book cover design on the moscow kremlin

all hand rendered typography

This post is an excerpt from our Self Publishing Guide for Indian Market. If you have not, you may want to read the following post in this series before starting on this one

• What is publishing?
• What is self-publishing?
• Self Publishing and Print on Demand (are not the same)
• Self Publishing your Book – Step 1: Finalize the Content

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The book design is in two parts – the interior of the book and the cover.

Book interior. The layout, fonts, size, etc of the book needs to be designed according to the target audience. For instance, a children’s book will have more illustrations with larger, well spaced out fonts and an overall endearing look. On the other hand, a thriller will have a denser text with an easy-to-read font. Technical books are likely to have more diagrams and tables.

Book cover. Unfortunately, most people do judge a book by its cover. So, design an eye-popping cover for your prized work.

Suggestions for an attractive, effective book cover:

I spotted these three Windblown titles at Borders today… “The Misunderstood God,” “Bo’s Café,” and “The Shack.” I was pleased to see them facing forward! I don’t know who makes those decisions at the book stores. The Shack is still selling strong. As you can see they displayed it three rows across.

Like the auto mechanic whose vehicle is last to get repaired, so doth goes the designer who continues to put off posting on his own blog. Okay, lame excuse. I know.

For someone who has been in the advertising/promotional business for many years you’d think I be better at promoting myself with a wonderful and free vehicle such as WordPress!

How about these excuses? Feel free to apply them to your own situation:

Hey, life gets busy. I work too, ya know?

The best marketing I do is at the new Super Walmart in town.

Promote myself? I’m much too humble to promote myself.

How about LinkedIn? What’s the deal with that?

Okay, let’s address that last one, LinkedIn. Another free, did I say free?, networking group. Have I discussed this before with you? Stop me if I have. No, don’t worry about it. I shall continue anyway.

LinkedIn is a tremendous business networking site. Although they offer paid memberships the basic one is free and full of plenty of features. One of those features I have come to appreciate is “Groups.”

There are several writers’ and publishers’ groups I’ve joined to promote myself, as well as design groups I joined for mutual encouragement and learning from fellow graphic artists. The greatest discovery I’ve had is finding that there are so many gracious folks who are more than willing to offer help and advice. Topics like writer’s (and artist’s) block to promotion are covered. Start a discussion, ask questions, and people are there willing to share. Good stuff. And it’s free.

So. How are you doing? How’s the new book writing coming along? How about that marketing/promotion plan for your existing book? Are you moving forward or full of my excuses. How can I help?

-Dave!

Rebranding Representing All Women: A Case Study

A few years ago I started working with seminar speaker and dream coach Stephanie Beattie, owner of Representing All Women (RAW), a company dedicated to helping people reach their goals through insight and motivation.

When I started working with RAW, their corporate identity consisted of a background of baby blue sky with fluffy clouds and a pair of hands unclasping to release a butterfly. My client felt like it expressed her passion to help women learn how to have it all as they discover what they really want from their lives.

The Book

When Stephanie asked me to design the cover of her first book “You Can Have It All: Unleash Your Inner Diva”, we discovered that her existing brand image wasn’t really the strong, powerful image she wanted to portray. She likes strong colours and “a lot of bling”. She is a powerful woman with a lot of personality, so we needed to revise her brand identity to reflect that.

The cover design we settled on for the book consisted mainly of deep magenta and black–a clean design with colour that really popped. The text at the top of the front cover appears to be diamond encrusted, complete with sparkles to add the bling.

Corporate Identity

To carry that look through the rest of RAW’s identity and marketing materials, we updated the logo. The “Representing” in the company name was changed to a slightly different script font, and the colour was altered from a muddy red to 100% magenta, with the words “ALL WOMEN” modified to an updated san serif font. We wanted to update the logo yet not change it so much as to make it unrecognizable to existing clients.

With the logo redesigned, we then revised her business cards. A simple two pms colour printing process with an added spot varnish on an extra heavy stock made her business cards fit for a diva! The cards have a black background on the front, with a solid magenta background on the back. The all-over gloss varnish, with a diamond patterned matte spot varnish really made the cards look and feel impressive.

