General enquiries
campbell@lovework.studio
New business
robyn@lovework.studio
Plucky Books
Plucky books is a new AI book publishing platform where you can make funny books for your friends, boss, or enemy. Lovework Studio worked on the business concept from foundation through to launch – collaborating closely with their teams throughout on business concept, strategy, naming, identity, digital design, cover design system, art-direction and more. The team have been pushing the boundaries of what AI can produce and have created an impressive experience where anyone can make a book by answering a handful of questions and uploading an image. You can choose from a wide range of topics including memoir, romance or sci-fi—giving you the power to make your own bodice ripper, self-centred biography or ridiculous adventure story. Everything comes beautifully printed and packaged providing a gift guaranteed to bring a smile (or shock depending on your motivation).
‘Plucky’ as a name comes with attitude. It’s for people that want their gifts to stand out and get noticed. The leading character of the brand is a courageous goose who pops up throughout the experience as a ‘guide’ and wannabe comedian. If you scroll down to the bottom of the website you can see him in action telling non-stop goose jokes at his ’Ganders’ 24 hour comedy club.
Plucked feathers form the logo, floating gently into position. Like AI, Plucky is not perfect, with crinkles around typographic edges and rough angles featuring as super graphics on the website, communications, social media and book covers. Bright bold colours and an optimistic yellow demand attention.
We designed a flexible cover design system that could be adapted for multiple styles and themes. A system that could be automated and replicated by AI agents who would ultimately generate and publish the finished books based on customer input. The Plucky team took on the daunting task of making everything work technically and we stayed in the loop throughout providing support as and when we were needed.
Rather than waiting for perfection, the team launched in beta mode and have been generating books for months, improving and iterating their AI publishing platform as they go. It’s been amazing to see the leaps and bounds that they’ve been making since the initial sketches and early days. Plucky Books are now available for purchase. Make your Plucky Book today!
We did a lot of laughing throughout the process as we made ourselves central characters on cover designs we created. We developed a wide range of cover themes and styles and had a lot of fun designing tongue in cheek award stamps and AI generated imagery. The tone of voice is cheeky, courageous and fun. Art-direction shows hands interacting with the books on different backgrounds and environments. We used base photography of bookshelves, that we shot in our studio with the lovely Avenue Crew and Campbell and Penny as hand models (yes a lifetime of computer work has left me with beautiful hands). When we had a bank of imagery including books, shelves, surfaces and hands we could then manipulate backgrounds using a combination of generative AI tools and old-school Photoshop.
Creative Direction
Campbell Butler
Account Direction
Robyn Butler
Design
Ashleigh Mackenzie Jennifer Wen Tyler Russell
Naming & TOV
Judah Finnigan
Illustration
Tyler Russell Ashleigh Mackenzie
Animation
Tyler Russell Richard Coldicott
Photography
Avenue Crew
Type Foundries
Jacques Le Bailly Vernon Adams
AI Tools
Claude Chat GPT Weavy Firefly Nano Banana