Have I Got a Deal For You!

by Alan Gustin at webbishy.com

Domain name scams – please beware! I’ve seen posts like this before that warn of companies and/or individuals who try to take advantage of people by offering to sell domain names.  Here’s a quote from an email I received lately:

“We are selling the domain name [sampledomain].com. Since you own [sampledomain].net if you would like the more desirable .com version we are making it available to you. The one time cost is $99.97. That includes a full year of registration and transfer of ownership to you. To purchase or to learn more go to: [iripyouoff].com”

I did, in fact, own a .net domain name that I wanted the .com version of.  The .com version was unavailable a couple years ago, and so I had to settle for the .net version.  As you may already know, it is prudent to own all top-level-domains (.com, .net, .org), in order to assure that your web site is found, even if someone inputs the wrong domain extension (.org instead of .com, for example).

The ironic thing is, I would never have known to check the availability of the .com version had I not received emails from companies like the one mentioned above, stating that [sampledomain.com] would become available in a few days. Funny that they sort of cut their own throat in informing me of the fact. I simply checked the availablity evey day after receiving the first email, and lo and behold, after about the third day, I checked with my domain registrar and the domain became available! So instead of paying $99.97 per year for my highly-desired domain, I paid a paltry $9.95 for a year!

So unintentionally, these companies that tried to take advantage of me actually performed a kind service by informing me of the upcoming availability of my domain name!

I realize that this is not always the case, because there are domain squatters out there who buy up desireable domain names in the hope that someone will want to buy it from them someday. Fortunately for me, this was not the case.

Be Remarkable

This guy Seth Godin is someone worth listening to.

7 Must Have WordPress Plugins For Every Blog

By Anastasia on March 2, 2010 at 1stwebdesigner.com

view source article

Keep Your Font stacks From Falling Over

by Louis Simoneau at SitePoint

view source article

A Note to My Webbishy Readers

I find sites all the time that offer fantastic information.  Sometimes I will grab an article and manually re-post it here.  This takes time, but it allows me to post only those articles that I think will be of value to my readers.

There is one site that I have found exceptional in its content, and so I have chosen to syndicate the posts from Psdtuts.  I have visited this site often, and have learned much from the tutorials that they post.  I pay Psdtuts the ultimate compliment by having them be the first blog to be syndicated on the Webbishy blog.  I hope you will find their posts to be as interesting and informative as I do.

~ Alan

Massive Textures Showcase – Creative Examples of Use, Premium Packs and Tutorials

Textures, textures, textures. The design community, both print and web, seems to be going absolutely texture mad, but there are several valid and very good reasons to why that may be:

1. Texture can completely change the way people ‘read’ your design work and illustrations because, with very little effort, texture can dramatically change the mood of your work.
2. Illustrations can sometimes look a little ‘too clean’. By including a little subtle texture in your illustrations, you can help bring your work to life.
3. There’s only so many unique designs you can have when it comes to web design. The use of texture in web design multiplies this by about infinity, especially if you make or shoot your own textures.
4. Textures can be found anywhere, in your backyard, on a road trip or even in your office. You can scan textures, photograph them, or if you’re looking for something really incredible, can buy premium textures for an extra-low price.

Below we have a showcase of web design, print design and illustration projects that use textures to their advantage, followed by a huge round-up of textures for you to use in your own design work, and finally a small selection of great tutorials to help you incorporate the textures you’ve downloaded into your work.

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Textured Web Design

The use of texture in web design has been an ever-expanding trend over the past several years. It allows you to add a completely new look to your designs, whether using a very subtle amount of texture or a great massive wheelbarrow full! Below are ten examples of websites that utilize texture in their web designs very well.

Matt Dempsey

Matt uses several overlayed textures combined with vivid, bright colors in his web design.

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James Childers

Within the dark grungy background of James’ website lays a low opacity bokeh-style texture, adding interest to the overall design.

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Pilates El Paso

The site of Pilates El Paso uses a very noisy, paper-based texture in the background of their design.

