Designing Books for a Haunted Bookshop

For me, creating book cover art often feels like translation: taking a written idea and turning it into an image so the player can "read" the meaning again visually.

The process usually starts with associations, keywords, and related symbols. I look for a visual language that's clear and emotionally readable, rather than trying to make the design overly complex or obscure. I like it as a conversation with the material. First, you choose what works intuitively; only later do you begin to understand why.

I also think about the book as an object. Is it common, rare, expensive, or almost artifact-like? That affects the amount of decoration, the frame, the surface, the idea of embossing, metallic details, material, and overall finish.

Stylistically I often return to Art Nouveau because it gives me a useful balance between ornament, elegance, and readable symbolism. I also like Celtic-inspired motifs, especially for designs connected to folklore, old magic, nature, or ritual. At the same time I have a long-standing interest in anime and manga culture, which probably influences the way I think about strong silhouettes, character drama, emotional staging, and instantly readable visual archetypes. In practice, these influences don't feel contradictory to me: they all help build covers that are decorative, symbolic, and emotionally direct.

A lot of the work is also about studying vintage and antique book design: decorative borders, gilded covers, illuminated manuscript layouts, bookplates, old title compositions, and symbolic ornament. I'm trying to adapt some of their visual logic to the needs of our game.

This series was one of the harder ones for me because the theme is more abstract: emptiness, cosmic silence, isolation, the end of meaning, and the fear of something beyond human understanding.

My idea was to build a progression around rupture.

The covers move from a "human" symbol of death, to the void becoming an active presence, to the collapse or memorialisation of the cosmos itself. The series gradually removes the human point of reference. At first, we can still read the horror through a skull. Then the void becomes a voice, an eye, a mouth, or a hunger. Finally, there is no face left - only an abstract cosmic wound, or the last monument to reality.

To put it another way: the first book still looks at the cosmos through human eyes. The second shows that the cosmos is looking back. The third leaves only zero.

The surface design imitates stone material. The gold drips suggest something alive, corrupted, sacred, or leaking through the surface. In 3D, this cover could support raised relief, while the stars could glow in the dark, making the books feel like strange physical artifacts.

The skull is the most human image in the series: vacuum silence - is it the end? The last familiar shape before the unknown, the first crack in reality.

The void is no longer just absence, but an active presence: a black hole, a mouth, a pupil, or a voice. The circular lines around the central form read as resonance, signal, or speech. The silence has broken, but what emerges is... hunger?

In the first book, the lines are more decorative and astronomical. In the second, they begin to read as waves, echoes, or transmission.

The final cover removes the skull completely. The image becomes a torn cosmic opening, an illusion, an obelisk as planetary alignment. It can be read as the end of everything, but also as a possible beginning. Nothing remains - or everything is starting again.

Across these covers, the main goal is not just to make attractive book art, but to make each book feel like a readable object inside the game world. With the deep mythology and connections of The Haunted Bookshop, we have a lot to work with!

The Haunted Bookshop is an enchanting cozy mystery horror game where you trade and collect beloved books, using their powers to unlock the eldritch secrets of a small town across repeated playthroughs. We're currently in early development - follow us for updates below or join our Discord community.