Cover styles

A cover style is an art-direction template — a layout, a typographic idiom, and rules for imagery — that the press fills with one book’s title, author, palette, and subject. The house library spans the history of the form, from the 1935 Penguin grid to contemporary collage. Every cover below is a different book — its own title, author, palette, and subject — so the catalogue shows the range each style covers, not one book drawn ten ways. Your config names the style; the same engine draws them all.

A Penguin tri-band sample cover — Penguin tri-band 1935–, Edward Young & Jan Tschichold Horizontal colour bands, cream centre, Gill Sans, a woodcut vignette. `penguin-tri-band`

A Swiss / International Typographic sample cover — Swiss / International Typographic 1950s–60s, Müller-Brockmann, Facetti Asymmetric grid, Helvetica, flush-left, vast whitespace, one bold field. `swiss-international`

A Mid-century Modernist sample cover — Mid-century Modernist 1940s–50s, Alvin Lustig, Paul Rand An abstract symbolic mark, limited palette, playful and intellectual. `midcentury-modern`

A Victorian patterned clothbound sample cover — Victorian patterned clothbound 19th c.; revived by Coralie Bickford-Smith A repeating engraved pattern fills the cloth; a central gilt cartouche. `victorian-clothbound`

A Pulp / genre paperback sample cover — Pulp / genre paperback 1940s–60s dime paperbacks A dramatic full-bleed painted scene, bold condensed title. `pulp-paperback`

A Contemporary minimalist literary sample cover — Contemporary minimalist literary 2000s–present Vast negative space, one small motif, elegant restraint. `minimalist-literary`

A Photographic / commercial sample cover — Photographic / commercial 1990s–present trade fiction A full-bleed toned photograph with overlaid clean type. `photographic`

A Art Deco sample cover — Art Deco 1920s–30s Symmetric geometry, stepped forms, sunbursts, gold on dark. `art-deco`

A Bold typographic sample cover — Bold typographic 2010s–present trend The title IS the image — oversized letters fill the cover. `bold-typographic`

A Collage / mixed media sample cover — Collage / mixed media 2010s–present literary & memoir Layered torn paper, overlapping image scraps, hand elements. `collage-mixed-media`

Choosing a style

Name a style and a subject in config/aesthetic.yaml:

cover:
  style: penguin-tri-band
  subject: "a rocky intertidal shore at low tide, tide pools, kelp, a shorebird"

Then commission the art:

press cover                 # uses the style and subject above
press cover --style art-deco    # override for a one-off
press cover --list              # every style, with a one-line note

press cover writes the art to build/cover/ and prints the one command that installs it — press art accept build/cover/cover.png --as cover — the same intake every commissioned cover passes through, which enforces the cover geometry and writes assets/cover.jpg. With no image-model key set, press cover prints the ready-to-run prompt instead, so the same styles drive a manual or agent-run commission and the press stays offline by default.

Making a good one

A few things carry most of the result:

Write the subject like a woodcut caption, not a plot. Name concrete things and a scene: “a rocky intertidal shore at low tide, tide pools, barnacles and mussels, kelp, one shorebird” works; “a book about the sea” does not. Three to eight nouns and a place is the sweet spot.
Let the palette do the colour. Every style prints in your book’s accent on its paper (from config/aesthetic.yaml), so the cover and the book share one identity. A deep, saturated accent reads best; a very pale one gives the model little to work with.
Match the style to the book, not the fashion. A field guide wants the Penguin grid or a woodcut; a book of essays wants minimalist or Swiss; a thriller wants pulp or photographic; a gift edition wants the clothbound pattern. The catalogue above shows the same book in each, so you can judge the fit before you spend a generation.
The title is lettered by the model, and checked by you. baked styles put your exact title and author on the cover; press cover prints the copy it asked for, so glance at the result and re-run if a letter drifts. Keep titles short for the boldest styles.
It is cheap to iterate. Each press cover is one image; run it a few times, or across two or three styles, and keep the one that sings. The art is a one-time commission, committed as assets/cover.jpg, so the choice is permanent only once you accept it.

Building your own

The house set is a starting point, not a fence. Add config/cover-styles.yaml to your book with the same shape, and your styles merge over the built-ins:

styles:
  my-house-style:
    name: "My house style"
    era: "your imprint"
    note: "what it looks like, in a line"
    text: baked            # the model letters the title; use `composited`
                           # to leave the art clear and have the press set type
    prompt: |
      A book cover, portrait, on {paper}. ...describe the layout, imagery, and
      typography... The title "{title}" and author "{author}" set ...

Your template may use {title}, {author}, {imprint}, {initials}, {subject}, {accent}, and {paper}, each filled from your book’s config. Then press cover --style my-house-style. Nothing about the house library is privileged; your book’s styles are first-class.