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Toby Powell

The portfolio design of Toby Powell is one that has been showcased all over the web for its simplicity and awesome typography merged with a subtle ’scrunched’ paper texture.

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Bart-Jan Verhoef

Although currently down and waiting for an update, the portfolio of Bart-Jan Verhoef is another one that has been compiled in showcases all over the web, mainly for its incredibly detailed textured background.

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Elliot Jay Stocks > Blog

Elliot uses a subtle to medium grained texture in the background of his design, adding tonnes of interest to the design and making it a lovely design to look at.

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Wire and Twine

Wire and Twine uses a very minimal amount of texture in their design (the wood texture in the header design), but is most definitely the designs main focal point.

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Stonefield Estate Resort

Stonefield Estate Resort’s website design is very natural, using high-levels of fabric texture to create a natural look.

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Bridge55

This mens fashion store combines clean, neat menus with torn edges, tape and a powerful brick and concrete texture used in their background to create an authentic and unique look.

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PV.M Garage

PV.M Garage’s blog design uses a very subtle texture in the header design to add a little bit of a ‘worn-out’ feel to the design that works tremendously well.

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Textured Print Design and Illustration

As well as web design, the print design and illustration industry has also seen an increase in the use of texture. With illustration especially, texture adds a completely different dimension to the artwork, making it much more interesting and unique. Below are ten examples of print design and illustration projects that use texture.

Break The Grid Poster

This poster uses a combination of paper and grunge textures to produce an atmospheric background.

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Some People Refuse To Be Default Poster

Old and worn paper textures are used here to produce a superb natural and vintage look.

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Artist Poster

Without the grunge texture used in this poster, the design would be very plain and minimalstic. The texture has added a completely new look to the design.

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Albertlo Design Business Card

This business card has a real texture (it is wire embossed). However, if you’re not too bothered about the feel of your card, the exact same look can be produced using just digital texture.

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Mixx To The Maxx – Album Art

This album artwork uses a texture as its main background and plays a very important part in the designs composition.

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Swim or Drown

This superb illustration by Sauer Kids uses various different grungy textures to add add a ‘dirty’ look to the otherwise very clean illustration.

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When I Grow Up

This typographic-based illustration uses all natural colors against a brown packaging paper textured background. An extremely simple but effect use of a texture.

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The Boy, the Cloud, the Umbrella and the Stars

Wooden textures are used to add a grainy look to this superb illustration. As the illustration is very transparent, the texture also plays a big part in the color scheme of the artwork.

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Stitch

Stitch is a simple illustration with a limited color scheme, and has been brought to life by being place against a cardboard box texture.

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We used to talk more.

This wonderful illustration by ‘Pope Saint Victor’ uses very subtle grunge textures to create a completely different feel to the comical illustration.

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Premium Texture Packs

Premium texture packs are a great and affordable way to get your hands on extremely high resolution textures. Below I have rounded up a magnificent collection of 60 premium files and packs ready for you to download and use straight away in your designs. What are you waiting for? Lets go!

Metal Textures

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Metal Dotz (1 Texture – $1)

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Fiber Carbon Patterns (10 Textures – $5)

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Metal Effect Background Pack (8 Textures – $4)

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Ultimate Carbon Pack (10 Textures – $4)

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Black Patterns (10 Textures – $5)

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Pinpoint (1 Texture – $1)

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Stainless Steel (1 Texture – $1)

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Doble Mesh Metal (1 Texture – $4)

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Tileable Metal Plate (1 Texture – $2)

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Oil-Stained Mesh (1 Textures – $1)

Paint Textures

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Watercolor (15 Textures – $10)

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Blue Wooden Planks and Cracked Paint (1 Texture – $1)

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Paint Pack (5 Textures – $2)

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Swirled Green Paint (5 Textures – $3)

Wood Textures

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Dark Woodz Textures (12 Textures – $1)

