Hi Terry,
I think we've been here before haven't we?
Having designed and illustrated quite a few mass market book covers and jackets in the past (fiction and non-fiction), and having just completed the text for a new book about the illustrated dust jacket, to be published next year, I have a keen interest in the subject. What the text of the article is actually saying is that researchers have managed to program a computer to register that 'this is a book about engineering/ cookery/ travel' (though it seems they can't recognise many other subjects or distinguish between comics and children's books). When it comes to actually designing, this would seem to be equivalent to having climbed the first six inches of Everest. I don't think we are going to see a computer designed equivalent any time soon to E. Michael Mitchell's exquisite cover for The Catcher in the Rye or Alvin Lustig's 1940s designs for the New Directions literature series.
Of course a computer can produce a book cover- i.e. an assemblage of text and some form of image that says 'this is a book about …'. That's not what I understand as 'design' though. When computers have emotions they will be able to design book covers. But, as I say, we've been here before… many times.
Best wishes,
Martin
Professor Martin Salisbury
Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration
Director, The Centre for Children's Book Studies
Cambridge School of Art
0845 196 2351
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http://www.cambridgemashow.com
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Terence Love [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 2:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Steps to automated design of book covers and design research participation
A couple of steps along the way of automated design of book covers
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602807/deep-neural-network-learns-to-judg
e-books-by-their-covers/
Although this work focused only on book covers, book covers are themselves
representative of many classes of products in which the external appearance
is indicative of the content or functioning.
Indeed, all interfaces and many useability considerations could be regarded
as being in this set.
A key question is how do/are designers and design researchers contributing
to this research path of automating design?
Best wishes,
Terence
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, PMACM, MISI
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
www.loveservices.com.au <http://www.loveservices.com.au>
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