Artist Henning M. Lederer has once again brought to life a collection of vintage book covers from the ‘60s and ‘70s by transforming their abstract designs into funky animations.
This is the actually the third collection of book covers Lederer has animated, and the results are reminiscent of the moving photos and paintings in the Harry Potter world.
But Lederer sticks to books like reference texts and textbooks whose publishers didn’t necessarily have to worry about shelf appeal to sell copies. As a result, some of these cover designs look like they’ve been crafted using stock artwork downloaded from a clipart repository. But seeing as terms like “download” didn’t have much meaning before the internet came along, I can only assume these minimalist masterpieces were instead churned out by the publishers’ in-house graphic designers.
When sitting static on the page, many of these designs come across as random, or simply confusing. But Lederer’s clever animations help add a bit of context, and sometimes even provide a bit of insight into what might have inspired the graphic designers who created them. Now that ebooks are so prevalent, and many of us only read on our digital devices, Lederer’s work begs the question: Why don’t all books today come with animated covers?
[Vimeo via Laughing Squid]