AI has great potential for creating remarkable book cover imagery, but this specific cover design process made us realise that it needs intense creative direction and detailed prompt engineering by humans in order to produce the right outcome.
This historical mystery drama required specific visual elements—a gate, a cemetery, and a looming grand mansion—all requested by the author. While we employed AI to generate artwork for this cover, we wanted to avoid overly polished, artificial-looking AI-generated designs. Instead, we aimed for a handcrafted aesthetic that would evoke traditional woodblock printing and collage techniques, giving the work an organic, tactile quality.
The creative process involved 176 different iterations and continuously refined text prompts. But the final image successfully captures the moody atmosphere this story demands: suspenseful, thrilling, dark, and mysterious.
