Author Blog Challenge # 12
Describe your process for choosing and designing your book
cover. Who created your cover? How did you find him/her? What do you love about
your cover? What might you do differently next time?
I designed the cover for The Hidden Risks. I had studied
design and layout as one of my diploma subjects so had some understanding of
where to begin – and hopefully end. I wanted the cover to hold the essence of
what a book is about, not always an easy task to condense a book of a hundred plus
pages down to a single image. Whether fiction or non-fiction, it is essential
to find a core image or artwork-that best represents the book.
As this book spanned five generations, I chose images from
each era and photoshopped these into a single sepia toned image, each blurring
into the next. Choose a good font for
the title and author name. Slight variations in lettering can convey a much
different meaning. Elegant script lettering for a science fiction novel might
be entirely inappropriate, or else this skewing of expectations could be very
effective.
As this book was spiral bound I didn’t need to think about
spine design.
I included a brief plot summary in a bordered text box on
the back cover of the book, with a lot of white space for greater impact. There is nothing I love about the cover although I was quite pleased with it at the time.
I am currently revising this book, to incorporate it into a
much larger family history, so a new cover will be required – and probably a
new title. The cover will have a different treatment to reflect the change in
contents. I intend to find a single piece of artwork that best sums up the
essence of the story, which will be in full colour front and back, and perfect
bound.
~ Merlene Fawdry
That's a huge task, you're right. Best of luck on the new design! Interesting that you took some design courses :) WRITE ON!
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