Cover Design at a Glance

Cover design is one of those areas where, even if you're an artist and a writer, it doesn't necessarily mean you feel confident making your own cover. In graphic design school, we only got a very basic run-through of concepts involving typography, use of space, and digital design. However, taking the importance of education to heart, I dug deep on those big projects-- pamphlets, catalogs, billboards, covers, packaging and so on. No matter the scale or technique, you have to know the trends in order to break them.

First off, let me throw a few examples of cover design in fantasy:

This one uses a specific character design as the main image feature.

This one goes for the inanimate object approach.

And this one keeps it simple with a texture, border features and a stamp/symbol.

What do you notice about all of them? Multiple fonts, some serif fonts and the unity of color. Most covers I seen want any bestseller or award status right up top, but with minimalist covers like the last example, you may want to go really easy on breaking the mood with that, taking it to the bottom or even the top of the back, if you're designing a print cover. You'll get a lot of advice as to what goes where, but if you have a set image in mind, then positioning can get trickier.

In the examples I'll use from my 5th book of my HWU Chronicles, I had predesigned the title and image in other programs. I modified the Matura Script font in Illustrator and did the digital painting in Clip Studio Paint. I'm not going to walk you through every detail of the process as in what menus or toolboxes and commands you use. If you're serious about learning cover design, you're far more likely to build a comfortable work flow if you're not fixating on the exact way I do it. I'd also like to make it more usable for people NOT using PhotoShop to do their cover design.

Starting with the template. This one comes from CreateSpace or KDP. If you're only doing an ebook cover, you can skip over some of the steps obviously. First off, for print, you need to know the page count of your final PDF as well as the book size to get the right size template. Very important because spine width is very picky and you need to know your margins. For interior concerns that will ensure your page count is correct, please see my previous blog on formatting. For now, you only need to open the template directly into your design program. Don't move it at all. If you need to, find that layer and drop the opacity to around 50% and keep it on top. You can turn it on and off with the visibility option (usually looks like an eye next to the layer). Once you're satisfied, lock it so you don't accidentally move it or mark on it.

I placed my image first. You can do this using the option Place/Import in the edit menu. I've seen this is pretty consistent in location through the many programs.

This is the image layer under the template layer with the opacity dropped.

Now, there are no hard rules with the placement of the character name, but I've found for my current designs, I like my author name at the bottom. I like for this to be a playful curly font, but be careful that your author name doesn't overpower your title. Many authors just go with a plain powerful serif font. With my other series, I liked my name in a serif font at the top. Now sometimes the name sells the book so it will be the draw more than the title. Either way, I recommend keeping your name centered almost always unless it really doesn't go with the image layout. The real estate in your name can be a concern too, so I'll shoot out some exception.

For one, my name can be left or right justified to the bottom of a page because the second part of my name is larger.

KRISTA

GOSSETT

(Pst, over here!)

KRISTA

GOSSETT

For those same reason, it wouldn't work well like that at the top of a page. Negative wasted visual space. Almost never is regular centering a good idea because you're leaving an odd space to the left and right of the word above or below. Maybe you're lucky and your first and last names line up wonderfully. If they don't though, you may need to do this:

The smaller word in my name not only got a bigger font size, but I used horizontal scaling to stretch the bottom letters and raised the baseline of the bottom word to close up any unwanted space between the two words. Again, if you're going for minimalism, then stacking the name is a good way to take up some space, but for the most part you do not want your fonts laying over 3D images. It visually flattens them. In most cases, simply centering the author name on a single line is all you need.

As you can also see, it's not a big deal if it does lay over some types of images. I use an illustrative comic style that isn't 3D dimensions and there are no distracting features on his collarbone that clash with the font. Consider your main image's impact carefully. Here, I've also laid in my name on the spine and determined where it sits by the location of the background silhouettes.

As I pointed out before with the name alignment, I did it here with the genre tag. This is an entirely optional element. Some people prefer not to place a genre for the headache of purists deciding how well it actually fits the category.

Whatever you decide, you may also consider consistency in both placement and order. It can be a bit of a visual dumpster if you keep reordering where the title and author name are or jittering them around too much. Sometimes I decide not to keep the alignment perfect for the sake of readability. Apologies if you're OCD, but for me, the visual harmony beats alignment every time.

Of course, don't forget to keep pulling up any template you're using so that your text is safely in the print zones. KDP and CreateSpace will refuse to bypass your oversight at least.

One important aspect I can't stress enough is that most fonts over images will need some sort of stroke or subtle glow so that it doesn't get lost in the light or dark. In most cases, I consider the prominent background colors and how it complements the title. Blue's natural complement is orange so an orange/yellow outer glow was used here. It doesn't clash with the background, almost completely unnoticeable there, but makes sure the black text isn't swallowed in the dark elements. You'll notice that 'Book Two' is a bit muddy. It looks great on the print, but for digital, you might want to use thicker stroked fonts so it doesn't get fuzzy at a distance.

The title here just follows a left to right drop mindful of the space. If you haven't predesigned your title as I did, you will need to know how to utilize the text features to size, align and create visual harmony. There are many tutorials that can help you find your specific needs. Some people have an eye for this, some people can't see the visual hiccups and need direction. I do cover critiques for fun, so you can always run it past me and I'll be happy to offer suggestions.

Back matter time! Again, no hard rules; you can center or stagger elements left and right, but for this example, I'm using a solid color bordered box and pulled one of the background colors once more. Legibility of the text is the most important. If you don't want to box it in, you'll need to tweak with outlining features like I did for the title to make sure it's not distracting or hard to read.

Now, despite the fact that the interior always looks better with full justified text, this doesn't seem to ever look right on the back cover. While it's usually visually okay to center any quotes, you most likely do not want huge blocks of centered text throughout or the push and pull of full justify. Stick to the standard left justify and make sure you turn off hyphenation. I'm not sure why it's the default or why anyone actually uses it, but a word chopped by a hyphen interrupts more than unifies. But the right edge staggers all over the place. Eh, not a big deal. You can always manually push and pull lines of text or find words that fit better for the visual if that's something that bothers you. No one is camping out on your back cover very long, so I'd focus more on making it clean and interesting.

On the final, I had added a handwritten font with a one-liner above the block in the same yellow as the author font, but it's fine to go minimal on elements if you don't want it to look cluttered. Negative space can be relaxing as long as it looks intentional.

The guts of cover design is much like writing. While I wouldn't be too strict looking for rules here, visual composition is often a process of moving, resizing, trial and error. Once you have things where you think you're satisfied, I'd suggest taking it to a cover critique group NOT a writer's group. Often the really bad covers are just mocked, dismissed or worse, told they look great when they don't at all. If you want constructive criticism, you need to find a group of people dedicated to that one area, full of novices and experts alike. Most actual designers will be able to specifically point out what doesn't work and give you technical fixes and suggestions.

And there you have it. My two cents on the basics of cover design. I always welcome any questions, suggestions or critiques. I've had a blast making comic style covers, practice for my ambitions of doing a web comic in the future. I know it's not traditional for the genre, but I never set out to do that. Just like my favorites strayed from the beaten path, I endeavor to do the same.

Well, back to writing. Yes, I have been working on UnSung this week! Exciting, frustrating, and I wouldn't have it any other way.