The Book Cover Trend of Text on Old Paintings
10 comments
·June 25, 2025ajot
Greatly done by Standard Ebooks too, I guess for the aesthetic as well as for old paintings being in public domain.
Daub
The thing that bothers me about this trend is that, for the most part, only details of paintings are used. To me, a cropped detail never looks complete. It is like a book missing half its chapters.
cAtte_
love the juxtaposition! beautiful paintings with hideous typography on top
edgarvaldes
A forever trend for classical music album covers.
cardamomo
Of all the book cover design trends, I think I like this one the best. I certainly prefer it to blobby illustrations or poor imitations of Saul Bass. I wonder what the next trend will be!
yallpendantools
Being that I don't judge books by their covers, I don't really have a strong opinion on these trends. I do have, however, a very strong visceral repulsion to a few of the covers presented here. They are fugly as heck:
- "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" looks like the first time I discovered background images and `<font color=""></font>`. The title, of all things, is unreadable with that color. I googled and there are better versions (still with the pink color scheme, mind you) of this cover.
- "Disappoint Me" (or should it be written "DISAPPOINT ME"?) looks like the first time someone made a meme after they learned how to lasso-cut a portion of an image into a new layer. There is, again, that poisonous pink that does readability no favors. FWIW, it has successfully disappointed me indeed. There seems to be a version of the book that doesn't fit this trend but reads so much better.
- "Seduction Theory" I'm glad Clippy seems to have found a job at graphic design after that long stint as an office assistant. Alas, old habits die hard, I guess. Unfortunately, neither the Brush Script MT(-esque) label telling me it is a novel nor the Word Art effects give a seductive mood. It gives a very puberty vibe, however, as it reminds me when I designed the Christmas Party poster in my freshman year, and pop has just upgraded the family computer to MS Office 2003.
wredcoll
> Being that I don't judge books by their covers, I don't really have a strong opinion on these trends.
What do you think the purpose of covers is then?
mc32
Austere bas relief gold print on cloth covers.
Publishers will pay a graphic designer a few hundred dollars for a cover and aren't willing to spend for photography or original art, so this is what you get: images in the public domain.