How to create a very tailored thesis cover

Question

1 UPDATE!(27/06/19):

a) The complete PDF guide for elaborating the cover is here b) Some hints on how to create the spline as describe in the guide would be most helpful! I tried a combo of rotatebox and textblock* but it did not work!

2 UPDATE!(28/06/19):

b) After tweaking the provided MWE by KJO (Many kudos to him, btw! Hope the phantom tooth syndrome has passed!), I didn't manage to place the "Description" part correctly. I tried to use \parbox but I couldn't keep it neither centered and it also went over the spine! So, I tried \minipage. I can't control its precise position in the cover as asked by the cover's visual identity PDF mentioned in the previous update (see above!) You'll find below KJO's MWE with my additions.

\documentclass[coverwidth=210mm,coverheight=297mm,spinewidth=20mm,markcolor=black,trimmed=false]{bookcover}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
%\usepackage{mwe} %for demonstration images
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\definecolor{background}{cmyk}{.18,.35,.92,.07}% ~ Pantone 110U
\definecolor{lettering}{cmyk}{.40,.45,.7,.34}% ~ Pantone 140U
\begin{document}

% The outside of the book cover
\begin{bookcover}

    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the cover
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg whole}{color=background}

    % Back cover
    \begin{textblock*}{0pt}(15mm,15mm)% width=21 offset 1.5cm x 1.5 cm
    %   \noindent\includegraphics*[width=21cm,height=29.7cm]{example-image-b}
    \end{textblock*}

    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg spine}{color=background}

    % Text on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{center}{spine}{
        % the following is preferred orientation where the spine is read 'normally' with back cover on table
        %\rotatebox[origin=c]{270}{\small\bfseries Left text\hspace{15mm}\raisebox{-6.5mm}{\includegraphics[height=15mm]{example-image-c}}\hspace{15mm}Right text}}
        \rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{%
            {\parbox{74.25mm}{\centering \includegraphics[height=30mm]{./img/universidade-coimbra.png}}}
            {\parbox{148.5mm}{\centering \small\scshape{{\bfseries A PhD Thesis Title}  \\ The Thesis Subtitle}}}%
            {\parbox{74.25mm}{\centering \small\bfseries Johnathan Dough}}%
    }}% end rotated and triplet

    % Uni logo (uc.png) on the front cover
    \bookcovercomponent{normal}{front}{}
        \begin{textblock*}{0pt}(240mm,15mm) % x,y from master top left (center= 105,148.5 mm from here)
        % \noindent\includegraphics*[width=17cm,height=24cm,]{example-image-a}
        \vspace{50mm} % 5 cm down from trim line as requested 105 - 60/2 -1(for the ~) = 74
        ~\hspace{74mm}\includegraphics[width=6cm]{./img/universidade-coimbra.png}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\LARGE Johnathan Dough}% Author name
         \vspace{25mm}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\Huge\textbf{\textsc{A PhD Thesis Title}}}% Thesis Title
         \vspace{12pt}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\huge\textsc{The Thesis Subtitle}}% Subtitle
         \vspace{25mm}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\large\textbf{VOLUME I}}% Volume
        \end{textblock*}
         \vspace{12pt}
         \begin{minipage}[t]{0.3\linewidth} \textbf{Tese no âmbito do <nome completo do doutoramento, incluindo ramos/área se aplicável> orientada pelo/a Professor/a Doutor/a <nome completo   do orientador> e apresentada <à nome da unidade orgânica>/<ao nome do departamento, se aplicável da/do nome da unidade orgânica>.} 
        \end{minipage}% Description             
      \end{bookcover}
\end{document}

Any and all feedback on this subject would be welcome. Furthermore, I did some search, and I came back a bit empty handed - information on \minipage is brief, somehow, as it is considered to be very identical to \parbox! Since I didn't manage with the latter... I'm stuck!

In their infinite wisdom – after amending their biggest mistake of changing the old logo for something we called 'The Urinol'-, my University opted to make a thesis cover template and refuses to accept it unless it follows the standard exactly.

While they have provided a Word template, I'm dismayed at the fact that they failed to provide a LaTeX one, instead telling people to 'convert the file into LaTeX' - which I have done and produces an uncompilable horrible, horrible code...

I'm presently tinkering with bookcover, using the example code and making small changes in order to understand how it works. My greatest problems has to do with the precise location of every item in the cover, especially the university logo. Yes, I know that \figure[H] forces a given picture to that precise spot on the latex code, but what I need is to tell LaTeX that I want my picture precisely 7.5cm from the top-left of the page and 5cm from the top.

