AI in Cover Creation

Turning an idea into an image with AI

Michael Carr

8/15/20242 min read

I've used optical character recognition software (OCR) for over a decade. Then there was navigation software and apps, then Google introduced pattern recognition to Google Translate. Later, DeepL took that a step further. I had used all of these tools in my work, but I had never attempted to use AI to turn an idea into an image.

Recently, I was hired by Barclay Henderson to help him organize and publish a collection of his blog posts. We agreed upon a title which would convey the irony and humor of his book: Laugh Your Way to Wisdom. So I had the task of creating a cover image.

In our discussions we had joked about the Socratic nature of his book. As did Socrates, Barclay raised important questions without giving direct answers. But Barclay nearly always had a humorous twist to his stories. So, I had the idea of using a cover image of Plato or Socrates laughing.

How could I find such an image. Were there statues or paintings of our philosophers laughing? I ran some searches to try to find such images. I could find none that would do. And after all, we don't normally think of ancient Athens as a center of humor!

Could I paint such an image? Probably not. I do various types of graphic design, image editing, and "bleeding" pictures and paintings out past the edge of a book cover, but painting Socrates laughing would be beyond my skills. What could we do?

I decided to try out Canva's AI assistant. I asked it to create an image of statues of laughing Greek philosophers sitting on a bench, with the Acropolis in the background. After several minutes, the image you see on the cover above was returned to me along with several other attempts that were notably inferior for my intended purpose.

I was impressed by the expressions on the faces (especially on the central figure), the uniformity of the shadows, and the color of the stone. The only noticeable deficiencies were the missing textures and signs of wear on the statues, the apparently incongruous thin "Chartres-like" columns on the extreme left of the background, and the strange upper image. But overall, this was far better than anything I could have created on my own. So, we were impressed.

I trimmed the top at an oblique angle to correspond with the entablature above the columns, took the shadow color from the image to use as the background color for the cover, and found a font that had a crude engraved look to it. So, that image became the basis of a beautiful, engaging cover.

Cover of Laugh Your Way to Wisdom
Cover of Laugh Your Way to Wisdom