Skeuomorphism is the design concept of making items represented resemble their real-world counterparts.
Paper folds, dog-ears, rips, holes, burns, scrapbooking collage, scrap cardboard, plane tickets, letters, post-it notes… These book covers are designed to look like derivative objects.
A DAMAGED PRODUCT
Some book covers look as if they’ve been defaced with scribblings and crossings-out:
Book covers utilising ripped paper right across the page overwhelmingly indicate misery, trauma and crime.
VARIOUS PRINTED EPHEMERA WHICH ARE NOT BOOKS
Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14
COMIC STRIP AS COVER
MAGAZINE COVER OR NEWSPAPER
SEWING AND EMBROIDERY
FABRIC COLLAGE
GINGHAM
STAINED LEADED GLASS
BEADWORK
MOSAIC ART
COMPUTER SKEUOMORPHISM
This one is interesting because it combines a digital clock with a fabric texture, combining imagery from two different eras:
PAPER ARTS
LEAD Technologies Inc. V1.01Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14
A POSTER
Might be a wanted poster, or a folded poster stuck with wheat-paste:
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