RAW | Representing All Women magazine

Our next project has been the most fun of all! Laura, my new business partner, and I recently launched Expressions Custom Publications. Since I’ve worked with Stephanie for the last few years, I knew she was the perfect person to approach about creating her own magazine.

As I expected, she jumped at the idea and committed instantly. Now that she and I are both comfortable with her new look, designing the quarterly magazine was easy. We kept the same colour palette and clean design of the book and identity, and created a new logo for RAW. We’ve designed the media kit and the first issue of the magazine is well underway, to be available in early February.

Website

I’ve already updated www.representingallwomen.com to reflect the new style and provide online registration for Stephanie’s workshops. Within the next few months, I’ll continue to revamp the look and add more features that incorporate the magazine and book such as excerpts, articles and some fun, interactive quizzes.

We need to create an effective website with quality content that has the functionality we’ll need to inform people about workshops and coaching services, sell the book, allow people to subscribe to or advertise in the magazine, and capture contact information from visitors.

We have created Twitter and Facebook accounts with Stephanie’s voice, and are also working on adding videos from her last workshop to YouTube to help people build a connection with the brand and Stephanie herself.

It’s not the end

Developing a brand identity is an ongoing thing that will continue to evolve. The Representing All Woman brand will continue to grow and add new products, services and events, so the brand will have to grow along with it. We’re ready for the challenge.

Bábel Verme munkanapló • Bábel Verme beharangozó

Mivel időközben változott a helyzet az előző postomban említett borító ügyében (remélhetőleg jó irányba ), már úgy vélem, nem gond, ha belinkelem azt a blogbejegyzést / hírt, amire reflektáltam (és ahol a hozzászólásomban vannak linkek és nevek is, ha valaki kíváncsi arra, mit hagytam ki itt.) Íme: László Zoltán: nulla pont: a borító – november kilencedikén az alábbiakkal frissítve:

Biztosan nem ez lesz a borító. És mivel kikaptam a kiadótól, mostantól titok, hogy mi lesz helyette.

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(PS-PS: Btw, inkább a kiadónak kellett volna kikapnia, nem a szerzőnek, aki csak promotálni próbálja saját munkáját.)

A következőket egy meg nem nevezett blog egy – egy hamarosan megjelenő regény borítóját beharangozó – postjára reagálva írtam. Mivel enyhén negatív hangvételű az írásom, itt (névtelenítve) adom közre, mert alapvetően pozitív szándék vezérel, csak a helyzeten, bizonyos döntéseken fanyalgok kissé.

(X festő) zseniális, csakúgy, mint a linkelt festmények. Ugyanakkor – bár kiadói szempontok miatt érthető és megérthető lépés -, szerintem nem a legjobb megoldás ezen képek bármelyikének használata. Miért? Mert a vásárlók egy részének a fejében már ránézésre az „újrafelhasználtság” gondolatát fűzik a kötethez.

Ezek a képek, mivel egy igen híres (számítógépes XY) játékhoz – a (híres játékkal) összességében sikertelenül, de azért elismerendő eredményeket felmutatva rivalizálni próbáló (másik játékhoz) – készültek, mint concept art, igen közismertek a neten: jó eséllyel mindenki látta már őket, aki érdeklődik a számítógépes játékok világa iránt. A játékok világával foglalkozó offline és netes magazinok vélhetőleg már 200(x) környékén lehozták őket, a concept art iránt komolyabban érdeklődők (oké, ez már jóval szűkebb réteg, ellenben a magazinok közönségével) pedig azóta is láthatják őket, pl. az általad linkelt galériákban. A te hazai olvasóid – az sf/f iránt érdeklődő, a számítógépek világában vélhetőleg otthonosan mozgó fiatalok (vélhetőleg főleg fiúk) – is elég valószínű, hogy találkoztak már velük, többször is.* És, mivel nagyon jó képek (és sok van belőlük, egységes stílusban), emlékezni fognak rájuk, ha máshogy nem, tudat alatt. Megjelenik a „volt már” gondolata – ami szerintem nagyon nem jó egy regénynek. Egy ilyen borító egy másik terméket, világot idéz, hamis elvárásokat, ideákat állít fel, amiket a regény nem tud, nem fog és nem is akar teljesíteni, hozni, ergo jóval nagyobb esélyt ad az olvasói csalódásra.** Persze, nem olyan erős a dolog, mintha mondjuk Darth Vader portréját raknátok ki a borítóra… de ugyanaz az irány.

