In recent history, book covers have evolved from being simply practical as a protective covering for paper pages to an important marketing tool for keeping books competitive in the industry. Book cover art has become an art form itself, with professionals becoming book cover designers as a full time profession and garnering respect as creative designers.
Book cover art has never been more relevant, and books cover designers are going to great lengths to sell books in the digital age. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing on the fundamental level, book cover art also needs to fulfill the following requirements:
1. Book cover artwork needs to function as a point-of-purchase advertisement for the book.
2. The book cover design must be engaging and arouse curiosity about the book's content.
3. It's essential that book cover artists represent the content of the book through design.
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Choose the right images for book cover art
Images used on a book cover should evoke a feeling that the book will bring. Some book cover designers may not use any image at all; they may use a series of simple shapes, a photograph or illustration.
I recommend: Visit
Book Cover Design and
Writechoice.biz to see some examples of images used in book cover art.
Use typography creatively for book cover art
Typography is the art of carefully choosing and placing the text that goes onto a book's front cover, back cover, spine and sometimes even the inside text of the book. When designing a cover, a book cover designer pays special attention to the font, text size, placement and color.
I recommend: FSI FontShop International has a great guide featuring examples of very successful typography on book covers. Find an online tutorial for using typography for book covers from
The University of Tennessee.
Carefully plan the layout of art for book covers
A successful book cover design uses all visual elements arranged in a specific way to maximize the amount of information given to the viewer in a matter of seconds. Things that are considered include placement of text and image, contrast of colors and proportion.
I recommend: Aventine Press has some examples of common book cover layout templates.
Pneuma Books offers a free download file of common book cover layouts.
Utilize software for book cover graphic design
There are several versions of book cover design software available that make designing a book cover possible for anyone with a computer. Some software is basic and only allows templates to be customized with stock images and text, but some allow unlimited creativity. This is a great way to learn book cover art and design for beginners.
I recommend: BookCoverPro.com is an inexpensive and user-friendly program that allows manipulation of image, graphics and text for book covers. Many book cover artists pros use Adobe Photoshop from
Adobe Systems, which doesn't have templates and book cover-specific tools, but allows more creative freedom for designers.
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