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Wood Texture Pack (8 Textures – $4)

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Wood Texture Pack 2 (8 Textures – $4)

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Cool Wood Textures (26 Textures – $6)

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Dark Wood (1 Textures – $1)

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Colorful Wood Pack (6 Textures – $1)

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Wet Wood (1 Textures – $2)

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Mossy Bark Texture (1 Texture – $1)

Nature and Food Textures

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Reeds (1 Texture – $2)

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Vanilla Sky (5 Textures – $6)

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Meat (1 Textures – $1)

Light Textures

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Starry Sky (1 Textures – $1)

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Light Blur Pack (4 Textures – $2)

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Bokeh Pack (7 Textures – $4)

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Multicolored Blurs (12 Textures – $8)

Concrete, Brick and Stone Textures

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Chocolate Wall (1 Texture – $1)

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>Scratched Concrete Texture (3 Textures – $2)

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Asphalt (1 Texture – $1)

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Brick Wall (1 Texture – $1)

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Road Paint (4 Textures – $4)

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Extreme Texture Pack (36 Textures – $10)

Paper Textures

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Old Paper (8 Textures – $4)

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Old Paper with Transparent Tape (1 Textures – $4)

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Parchment (1 Texture – $1)

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Old Parchment (1 Texture – $2)

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Old Paper (1 Texture – $1)

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Stained Paper (4 Textures – $5)

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Grunge Paper (1 Texture – $2)

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Stained Paper (1 Texture – $1)

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Coffee and Fire Paper (2 Textures – $2)

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Dirty Wrinkled Burned Paper (1 Texture – $2)

Grunge Textures

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Colorful Pack (12 Textures – $6)

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Handmade Pack 1 (8 Textures – $4)

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Handmade Pack 2 (8 Textures – $5)

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Handmade Pack 3 (8 Textures – $5)

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Textures of Tuscany (25 Textures – $6)

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Grunge (1 Texture – $1)

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Pretty Grungy (1 Texture – $2)

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Funky Grunge (10 Textures – $5)

Material, Fabric and Fur Textures

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Canvas (1 Texture – $1)

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Theater Curtains (1 Textures – $2)

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Luxury Leather Pack (5 Textures – $3)

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English Pub (2 Textures – $2)

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Canvas (1 Texture – $1)

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Dog Fur (1 Texture – $1)

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Tea and Coffee Stained Fabric (8 Textures – $5)

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So, how do you use textures?

There are many ways you can use textures in your work, whether you be a web or print designer, an illustrator, a photographer or even a scrapbook artist! The most common way of using textures is by placing theme above certain layers in Adobe Photoshop, and then playing with different Hue/Saturation Levels, Blending Modes and Opacity Levels. The following selection of tutorials all use textures, so check them out if you want to see how professionals incorporate texture in their own designs.

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Create a Grungy, Translucent Web Portfolio Design

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How to Create Cityscape Concept Art

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Create a Watercolor-Themed Website Design

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Dirty Design: Create a Grungy Thriller Book Cover

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Create a Leather-Textured, Realistic Briefcase Icon

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How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

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How to Use Texture and Lighting to Create Rounded Artwork

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How to Create a Photo Manipulation of a Flooded City Scene

Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect: Plugins to Integrate FB and Wordpress

New Services Threaten to Cannibalize Revenue

Make a Freezing Cold Snow-themed Abstract Piece

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a snow-themed large piece. You’ll learn how to plan the composition of the piece, to add elements into the composition, how to recycle the piece itself to generate more elements for the piece, how to incorporate pentools into a design and finally how to finish off and fine tune the piece to make it look great.

Put on a scarf, jacket and gloves, switch on your heater, make yourself some tea and let’s get started!

Want access to the full .PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month.

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Step 1

Create a new document that is roughly 650px wide and 850px high at the default Photoshop resolution. Grab your gradient tool, and fill the "Background" layer with a radial gradient, with the foreground color as 9ab5c1, and the background color as d3dde0.