Mint a hozzászólásom elején jeleztem, egyértelmű, hogy egy már kész, bizonyított kép használata igen előnyös lehet a kiadó szempontjából időt és pénzt illetően, sőt, a szerzőnek tetszhet is nagyon – de a regénynek szerintem nem tesz jót. Sőt, inkább árt*** neki – pedig a regények megérdemelnék, hogy egy egyedi, gondosan és direkt nekik készített kép reklámozza őket, nyújtson bepillantást a világukba. Persze, ez rizikó – az egyedi képet is el lehet rontani, durván, ráadásul idő és pénz, mire elkészülnek, bizonytalan eredménnyel. De azért szerencsére vannak olyan alkotók idehaza, akik eddigi munkáik alapján vélhetőleg meg tudnának birkózni a feladattal. Például Vass Richárd vagy Tikos Péter valószínűleg kiváló (és odaillő) megoldást tudott volna szállítani nektek, szerintem.

Mindezek mellett természetesen drukkolok a regénynek és neked – csak sajnálom, hogy maga a kiadó állítja elétek az első akadályt a sikerhez vezető pályán.

g.

* E képek a (játék) egy végül ki nem adott kiegészítőjéhez készültek, ergo megjelentek kb. akkor, amikor komolyabban beharangozták a játékot, aztán még párszor, kísérőképként, amikor a fejlesztés előrehaladtáról jöttek hírek, majd végül akkor, amikor kiderült, hogy ugrott a projekt.

**Ld. még ezt a cikket (főleg a végét.)

*** Így lesz az artworkből árt-work. -.- :]

Yes, its November, and I think today its made it pretty clear that Winter has settled in. I haven’t really got much too share with you in terms of imagry, so its just a quick update on what projects we’re dealing with right now.

CD DESIGN
This is a typography project, so I’m hoping I can get some pretty good ideas across! After last years project on designing my own type, I have really gotten into typography. I’ve had a few ideas, but nothing thats got me terribly excited as of yet. I’ll post good ideas as they come to me I guess.

Personal Development (Uni Stuff)
Went tooo Lincoln on Saturday just goneee, and went to look at the University there. I quite liked it, so I’m thinking its going down as a second choice, cause I still think Norwich is the one for me. It has nice accomodation, and from what I’ve heard the studios are nice too. I didn’t stay too long as I wasn’t feeling to great! Going to the UCAS fair with College in a couple of weeks, and then the day after back to London to see the LCC.

Book Cover Design
Our joint group with the photography lot, we have to make three Book covers, based on three random searches on Wikipedia. Mine was Laguna, RAF Squadron and New Your City Subway. I took some pictures of newspapers today to support my cover on New York City Subway, and like some of the results.

From the Financial Times, lol

Adverstising
Last but not least, it advertising on a Friday. We’ve been set a new brief to create an advert for a charity of our choice. I’ve got a few ideas, but kinda want to work them out before putting anything on here. But will do soon, promise!

In the week off, I tried to do as much work as possible, but found myself decorating my brothers room. Also, driving is going well, so I’m hoping that it won’t be too long till I can take my test. More updates soooooon

I am five months into the publishing process and today I was still making edits to my cover design. Anyone who thinks that getting a book on a shelf is quick work never published a book. It is all of the little things that make the process take so long. Just selecting the cover font style, color and size can take hours. Of course, then you have to select the interior font style, color and size; the paragraph formatting (hyphenated or full justified without hyphenation,) the Chapter fonts, margin text, page numbering and position, back cover text, cover image…

If the writing doesn’t cause you to go insane, the publishing process will.

But I have accepted and even embraced this process. It is all of these small decisions that make the book my own. The devil is in the details, but so too is the joy of publishing a book. Perhaps I’ll feel differently when I publish the next one.

I’m still hoping for a pre-Christmas release, but I’m not going to put myself under any pressure to meet that deadline.

