How I make book covers + tips for you!
Around this time last year, I mentioned I would have a video up on how I make book covers/cover making tips, and to summarize: I did not do the thing, and this year old script is still sitting in my drafts.
SO, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and post a written version of these tips! Going to get straight into this because I imagine this will be rather long!
This post will be divided into 6 parts: finding inspiration, concept art, incorporating elements of design, composition, tools and software, and resources. Feel free to skip around to whatever section interests you most!
***Before we get started, really quick disclaimer. I am in no way a professional cover designer. Cover design is merely something I picked up on my own, and I don’t have any formal education/credentials in graphic design. So of course take my advice with that in mind. These are also just my personal thoughts and opinions. So take everything with a grain of salt!
A really great way to start out in design
Finding cover designs or designers you admire may help you see what works technically
Helps nail down a style you like
In turn, can help you find your cover design style
Look at covers in your genre!
Whenever I design a cover, I take a scroll through Goodreads to pick up some inspiration in designs I personally love
I also love walking around my bookstore and taking a look at physical copies
Find a cover design you like, and point out the specific reasons you like it
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was actually not an inspo cover for this edition of I’M DISAPPOINTED, but as you can see, things I liked from it spilled over into my own design. By pointing out aspects of graphic design you like, you’ll better be able to understand your style as a cover artist.
I like covers that include a textured backgrounds, as seen in the collage below:
So for the I’M DISAPPOINTED cover above, I included a textured background. I also love handwritten fonts/lettering, which I include in almost all of my book covers.
Off-white colour from A List of Cages and Holding Up The Universe
Silhouette from Painless and previous cover design of I’m Disappointed
Speech bubble from Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Say What You Will
Marker texture from A List of Cages
Obviously my thought process wasn’t to put 4 covers in a blender and thus create my product, ha, this is just an example for the ease of understanding!
Coming up with concept art is a super important part of designing a successful book cover.
Acts as the skeleton of your book cover
Your book cover’s roadmap
Similar to an outline for a novel.
Can be a very quick sketch, or full fledged design
I like keeping my concept art quick, but if this is your first cover, making a more detailed mockup can help.
Sketch out book cover ideas once you get them/take notes of concepts you’d like to explore
If you can’t come up with concepts, take a look at your inspiration folder and pull concepts/ideas from covers you love
This does not mean copying another book cover (this is notttt a good idea!). BUT, pulling inspiration from elements you like on a cover can be helpful in generating your own concepts
You don’t have to come up with concept art (sometimes winging it works!) but I do recommend jotting notes down, and drawing out loose sketches when applicable!
Keep a list of ideas for book covers as you accumulate them (almost like a little vault of concepts lol) and reference them in the future!
Take a look at as many book covers as you can and make a list of elements you like and don’t like
This is one of the easiest ways to accumulate ideas/concepts!
^^^ Concept art for two book covers
Likes and dislikes in book covers:
Of course this list is not my be all and end all (nor should it be), and obviously, I still use these things (besides clunky composition I hope!) in some designs!
3. Incorporating the elements of design
There are 7 elements of design: line, shape, texture, form, space, value, and colour.
These sometimes vary depending on where you look, but this is what I was taught, so I’m going to be working off that!
I’m going to go through them really quickly via an assignment I did for my comm tech class
Keep in mind this assignment is 2 years old and is only meant to give you an idea of what these elements are
Line is probably the most important element of design as every piece of art starts with one.
There are various types of lines. You can have curved lines, straight lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines and so on.
You can have more mathematical, geometric shapes, or more abstract, free form shapes.
Texture is the feel of a particular surface.
Texture in my opinion is one of the most important elements when it comes to graphic design, especially book covers.
My favourite thing to see in book covers is texture, whether that be paper textures like construction paper, crumpled paper, wallpaper, lace, wall textures, paint textures, or marker textures
Texture adds depth to designs, and if there’s any element of design you focus on in this post, I’d highly recommend it be this one.
Form is almost like shape, except instead of flat objects, we’re dealing with 3-dimensional objects.
I don’t often use it in my covers since I like drawings and flat shapes in my designs, but if you want to include objects on your cover, or any sort of 3D shape, this would be form.
The distance around an object, to put it simply
Space in covers can help emphasize what’s important, and what is less important, or can draw attention to a particular piece of your design.
Colour coding: yellow = space, teal = focal point/movement of viewer’s eye
In Twilight, the black space helps emphasize the main image, the hands holding the apple.
This also occurs in the Red Queen book covers. The empty space around the crown draws attention immediately to the focal point
You can also lack space. In The Duff, the girl’s face is the only thing you can see on the cover.
Is determined by how much light or dark is incorporated into design.
A great example of value in book covers is on Alexandra Bracken’s Passenger. As you can see, the green at the top fades down in a gradient as more white is added to the centre.
Light reflecting off objects
Can make certain elements of your design stand out
Why should you incorporate the elements of design into your designs?