Drag the gradient fill tool fromt he middle, all the way to the right, far out of the canvas to create a smooth gradient. You should have something like this:

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Step 2

Before starting the piece, we must first plan out a "skeleton" for all the elements to go on. I decided to base the piece off a zig-zagged shape flow. When trying to compose your own piece, ensure that you don’t have a composition that is simply a rectangle, square, or something boring. Use loads of edges and angles so you can have more to play around with when you start adding elements.

Using the pentool, create a few simple long shapes. I chose varying shades of blue and as you can see, I chose to make all the angles 45 degrees.

Pentool the lines vertically and then as you free trasnform and rotate a bunch of the shapes, hold down ‘Shift’ so the rotations will happen in short movements.

Composition wise, 45 degree angles help give the piece variety in composition so it’s not just one square as mentioned. Since they’re all sloping diagonally or horizontally, there is a sort of geometry created.

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Step 3

I’m quite happy with the base skeleton of this piece, so now it’s time to add some elements. With the theme of this piece being snowy, I decided to add some renders of snowy mountains. I chose a stock image of people skiing on the mountain. For you, a good choice would be stock with detailed mountains that are mostly snowy, but with a few rocks. A few rocks will add detail to the piece, while too many will make it too complicated. Avoid mountains that are just rocks or just snow. The stock I chose is from cgtextures.com. If you want to use this as a texture, I suggest you make an account there and download it yourself.

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Step 4

Take out the magenetic lasso tool and use the settings pictured below to render the mountain. Move the magnetic lasso tool without clicking along the edge of the mountain. The magnetic lasso should snap to the edges of the mountain. Next, create a selection of what you don’t want in your render, and hit delete. Erase the little bits that remain. The great thing about rendering mountains is that they’re meant to be rough and craggy, so a quick render in this case works and no real edge refining needs to be done. The outcome is clean-cut, as shown.

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Step 5

Take the render and place it on your initial skeleton. In my composition, I decided to put the mountains against a corner. I did this because the right side of the mountain was cut off in the picture, so it made sense to put that side against an edge. Select the layer with your render, hit Ctrl – T for free transform and hold down Shift while transforming. This ensures that the render rotates the same way your pentooled shapes do.

Rotate the render until it looks good to you. I had to do a bit of erasing to make it work with the pentooled shapes. Use the eraser tool as you need it.

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Step 6

Continue cutting out mountains, and putting them where you like them best. As you can see, I kept the types of mountains fairly consistent – snowy with some rocks. It’s a good idea not to put all the mountains below the pentooled lines, since that would make everything quite boring. I layered the elements so that sometimes the mountain peaks went over the pentooled shapes. Make sure that you leave space in your piece for elements that you will add later. Notice that my bottom mountain isn’t really even against the pentooled shapes. You might want to vary what you do so the piece isnt over-organised.

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Step 7

At this stage, you should be confident that your base composition is good. From now on, we’ll be refining the base and adding things to what we have. My mountain shapes are looking very raw, so I duplicated each of my mountains and selected the lower layer of the two. Select > Blending Options > Color Overlay, and select a color that you used in your initial pentooled skeleton. Try not to use other colors, as we are trying to keep the color scheme quite uniform at this stage. Nudge the color overlayed-shape a few times so it gives one side of your mountain render an outline. Now we have managed to "tie in" the mountains with the shapes.

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Step 8

It feels like my piece is slightly too edgey and angular. What about yours? Adding some rounder elements would make the piece work much better. I decided to fill up the blank space I left in the middle right of my composition. To start off, I made a round circle using the Shape tool, holding down Shift as I make the circle so it’s a perfect circle.

The next step is to clip-mask things into the circle. Create a new layer above the shape layer, then right-click this new layer, and select "Create New Clipping mask". Whatever you do on a clip masked area, it will only show within the perimeters of the layer below the clip masks. In this case, we want whatever we do to only show in the circle we created.

