract designs. Classics Illustrated did a better job in the 1950's!
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gets a similar treatment. The top cover is a fairly generic design emphasizing a river. Not bad, but not really unique to the book, either. It's a story about Huckleberry Finn and Jim getting into trouble on the Mississippi, but none of the covers depict that. This cover is from a juvenile edition, but it feels more true to the book, imo.
Wow, this was way longer than I intended! Better stop for now.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:40 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Super cool project! Although I initially thought it was going to be a crowd-sourced project of the original, out of print covers..
I've been thinking a lot recently about wanting to master design fundamentals and graphic design, and book cover design is something I'd want to enter. I've always been amazed by how most book covers are poorly matched for their texts in tone, mood, and style. Effective design is communicating a message, and the books themselves express very strong themes and moods that resonate amongst generations (hopefully), and that needs to be in the nuances of the cover. Therefore, I think it would be interesting to learn how to communicate that in a way that isn't a 15 page analysis essay.
I think the only covers I've ever liked were the Haruki Murakami US ones, since they were pop contemporary but had melancholic women on it, which is pretty much how I'd summarize Murakami's gaze and story content. What makes me feel strange about some of these covers is that they lean heavily towards modern, but without much of the attention to the mood and tone of the prose itself. Three Musketeers seems weirdly dire!
posted by yueliang at 2:55 PM on March 6, 2016
I've been thinking a lot recently about wanting to master design fundamentals and graphic design, and book cover design is something I'd want to enter. I've always been amazed by how most book covers are poorly matched for their texts in tone, mood, and style. Effective design is communicating a message, and the books themselves express very strong themes and moods that resonate amongst generations (hopefully), and that needs to be in the nuances of the cover. Therefore, I think it would be interesting to learn how to communicate that in a way that isn't a 15 page analysis essay.
I think the only covers I've ever liked were the Haruki Murakami US ones, since they were pop contemporary but had melancholic women on it, which is pretty much how I'd summarize Murakami's gaze and story content. What makes me feel strange about some of these covers is that they lean heavily towards modern, but without much of the attention to the mood and tone of the prose itself. Three Musketeers seems weirdly dire!
posted by yueliang at 2:55 PM on March 6, 2016
Isn't there some kind of rule that anyone in any design discipline other than web will think horizontal scrolling is the best possible interface?
I like the project great, but the way it reinvents showing several dozen images is sucking the joy out of it. Bonus points for breaking the back button.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:28 PM on March 6, 2016
I like the project great, but the way it reinvents showing several dozen images is sucking the joy out of it. Bonus points for breaking the back button.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:28 PM on March 6, 2016
Remember, designers, "responsive" includes desktops.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:50 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:50 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
This looks like the cover of a bad teen cancer story.
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:26 PM on March 6, 2016
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:26 PM on March 6, 2016
Most of these are perry good. That 60s psychedelia Sherlock Holmes one is terrible, though. Did the designer think he was doing Austin Powers?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:53 AM on March 7, 2016
posted by Paul Slade at 3:53 AM on March 7, 2016
It's interesting but the problem I usually have with public domain books is the poor formatting of the text itself. So many thanks to places like Feedbooks, my main source for books these days.
Public domain of course doesn't just mean Jane Austen. I've been reading a ton of detective novels, (also see here) from the golden age as well as outstanding stuff like Algernon Blackwood, whom HP Lovecraft greatly admired.
posted by vacapinta at 5:47 AM on March 7, 2016
Public domain of course doesn't just mean Jane Austen. I've been reading a ton of detective novels, (also see here) from the golden age as well as outstanding stuff like Algernon Blackwood, whom HP Lovecraft greatly admired.
posted by vacapinta at 5:47 AM on March 7, 2016
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Heart of Darkness here I come...
posted by djseafood at 9:02 AM on March 6, 2016