Any help would be most welcome! Please find below my MWE:

\documentclass[markcolor=black,spinewidth=15mm]{bookcover}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\definecolor{background}{cmyk}{.18,.35,.92,.07}
\definecolor{lettering}{cmyk}{.40,.45,.7,.34}
\begin{document}


% The outside of the book cover
\begin{bookcover}

    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the cover
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg whole}{color=background}


    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg spine}{color=background}


    % Text on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{center}{spine}{
        \rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\footnotesize\bfseries
            Universidade de Coimbra}}

    % Uni logo (uc.png) on the front cover
    \bookcovercomponent{normal}{front}{
        \centering
        \includegraphics[width=6cm]{./img/universidade-coimbra.png}
        }

\end{bookcover}

For those who are curious about the previous logo design...

Answer 1

You could just add textblocks to the current cover. So to set logo 5 cm down see the first front page example. To use your lettering colour see how I added to the two spine texts. Good luck with placing the front cover \vspace{#.# cm} can help to force relative spacing, however the font sizes will need to be correct to ensure baselines are all at correct level.

I have also added full jacket cover and spine image definitions in case you/anyone wants those.

Later edit

Due to frequent changes to the spine this becomes a case of constant catch-up. The mechanism of using Textblocks offset from datum was originally intended as a quick dirty fix for one image :-) Now with the full specification it means constant tweaking.

I suggest anyone starting from fresh looks at the manual especially pages 15 & 16 for the correct way to layout each \bookcovercomponent{...}{...}{...}

The following changes will come visually closer to the desired result but should be considered a proof of concept not a working solution.

\documentclass[draft,coverwidth=210mm,coverheight=297mm,spinewidth=20mm,markcolor=black,trimmed=false]{bookcover}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
%\usepackage{mwe} %for demonstration images
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\definecolor{background}{cmyk}{.18,.35,.92,.07}% ~ Pantone 110U
\definecolor{lettering}{cmyk}{.40,.45,.7,.34}% ~ Pantone 140U

\begin{document}

% The outside of the book cover
\begin{bookcover}

    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the cover
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg whole}{color=background}

    % Back cover
    \begin{textblock*}{0pt}(15mm,15mm)% width=21 offset 1.5cm x 1.5 cm
    %   \noindent\includegraphics*[width=21cm,height=29.7cm]{example-image-b}
    \end{textblock*}

    % That wonderful Dijon mustard background color on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{color}{bg spine}{color=background}

    % Text on the spine
    \bookcovercomponent{center}{spine}{
        % the following is preferred orientation where the spine is read 'normally' with back cover on table
        %\rotatebox[origin=c]{270}{\small\bfseries Left text\hspace{2cm}\raisebox{-9.5mm}{\includegraphics[height=20mm]{example-image-c}}\hspace{2cm}Right text}}
        \rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\color{lettering}%
            {\parbox{74.25mm}{\centering \includegraphics[height=20mm]{universidade-coimbra.png}}}
            {\parbox{148.5mm}{\centering \small\scshape{{\bfseries A PhD Thesis Title}  \\ The Thesis Subtitle}}}%
            {\parbox{74.25mm}{\centering \small\bfseries Johnathan Dough}}%
    }}% end rotated and triplet

    % Uni logo (uc.png) on the front cover
    \bookcovercomponent{normal}{front}{}
        \begin{textblock*}{0pt}(245mm,15mm) % x,y from master top left 245= 15+210+spine (page center will = 105,148.5 mm from here)
        % \noindent\includegraphics*[width=17cm,height=24cm,]{example-image-a}
        \vspace{50mm} % 5 cm down from trim line as requested 105 - 60/2 -1(for the ~) = 74
        ~\hspace{74mm}\includegraphics[width=6cm]{universidade-coimbra.png}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\Huge Johnathan Dough}% Author name
         \vspace{25mm}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\Huge\textbf{\textsc{A PhD Thesis Title}}}% Thesis Title
         \vspace{12pt}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\huge\textsc{The Thesis Subtitle}}% Subtitle
         \vspace{25mm}
         \parbox{210mm}{\centering\large\textbf{VOLUME I}}% Volume

\end{textblock*}

\begin{textblock*}{150mm}(275mm,215mm) % x,y from master top left 275= 15+210+spine +offset of 30 (210-150)/2 (line center will = 75 mm from here)
\centering\textbf{Tese no âmbito do <nome completo do doutoramento, incluindo ramos/área se aplicável> orientada pelo/a Professor/a Doutor/a <nome completo   do orientador> e apresentada <à nome da unidade orgânica>/<ao nome do departamento, se aplicável da/do nome da unidade orgânica>.}
\end{textblock*}

\begin{textblock*}{210mm}(245mm,260mm) % x,y from master top left 245= 15+210+spine (line center will = 105mm from here)
\centering\Large\textbf{Mês de 20XX}
\end{textblock*}

      \end{bookcover}
\end{document}