On the clip masked layer, go to Image > Apply Image and hit OK at the default setting. What you have showing in your circle is an image of the whole piece so far. I’m going to recycle the piece we have so far and use it to create new elements. I desaturate the clip masked image by hitting Ctrl + Shift + U, and move it around a little until it looks good. Next, create a new layer above the 2 layers you just worked with and also make this a clip mask. Grab a soft brush, size 300, make it black, and brush around the sides of the image. Create another clip mask layer on top, and then brush on some light blue colors. Use colors that match your piece.

You should now end up with a collection of layers that look something like this.

Three layers clip masking one shape layer.

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Step 9

The next step is simply to continue adding circle shapes as elements using clipping masks like in the last step. In my other circles, I decided not to desaturate the applied image. This makes it blend with the piece much better. Experiment though! You might come across something that looks much better. Here’s my outcome. I added circles near the corners of the piece to fill up the composition, and another at the bottom left again just to spice things up.

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Step 10

After using the color applied images to form the images in the circles, I realise that my desaturated applied image didn’t really work well. Instead of just changing it, I added another circle with a clipping mask on top, but this time, instead of brushing black though, I brushed white. The initial logic of brushing black was because it was under the rendered mountains. Now, however, since this circle is on top, brushing white to give it a ’shiny orb’ effect makes sense. Unlike other elements, I made sure this one was right on top of other layers and covered significant parts of other elements. Layering properly with the correct shadows is extremely important. This gives your piece depth.

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Step 11

At this stage, I’m quite happy with the weight and composition of this piece. But I’m not really happy with the overall feel of the piece – it’s really boring at the moment, with only mountains and recycled clip masks of the same image. It’s time to add a new element. I decided the piece needed something edgy, and also, as a rule, I try to include as much detail in everything I put into my piece. This is so that in the end the effect of "Fineness" shows through, and the elements arent huge chunky blocks. I decided on this stock image of an industrial plant. The stock is also from cgtextures.com.

The high spire on the right of this image is a good choice, it sticks out the most and is very usable in our piece.

Zooming in, I begin to isolate that part of the piece I want. I do this using the polygonal lasso tool. I don’t usually do this to render, however, the magnetic lasso misbehaves on this, the white in the background and the white of the pipes are way too similar, causing the magnetic lasso to cut this image quite badly. Go all the way around and close the lasso.

Hit Ctrl-I to invert your selection, which is the object you actually want. Hit Delete. This deletes off everything else and you’ll be left with a fairly clean cut-out object.

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Step 12

The reason I chose a long-ish (vertical) element was because I wanted to have an element that added detail into the piece, but not ruin the shape of it. Now I’ll adjust the element and align it with my initial composition.

Aligning it with my composition means that the elements will have to be parrallel with those red lines above. This ensures that the new elements do not mess up the flow and weight of this piece. Taking the render, I hit Ctrl – T to free transform it, and hold down Shift as I rotate the render to be parrallel with my skeleton.

You might have noticed I varied the sizes of the renders and made the one at the bottom lighter and desaturated. This is to try to give variety to the elements I added.

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Step 13

I’m done with adding renders and high-detail elements, so now for some simpler shapes. While I think of what shapes I should add, I’m always bearing in mind that the shape shouldn’t disrupt the flow and weight of this piece. However, I want to avoid using boring straight rectangles just to fill up the composition. I need to use something simple yet appealing. I decided on an L shape.

I started off holding down Shift to pentool a normal, L shape, but I felt was slightly boring, so I decided to curve it. For those who are newer with the pentool, you can achieve this by adding two pentool points on either side of each of the L corners and then remove the initial corner so a curve is created between the two new points you’ve made. By dragging the 2 points and by moving the curve, I’m able to make a nice curved L shape. After my shape is done, I right-click > Create vector mask.

Hint – It’s a good idea to hold down Shift while you manipulate this shape. This will keep everything straight.

