Default book covers

[rschroll]

Now that #16 has been closed, covers are much more important. Most books have covers that we can find, but some (notably from Project Gutenberg) do not. We need to synthesize default book covers for these.

These covers should include the title and the author, since the new default view doesn't include that information. But in order to help the user see the difference, I'd also like them to be different colors, chose pseudo-randomly from the book. (Right now, we're generating a random number from the md5sum of the title.) So we need a design that can be shifted around the colorspace to some degree.

The picture below shows a simplistic proof-of-principle I've come up with. We use the random number to pick a hue, and the design itself specifies saturation and luminance.

I hope someone else can do better.

Here are the restrictions on the cover:

• Aspect ratio of 3:2
• Have large areas for title and author texts
• Be expressible as an SVG file
• Can be shifted along a 1D (or higher!) path through color space.

The easiest path would be constant saturation and luminance, with hue varying, but I've noticed that it's hard to find S and L values that aren't too dark for the additive primaries or too bright for the subtractive primaries. So more serpentine paths through HSL may be desired.

For bonus points, tie the cover design in with that of the icon (#28).

[rschroll]

Three notes on fonts:

First, the books lacking covers will most likely be public domain books. Therefore, the cover should be tending more towards "novel" than "design magazine". This probably calls for a serif font, but a grotesque sans-serif may be appropriate.

Second, in addition to the fonts shipped by default, Beru ships its own copies of Bitstream Charter, URW Bookman, and URW Gothic. I'm willing to ship another font for the covers, but I'd have to be convinced of the necessity.

Finally, the font in the image is URW Bookman, which I do have a soft spot for. I'd be very happy to keep it, but I won't be dogmatic on that point.

[rschroll]

Here are a few possibilities: https://plus.google.com/108747901910183509998/posts/QGhuJ3MVDdr

[iBelieve]

Wow, your design looks really nice! Any chance that will get implemented soon?

[rschroll]

Yeah, I just need to decide which design to use. But that shouldn't
take any longer than ... 3 months!? Has it really been that long?

[iBelieve]

My favorite is the one you have in the GitHub issue, with the row of
circles.

On Thursday, May 29, 2014, Robert Schroll notifications@github.com wrote:

Yeah, I just need to decide which design to use. But that shouldn't
take any longer than ... 3 months!? Has it really been that long?

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Michael Spencer | sonrisesoftware.com

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