Adds layers of depth to your work
Thus can take your cover-making skills to another level
Can help in producing ideas
In my opinion, can make or break a design
Can mean clutter of things, OR too much or too little space between elements
Composition is sometimes subjective from design to design
Pay close attention to detail and spacing
Look out for natural shapes in your design you can fit elements into
Watch the linked video from Mango Street (one of my favourite photography channels) on composition
While photography and design are two different things, the tips in this video can also be applied to various ideas in design such as headroom and leading lines
*Before I get into this, I want to make it clear that these examples are exaggerations for the purpose of showing you good and bad composition. If you make these mistakes, that doesn’t mean your design is bad, and again, I’m no professional. This comes from what I believe could be considered bad composition, but trust your gut.
doesn’t effectively use space
text is covering 200 element (looks very clunky)
Textual elements are better spread out
200 element is distracting
Addition of stick figures balances out cover
Text follows natural shape of photograph
Removed 200 element makes cover look less clunky
Half the title is on a dark background
Last name is cut off by window
Uninteresting composition (everything is on one line)
Title placement is better
‘A novel’ fits under windowsill
Last name is smaller to avoid cutting it off
Uses free space of wall wisely
Text is shaped around photo elements
Gives the cover some movement
Title is covering the focal point (the girl)
Title doesn’t seem to be incorporated into the design
By moving title down, we’ve made space for the subject
Title placement makes cover look less clunky
Same composition as prior but image is colour-graded
Embossed title adds texture/depth
I’ve mentioned this a few times in this post: focal point. What is it?
Is defined as the main attraction of your book cover
This is where you want your readers’ eyes to focus
Focal points can sometimes define themselves in areas where more contrast happens to be
Doesn’t have to be the centre of the page.
Keep focal point in mind for composition because if you put it in the wrong spot, you could end up drawing your readers’ attention to the wrong area of the cover.
The point of most interest in a cover is the focal point, so if you want a particular subject of your book cover, such as a person, to stand out make sure you don’t make the other areas of the cover too high contrast or busy.
Framing subjects also helps, so be creative!
The human eye tends to focus on areas with increased contrast so keep this in mind
The camera has focused on the eye of the model, with the nose bridge and forehead shadowing each corner of the cover
Helps lead eye to focal point (the eye)
Blue around the edges encircles the focal point (the girl), leading the viewer’s eye directly to her
Girl is also scarlet in colour, contrasting the background
Grey outlines on the cover lead straight to the mockingjay
Mockingjay is bright gold in comparison to the black background
Creates contrast, thus viewer’s eye is lead there
The Female of the Species
No particular focal point, viewer’s eye instead moves horizontally across the design
Use the natural shapes and outlines in your design/photo to fill your cover
Use your space wisely (see examples above)
Use leading lines to draw attention to your focal point
Manipulate text to fill empty spaces
You do not need Photoshop to make a good book cover
I made my first book covers in GIMP, a free image manipulation program (kinda like Photoshop’s little brother)
This is the stick people cover I made in photoshop, and the same cover made in GIMP.
Other tools you may want to use are CreateSpace’s cover templates.
You can find these through CreateSpace OR Bookow (my personal fave)
I use the Huion H610 which I really enjoy!
I use this to hand letter, draw silhouettes, create concept art, and so on
Paper and my Faber Castell India Ink Artist Pens.
These are fine tip markers, and are what I used to create the text on I’m Disappointed
Thin sharpies and pens will also do the job, and you can always clean any mistakes up in photoshop or gimp.
A scanner so I can transfer what I’ve hand drawn onto my computer
If you don’t have a scanner you can take a clear photograph on a camera or phone
I also use a few custom marker brushes that now come with the 2018 version of Photoshop
The main one I use is Kyle’s AM - Watercolour Paper from the art markers set (you have to load these into Photoshop, but if you have PS 2018, you should have access to ‘em).
(I’ve lettered everything in this post with that brush)
Here’s a list of amazing resources you might need when making your own book covers!
Check out THIS post for a master list of my favourite stock photo websites!
Is my main source for finding fonts
A huge resource I use to find cover inspiration
I’ll often browse the new releases section to look at new covers and so on
Easy way to narrow down the genre of cover you’re looking for, as well as the age category
Check out a masterlist for Photoshop HERE
Makes workflow super efficient
My fave I highly recommend in Photoshop is ctrl > shift > alt > e (merge all layers into new layer)
I’ve made TWO custom shortcuts: ctrl > shift > o is now open as layer, and ctrl > shift > alt > r is now rasterize layer (these save so much time!)
So to conclude this post, I’m going to list out some of my favourite tips when it comes to cover making (sort of a reiteration of this post)
Texture is a super easy way to add dimension to your book cover
Try lettering with a paper and marker when starting out
I find this a lot easier than digital lettering!
If you can’t figure out how to do something in Photoshop or GIMP, the internet is a vast depository of information!
Cover design is alllll about the small details. Making sure you’ve centred something properly can seriously help in making your cover go from amateur to whoaaa who made thatttt
Been looking at your screen for 8 hours straight? Ask someone you know what they think of your design! I find this has sparked a lot of secondhand ideas!
If it doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean it was a fail
If a particular concept just doesn’t work, don’t worry! As you practice you’ll get better, and you can always revisit the concept for another novel!
EDIT: a really great suggestion from @sarahkelsiwrites: print out your design if you need a fresh perspective! You’d be surprised by what you notice on screen VS off!
So that’s it for this post! I hope this was helpful for some of you guys, I know it was looooong overdue. If it helped you out, let me know, and if you have any questions, feel free to send ‘em my way! :))
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