My ARC jacket design for Jackson Pearce's awesome new book "Sisters Red"

Well, OK, this post was a LONG time coming. I’ve been working on a bunch of really fun designs since the summer and haven’t posted many of them here on my blog. In part because for a few, like this one that I am SUPER excited about, I had to wait until everything was final and a full on GO.

And here we go! I got the chance and had the supreme pleasure of working with Little, Brown, & Co. on the book jacket design for Jackson Pearce, and really lovely and talented writer, on her newest book Sisters Red, which will be published to the public in June 2010.  Jackson Pearce describes the plot best, so I won’t bother to butcher it for you:

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris– the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She’s determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax– but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they’ve worked for.

A little publishing world insider information: What you see above is the final design for the ARC Cover, aka the Advanced Reading Copy, this is a near-final copy of a book that is sent out for reviews, but that may still have final revisions before the actual publication date. ARC covers are typically not the complete or final design, though sometimes they are very close. (As we think in this case…don’t you?)

Naturally having read a manuscript copy of Jackson’s book Sisters Red I can tell you that it’s super awesome and that you should certainly find a copy next year when it’s out (I’ll post a reminder, don’t worry) because it’s quite good. But, in the meantime Jackson is hosting a giveaway of a few of her personal copies of her ARCs on her website here with a super fun video of “Things You Can’t Have” (including her adorable puppy and some of my prints eeeee!) and then happily “Things You CAN Have” too, so check it out.

The main problem that this designed needed to solve was to be eye-catching and to be something that would attract you from across a room, say at a bookstore. Fun challenge for sure. So, I hope that you like it.

Double thanks to Tracy & Little, Brown & Co. and Jackson!

Book publishers, see anything you like Feel free to contact us for book jacket design, we love doing them!

Photo courtesy of Design*Sponge

A few months ago, I posted an excerpt from a story about Coralie Bickford-Smith – the designer responsible for many wonderful book covers at Penguin Classics.

Well, just today, Design*Sponge (if you don’t know this site, you should!!) posted a more extended interview with Ms. Bickford-Smith.  So, I thought I would share it with you here.  Click on the link below to see the full post in its natural habitat…

An brief excerpt from the Design*Sponge interview:

…That’s the nature of cover design really – the designs are there to serve the writing, and there’s such a range of material that we design for that a personal style isn’t necessarily what you want the customer to see.

A good graphic design is an inseparable part of any website. It enhances the online image of a company. Despite its importance, there are many individuals and businesses that try to ignore the importance of graphic design. But it’s absolutely foolishness to ignore graphic designing. It can make or break the chances of your company to increase presence in the online world. You should not forget the fact that there are millions of online customers and the numbers are increasing daily. A quality website can convert hundreds of visitors into potential customers.

If you want to reach out to customers based across the globe with your products and services, you should take the services of a professional graphic designing company like us. We are Avenues Consult – one of the leading graphic designing companies in India delivering cutting-edge solutions in graphic design and web design to individuals and various kinds of companies. Our graphic designers are widely known for providing world-class designs at affordable prices. We offer extraordinary graphic design services that include custom logo design, brochure design, card design, print design, catalog design, stationary design, presentation design, book cover design, CD cover design, newsletter design, annual report design, presentation design, banner ad design, packaging design, label design, flyer design, corporate identity design and calling card designs. Our graphic and web design services come loaded with usability and SEO features. We serve customers based across the globe in a variety of segments, including advertising, entertainment, media, health, government, internet, sports, travel, software, technology, institutes, real estate, communities and many more.

To end with it can be said that if you need quality sites studded with superior graphic design elements to enhance your brand’s image in the market, you should come to us. Our unique graphic designs can provide your business the much needed extra mileage. With it, you can generate more leads and ultimately profits.

I saw this book today on the bookshelf of a forestry office, I don’t know much about it except the design is German and it’s from 1975. Super dope. Looks like it could be a piece of collateral for the Vancouver Olympics this year. Sorry about the crappy iPhone pic, but sometimes you just have to make do with what you’ve got.

Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components of a book into a coherent whole. There are various aspects of book design, but the book cover design has 3 critical components:

Front Cover: The front cover is the front of the book, and is marked appropriately, by text and/or graphics, in order to identify it as such, namely as the very beginning of the book. The front cover usually contains at least the title and/or author, with possibly an appropriate illustration.

