Opposite Aesthetic – Dark Academia

My up-cycle project is a recycled book transformed into a coffee holder/coffee coaster holder. My original idea was to have it also serve as a small plate for coffee shop snacks, however, that would most likely require a bigger book so I nixed the idea for this specific project.  My aesthetic is light academia.  This aesthetic is identifiable by its brighter colors, earthy tones, positive themes, and relatively cheerful nature.  I was recently in a coffee shop in Denver that was half coffee shop, half plant store, (picture below) and I would place it directly in the light academia aesthetic.

The opposite of light academia is most likely dark academia. Dark academia is defined around preppy gothic higher education, most commonly seen in ivy league universities in England and the United States, most notable Cambridge (photo below), oxford, and Yale (photo below). I lived in England for three years and was an earshot away from Cambridge university so I have some fond memories of walking around the gothic style buildings, sitting in dark pubs, and sitting in coffee shops, which is of course my general up cycle project idea.

Things that stand out about dark academia v. light academia is the lighting and warmth.  In regards to my project specifically, there a few ways to move it more into the dark academia.  The first most obvious change would be to choose a specific type of book.  Changing from Lord of the Rings to something like a collection of edgar allen poe stories or a stephen king book. Secondly, we could change material that fits within the book. My initial thought was to add a light stain on wood inside the fake book for the light academia so a darker contrast might be just a darker stain but that seemed too easy a solution.  Thinking back to my dark academia inspirations, I remembered visiting the gates outside of the house of Stephen King, a local resident of Bangor, Maine, my neck of the woods.  The gates are dark color iron with a spiderweb, bats, and spiked bars.  I think it would really interesting to model some gates between the front and back hard cover instead of just leaving the book pages or adding light wood. Additionally, I would love to model a book cover out of the iron gates. I do not know if I have ever seen a book cover made of metal so by itself would be wierd but modeling after the gates seems like a fun creepy conversation starter if someone were to notice it on my bookshelf This would obviously add more time, material, and weight, but the idea made my design brain start firing.

My design sketch is below.  As stated above, my design inspiration was from the stephen king gates.  Something I did not initially think about was covering up the spine which can look bad if left uncovered.  In terms of material, this would make for a very hard upcycle project.  If I were to stick with materials I already have, I would probably find an alternate wood design or even CNC a generic gothic style frame out of wood.

Photo credit

1. Yelp reviewer Kayla L, 2025.  https://www.yelp.com/biz/dandy-lion-coffee-denver
2. Kings College.  Allan Baxter, 2011. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/kings-college-chapel-royalty-free-image/107985399?adppopup=true
3. Yale University.  Denis Tangney Jr. 2016. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/yale-university-royalty-free-image/610869530?adppopup=true
4. Stephen King gates.  Greg Hartford, 2001.  https://acadiamagic.com/bangor-maine/stephen-king-01.html
5. Personal Sketch