amicis librorum digital marbling

Three Book Covers From the 1970s

Amicis Librorum was a series of three books published by the VEB Polygraph in Leipzig in the years 1971, 1974 and 1978, respectively.

Each book comes in its own box. Both book and box are covered with marbled paper with the Peacock or Bouquet pattern

I was able to purchase all three volumes in very good condition from my local antique bookseller.

On this page are photographs of the three volumes and my attempts at replicating each of then digitally. Finally, I posted the replicas, but with more pleasing (in my opinion) proportions of each colour. 

Volume 1

Volume I has a colour palette oriented around brown.

Click here for a much larger image (2130×3570 pixels/12.1MB). 

digital marbling amicis librorum

I used the following six-colour palette in my attempt to re-create this cover digitally. About 88% of the area of this pattern is either brown or black.

amicis librorum 1 digital marbling

Volume II

Volume II is marbled in bright colours including red, blue and yellow.

Click here for a much larger image (2143×3460 pixels/13.2 MB).

digital marbling amicis librorum

And here is my digital re-creation of the cover of Volume 2, together with the palette I used.

amicis librorum digital marbling palette
digital marbling amicis librorum

Volume III

Volume III has a reddish-brown tone with dashes of green and blue.

Click here for a much larger image (2000×3360 pixels/10.7MB).

amicis librorum digital marbling

Here is my re-creation of cover #3. It contains more detail than the other two. The dark red-brown colour occupies about 2/3 of the area of the pattern.

digita marbling amicis librorum palette
digital marbling amicis librorum

I think a more balanced use of the colours  creates a more pleasing effect:

Here, I reduced the proportion of black from about 45% to about 22% and also increased the level of detail:

Here, I have almost halved the proportion of red-brown, so that the colours are more evenly balanced:

amicis librorum digital marbling
amicis librorum digital marbling
amicis librorum digital marbling

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