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Step 14

Now we have these shapes, it’s time to apply them to the piece. Again, using an L shape is a good idea, because if you rotate it 45 degrees, whichever direction the L shape points to, it will always be parallel with the flow of the piece.

Vector masks mean you can paint whatever you want to the layer and it won’t affect the overall shape of the object. I fill each layer with a dull blue and vary this slightly for each of the shapes. I take a soft brush and brush the edges of the shapes slightly white and black to make it look better. This is similar to the brushing of the orbs using clipping masks in Step 8.

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Step 15

Something I do with all my pieces is to add some sort of texture. In this case, I wanted to keep the background clear, so I decdided to use splatter brushes behind the composition. The 2 brushes below I downloaded from Deviantart.com – they’re by artists quells and Osiris2735 respectively. I arranged these splatters behind the pieces so only the drippy parts show. Satisfied with some light splattering, I decide the piece needs some more effects.

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Step 16

Effects serve the purpose of hiding the "rawness" of the piece, and in this case, it’ll turn a bunch of renders into an art piece. The piece has a snowy, icy atmosphere, but it’s missing something that goes hand in hand with cold mountains… clouds! I downloaded a great cloud brush pack from Deviant Art, by JavierZhX.

After that, it’s a simple matter of brushing them around the piece. Now the piece is starting to look less flat and much nicer.

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Step 17

I decided that more flashy effects were needed. By luck, I just finished creating a pack of fractals with ChaosScope. ChaosScope is open source software that generates colorful fractals. Below are some fractals I made with the software, which I then used in the piece. I simply desaturated the fractals by hitting Ctrl-Shift-U, and set it to a linear-dodge layer mode. The types of fractals I used are shown below. If you are generating your own fractals, be sure to use those with edges, and not smooth flowy fractals. You want to give the effects a sharp feeling.

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Step 18

Looking at the piece, the "raw" parts that stand out most are the pentooled lines. They form the framework for the piece but are looking lonely right now. Using the ChaosScope fractals, align them on linear dodge to the lines so you create a sort of ‘rushed’ effect. Erase anything that looks bad with a soft brush. I get something like this.

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Step 19

Time for some fine detailing. The piece is quite solid, but everything is stuck to the main frame. To fix this I added 2 small bits of detail.

Using Pentool > Elipse, I drew a circle. Hold down Shift while drawing the pentooled lines to make this circle a perfect one. Right-click the pentooled lines, and "Create Vector Mask". On the normal layer, I then go to Image > Apply Image and hit OK with the default settings. Although you applied the whole piece so far, only a little circle of it will show. Unlink the layers (as shown below) so you can move the layer or the layer mask around seperately. Below is an unlinked layer. As you can see, the chain between the layer mask and layer is gone, allowing me to move it around. The two added circles are shown below. Other than a clipmasked area, I also added a blue colored solid filled circle behind.

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Step 20

For more detail, I downloaded a set of bird brushes from WingsOfAHero on Deviant Art. There are many sets of bird brushes on Deviant Art, so find one which has many smaller birds. I brushed and erased a little, and here is the outcome. I decided to add birds in the middle.

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Step 21

Now to add a little more shine and detail to the piece, add some little sparkles. I like to add night sky stocks to the piece, since the stars in the sky work as good sparkles, and usually there is a glow to photos of the night sky. The flow can add shine to your piece. I used a few night sky stocks taken by a friend, but you can easily find stocks from Deviant Art. Nebula stocks will also work. I arranged the sparkles to come off the mountains, and as you can see, the sparkles are VERY slight and hard to see. Don’t worry, the sparkles will really show soon enough. In this step, I also added some random 1 px pentooled lines in parts of the piece.

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Step 22

The background is looking a little flat, so going back to the background layer, I created a new layer above it and brushed the edges black with a very soft brush (I used a 1500px soft black brush). Do the same with white on the seperate layer, but brush in the middle. Set both of these layers on 35% opacity for the black and 40% for the white. This gives the effect that there is a spot light on the piece.

