157 Animated Minimalist Mid-Century Book Covers

Graph­ic and motion design­er Hen­ning M. Led­er­er can’t get enough of those min­i­mal­ist mid­cen­tu­ry book cov­ers.

Appar­ent­ly, the over-the-top pulp sce­nar­ios that inspire fel­low peri­od cov­er enthu­si­ast Todd Alcott leave Led­er­er cold.

He’s drawn to the stark, the geo­met­ric, the abstract. No heav­ing bosoms, no for­bid­den love, though there’s no deny­ing that sex was a top­ic of great clin­i­cal inter­est to sev­er­al of the authors fea­tured above, includ­ing psy­chi­a­trists Charles Rycroft, H. R. Beech, and R.D. Laing.

Visu­al­ly, the psy­cho-ana­lyt­ic titles appear inter­change­able with the more straight­for­ward texts in this, Lederer’s third in a series of light­ly ani­mat­ed peri­od book cov­ers:

The Intel­li­gent Woman’s Guide to Atom­ic Radi­a­tion

Med­ical Com­pli­ca­tions Dur­ing Preg­nan­cy

Gen­er­al­ized Ther­mo­dy­nam­ics

Pin­wheels, rip­ples, and scrolling har­le­quin pat­terns abound. Stare at them long enough if you want to cure your insom­nia or become one with the uni­verse.

Tilman Grundig’s sound­track ensures that the play­ing field will stay lev­el. No title is sin­gled out for extra son­ic atten­tion.

That said, Noise by Rupert Tay­lor, an expert con­sul­tant in acoustics and noise con­trol, stands apart for the humor and nar­ra­tive sen­si­bil­i­ty of its visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Per­haps that’s why Led­er­er saved it for last.

To date, he’s ani­mat­ed 157 cov­ers. Enjoy them all above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Songs by David Bowie, Elvis Costel­lo, Talk­ing Heads & More Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers

The Art of Sci-Fi Book Cov­ers: From the Fan­tas­ti­cal 1920s to the Psy­che­del­ic 1960s & Beyond

French Book­store Blends Real People’s Faces with Book Cov­er Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Novem­ber 12 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.