Books & Sleeves: Motion Graphics for Classic Design

An audiovisual project that adds animation to book and album covers

Henning M. Lederer is a visual communication and animation artist born in Essen, Germany. He studied in Germany and the UK, and works as an independent graphic and motion graphics designer for different international clients. Besides his commercial work, he likes to create personal projects and seek collaborations.

His project Books & Sleeves came after a simple but very attractive premise: How would these great book graphics and record covers from the past look like when set in motion? His work is an example of how rescuing design from other times can result in a product with a contemporary look. We chatted with him about his quest to give new life to vintage design.

Are you a book lover?

Good question. I think, I am. I grew up being surrounded by books. My parents have a huge collection of novels, museum catalogs, art books, science books, etc. So, whenever I see a bookshop, I am happy to have a look & explore. I definitely prefer the haptic feeling of a physical book compared to any digital publication.

Why did you decide to add motion to vintage designs?

As a graphic designer, I was of course fascinated by the design itself, the use of colours, shapes, and typography. But as I am mainly working as a motion designer, the next question came up to my head immediately: How would these great book graphics from the past look like when set in motion?

There are already more than 200 covers in total and when working on the latest video, I decided that there also some very intriguing record sleeves out there… so it’s an ongoing experiment as I always discover new vintage graphics that might work when set in motion.

How do you transform these designs?

I am very fascinated by the variety of styles and ideas. Most of the covers are from the 70s or 80s –and there are so many different approaches.

In my videos, there are lots of looping bits, resulting in mesmerizing and hypnotizing patterns. Other covers are much more figurative – including blinking eyes, rotating gears, or even some characters. So, there are lots to play with!

How did you collaborate with others for this project?

The music was created by Tilman Grundig from Leipzig, Germany. He is a friend of my brother, that’s how we got in touch. Also, it is already our second collaboration as he created the score for the previous cover video as well.

This is always an interesting part for me because when working on personal projects I quite like to give as much creative freedom as possible to all the other participants. In this case, I only had a few basic ideas for the music, but the rest was then put together by Till. He suggested a few approaches and then we decided together what works best.

Also, when the final score was there, I decided to change again a few bits within the animation, so that it works better together. I guess that’s part of any creative collaboration!

Which are some of the sources you used?

Some of the material came from these Instagram accounts: Canada Modern, Isolated Graphics, Julian Montague Project, Kristen Lound, Libri Belli y Shawn Hazen.

Follow Henning on Instagram to get to know more about his work.

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