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Step 23

Using more chaos scope fractals, I added a blue effect to the background. The type of fractal I used is slightly different though. I created more explosive, effectual fractals for this. These are desaturated before I add them.

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Step 24

Finally, with everything in place, it’s time to make the piece’s atmosphere really solid. At the moment, it is slightly bright, so we will add a curves layer to darken things up. Using a curve layer on quite extreme settings, I darkened the whole piece.

I also added two gradient maps, both are black and white.

1- From Black to White – Set on luminosity – 12% – Adds a little contrast

2 – From White to Black – Set on Normal – 20% – This desaturates the piece slightly

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Step 23

The piece is almost complete! I gave the piece another black and white gradient map to desaturate the blueness of the piece’s edges (again use soft brushing!), because I felt it was taking attention away from the center. After that, create a new layer, go to Image > Apply image and now you have your whole piece in one layer. Sharpen this layer and set it on 60%. And there you have a complete, polished piece.

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Conclusion

I actually added some shiny effects that I made myself. These are simple to make – just draw random lines with a hard white brush, and motion blur it alot, and you get these fast, blurred effects.

And there you have it, a snow-themed abstract piece.

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Inspiration: 90+ Photo-Based Book Covers

Book covers can be incredibly creative design projects. They can also be wildly challenging when compared with many other types of designs. A cover has to not only tell something about what the story is about, but also be appealing to the book’s target readership.

Many book cover designers turn to photographs when creating book covers. Not all books have the budget for custom photo shoots, so often stock images have to be used. And what many readers don’t realize is that many book covers are actually composite images, made up of multiple stock images to create the look and feel the designer is after.

Photo Manipulations

Overt photo manipulations are often used on covers for fantasy, science fiction, and horror books. These are things we know don’t exist, yet using photos for the book cover makes the entire book feel more real to many readers.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Art Director: Rex Bonomelli

Seventeen Seventeen Jerome by Richard Thornley
Designed by Jamie Keenan

Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongala
Designed by Kwasi Osei

The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo by Darrin Doyle
Designer Unknown

Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
Designer Unknown

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
Designer Unknown

Historical and Vintage Photographs

Whether it’s for a novel or nonfiction work, vintage-looking and historical photos are a popular choice for cover designs. They lend a sense of permanence to a book, like it’s stood the test of time. These are particularly popular for historical works, obviously, but they’re also seen on literary and other books from time to time.

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise
Designer Unknown

Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan by Phillip Lopate

Paris by Colin Jones
Designed by Jasmine Lin

The Bauhaus Group by Nicholas Fox Weber
Designed by Peter Mendelsund

The Pieces from Berlin by Michael Pye
Designed by Gabriele Wilson

At Swim Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
Designed by John Fulbrook III

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Designed by Rodrigo Corral

Experience by Martin Amis
Designed by John Gall

Why Kerouac Matters by John Leland
Designed by Greg Mollica

Empire Rising by Thomas Kelly
Designed by Henry Sene Yee

Whatever It Takes by Paul Tough
Designed by Henry Sene Yee

The Essential Tales of Chekhov Edited by Richard Ford
Designed by Chip Kidd

The Distaff Side by Elizabeth Palmer
Designer Unknown

Abstract & Unconventional Photos

Sometimes an abstract or unconventional photo can say a lot more about a book’s contents than a more literal interpretation. They can also be appealing to potential readers, as they add a sense of mystery to the cover, encouraging bookstore browsers to pick the book up and have a look. These are particularly popular for literary fiction and mainstream novels, as well as poetry volumes, though they’re really seen across genres.

Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley
Designer Unknown

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
Designed by Siege

The River Wife by Jonis Agee
Designed by Lynn Buckley

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis
Designed by John Gall

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Designed by Greg Mollica

The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
Designed by Lynn Buckley

Skin Game: A Cutter’s Memoir by Caroline Kettlewell
Designed by Henry Sene Yee

Spook by Mary Roach
Designed by Keenan

Blood’s a Rover by James Ellroy
Designed by Chip Kidd

Black Seconds by Karin Fossum
Designed by Christopher Moisan

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
Designed by Gabriele Wilson

Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett
Designed by Helen Yentus

The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi
Designed by Rodrigo Corral

Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Designed by Mother

U.S.! by Chris Bachelder
Designer Unknown

Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames
Designed by Paul Sahre

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Designed by Henry Sene Yee

The Good Life by Jay McInerney
Designed by John Gall

American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent
Designed by Jason J. Heuer

Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman
Designed by Paul Sahre

In Europe by Geert Mak
Designed by Jason Booher

Can I Have a Word With You? by Howard Richler
Designed by David Drummond

Garden State by Rick Moody
Designed by Paul Sahre

Vintage PKD by Philip K. Dick
Designed by John Gall

The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living by Martin Clark
Designed by Evan Gaffney

NoVA by James Boice
Designed by Paul Sahre

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander
Designed by Helen Yentus

Time by Eva Hoffman
Designed by Henry Sene Yee

This I Believe Edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman
Designer Unknown

Portrait Photos

A brief introductory paragraph about the category, if appropriate

Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange and Anthony Bozza
Designed by Rodrigo Corral

December by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop
Designer Unknown

Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints by Joan Acocella
Designed by Archie Ferguson

Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey
Designed by Chip Kidd

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Designed by Keenan

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead by Frank Meeink and Jody M. Roy
Designed by Pinch

Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Designed by Gabriele Wilson

The Open Road by Pico Iyer
Designed by Helen Yentus

Can They Do That? by Lewis Maltby
Designed by Matt Dorfman

The Anchor Book of New Irish Writing Edited by John Somer and John J. Daly
Designed by Megan Wilson

The War Against Cliche by Martin Amis
Designed by John Gall

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
Designed by Evan Gaffney

General Photos

Sometimes photographic covers offer a more literal approach. These often consist of images that are directly related to the book’s contents, sometimes even custom shots taken specifically for the book. But they’re still incredibly creative and require just as much skill to effectively pull off as any of the other types above.

Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller
Designed by Evan Gaffney

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss

Sexy Librarian by Julia Weist
Designed by Kristian Bjornard

The Tourists by Jeff Hobbs
Designer Unknown

The Honeymoon’s Over by Andrea Chapin
Designer Unknown

Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey
Designed by David Konopka

The Abomination by Paul Golding
Designed by Chip Kidd

Wheeling Motel by Franz Wright
Designed by Carol Devine Carson

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Designed by John Gall

Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy by Melissa Milgrom
Designed by Christopher Moisan

How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet
Designed by Christopher Moisan

These Granite Islands by Sarah Stonich
Designed by John Fulbrook III

Bow’s Boy by Richard Babcock
Designed by John Fullbrook III

Missing Men by Joyce Johnson
Designed by Joe Montgomery

King Arthur in The East Riding by Simon Armitage
Designed by Samantha Johnson

The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’Ambrosio
Designed by Rodrigo Corral

The Spatial Economy by Masahisa Fujita, Paul Krugan, and Anthony J. Venables
Designed by Ori Kometani

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Designed by High Design NYC

The Assassin’s Song by M.G. Vassanji
Designed by Kelly Blair

Making Certain It Goes On by Richard Hugo
Designed by Darren Haggar

Calamity and Other Stories by Daphne Kalotay
Designed by Kelly Blair

Fire in a Canebrake by Laura Wexler
Designed by Paul Sahre

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Designed by Paul Sahre and Christopher Brand

Insurmountable Simplicities by Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi
Designed by David Drummond

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Designer Unknown

Home by Marilynne Robinson
Designer Unknown

The Year It Snowed in April by Eva Bottier
Designer Unknown

Mozart’s Ghost by Julia Cameron
Designer Unknown

Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’Easter by Lisa Patton
Designer Unknown

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