The Spine: The spine is the vertical edge of a book as it normally stands on a bookshelf. It is customary for it to have printed text on it.  The spine generally displays all, or some, the following elements:

• Author, editor, or compiler
• Title
• Publisher
• Publisher logo

Back Cover: The back cover generally has  biographical matter about the author or editor, and quotes from other sources praising the book. Sometimes, the back cover contains a summary or description of the the book.

Book Design West Palm Beach

Nothing to Lose

by Lee Child

Indigo Design Book Design Rating:

This book is given 1 star due to the following reasons:

a. Due to the color of the background, the title is difficult to read.

b. The design is to “busy” which makes it difficult to focus on the cover

c. There is not enough contrast except

Indigo Design specializes in book design that gives off personality, creativity and quality.

Book Design Florida

Have I ever mentioned that I actually have a real full-time job? I mean besides collecting MCM junk from dark, dusty corners of the earth? Besides baking sweet treats and crafting? Well I do … I have a very cool job as graphic designer and art director at a Christian publishing (magazines & websites) company.

For part of my job, I collect a bunch of images of covers for books, movies and CDs that are being reviewed for a youth worker resource guide. There is a lot of good design out there, especially that which is targeted towards young professionals. And sadly, there is a lot of mediocre design, too. Occasionally a book cover design really stands out to me. Here are a few good ones from my latest collection:

Ok, so the first one isn’t really that special. But isn’t that umbrella cute? Fun rain gear makes rainy days so much better. The second one isn’t super cool either but I do like the use of texture mixed with sleek graphics.

I like this third one because I’m a minimalist and I like that the font is uncommon AND the title placement is creative. I’m a fan of the watercolor map of the world on the Matt Papa cover. I tried to do something once with watercolors on one of my hubby’s band’s CD design and it didn’t come out anywhere near this cool.

My whole point in writing this post was to celebrate this fifth book cover. I love it! It’s got several things going for it: 1. Nice use of texture & color & depth, 2. Good hierarchy & order, 3. ORIGINAL illustration (I am so sick of seeing stock photos used on book covers!) and—what really did it for me— 4. Unique typeface. It’s so nice to see something other than the typical sans serif fonts used on a book cover.

Isn’t it lovely? Have you seen any particularly good book covers lately?

All from the The Book Cover Archive.

Top row, from left to right:

The World Without Us. Author: Alan Wiseman. Book cover designer: Pete Garceau.
The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. Author: Jerome Charyn. Book cover designer: Gabrielle Wilson.
The Golden Road. Author: Caille Miller. Book cover designer: Darren Haggar.

Middle row, from left to right:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Stories. Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Chess Machine. Author: Robert Lohr. Book cover designer: Gray318.
Jane Eyre. Author: Charlotte Bronte. Book cover designer:  Megan Wilson.

Bottom row, from left to right:

English as She is Spoke. Author: José da Fonseca.
Dangerous Frames. Author: Nicholas J. G. Winter. Book cover designer: Isaac Tobin.
Battle Royale. Author: Koushun Takami. Book cover designer: Izumi Evers.

UPDATE: Rick has Increased the prize to $5,000!

How about another great opportunity to add some truly high profile work to your portfolio!
Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and the pastor who delivered the invocation at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, is running a project to design the cover of his new book, The Hope You Need, at 99designs.com.

This is an amazing opportunity…his last book, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller, sold over 30 million copies!

The winning designer will be paid $3,000! $5,000!

**Please read the brief for full details.

The Deadline for submissions is this Saturday at midnight, Sept 19, 2009!

Cheers,
The 99designs Team

Indigo Design Book Cover Design Rating: 3 Stars!

Book Design Features and Highlights:

The Host features a great cover design. This unique, simple design is dynamic and filled with impact. The eyes featured on the cover are dramatic and convey a feeling of intensity. Using a subtle background, all other aspects of this cover are downplayed to bring out the intensity of the eyes.

Purchase The Host by Stephanie Meyer.

Call Indigo Design for all of your Book Design needs. Indigo Design also specializes in typesetting services and more!

954-760-9828

Book Cover Design