Creative Book Cover Design Ideas – The Reedsy editorial team is a team of experts in various fields who help authors write and publish beautiful books.
Savannah is a senior editor with Reedsy and a published author who has appeared in Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. His short story “No Rods and Dead Batteries” has appeared in the Owl Canyon Press anthology.
Creative Book Cover Design Ideas
You know the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”. But that’s easier said than done. The book cover is your not-so-secret weapon when selling
Book Cover Design :: Behance
A reader’s first impression of a book. Or so famous designer Paul Sahre once said in an interview with Penguin Random House.
“On a very practical level, there is a jacket to protect the book, but I also like to think of the book cover as a door. This is the beginning of the reading experience.”
Basically, book cover design is one of the book’s most important assets and can have a huge impact on sales – so you need to get it right.
For this post, we have selected 68 brilliant book covers to give you book cover ideas. (Meanwhile, if you’re looking for some great inspiration
10 Ideas To Design The Best Book Cover
Cover art by (left to right, top): Tom Lennartwich, Rodrigo Corral, Johannes Weibel, Peter Mendelsohn, David Drummond.
To quote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “A creator knows he is perfect not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Minimalist covers elegantly reduce a cover to its essentials. Often characterized by plain text and bordered content, these smart, laid-back covers instead rely on white space to make a difference.
(Left to Right, Top to Bottom) Cover Designs: Na Kim, Mario J Pulice, Janet Hansen, Adly Elewa, Keith Hayes, Suzanne Dean.
A great cover doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the goal of most cover designers is to capture the essence of a book as an image or what I call an “idea.”
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“The purpose of a book cover is to distill the essence of a book into an image.” More tips here! Click to tweet!
, it shows an outstretched hand under the night sky—an image that simultaneously reveals the book’s theme of connection at the center of a vast universe. To no one’s surprise, the designer wants to make sure it runs “one idea,” so you’ll notice that the typography on these covers is often unrestricted.
(Left to right, top to bottom): Cover art by Joel Tippy, Christopher Brand, Alison Furner, Jeffrey Nguyen, Jarrod Taylor, Lynn Buckley.
Ah, the silhouette. There’s a reason it’s so ubiquitous on covers: it really works to grab the reader’s attention. Who doesn’t look at a silhouette and automatically say, “Who’s that?”
Professional Book Cover Designs
Having said that, it can be said that the ghost is a victim of its own obscure victory. It’s so common that it’s hard to make these days. Successful designers often play it off against cover typography (eg David Nichols
For Justice Galloway, it was important to convey a mystical tone and the idea of a lost girl. I chose to create a hollow silhouette shape at the top of the photo to represent a missing piece. I wanted to use integrated photography, text and illustrations to create an engaging design. I strive to create a cover that can sit within its genre while still being striking and unique. – Jeffrey Nguyen on Galloway’s Justice Design. 4. A collage is worth a thousand words.
Photo collages are an exciting trend in the world of cover design. Due to recent innovations in photo manipulation, they offer designers a huge sandbox. As you can see, the photo collage gives the cover a modern look. With a little twist, you can see this technique adorning the covers of classic works – books like Charles Baudelaire’s
We’re passionate about authenticity, and that’s one area where hand-illustrated covers have you covered. These covers are, of course, versatile enough to suit almost any style. Not to mention how they allow designers to add that special touch! Where else can you find a cover with the “Y” wine glass gracefully held by Gatsby?
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Let’s start with a bang: there’s no better (!) illustration of the power of typography than a cover that turns its typography into an image unto itself.
The cover of a book is your secret weapon when selling. Find #design inspiration here! Click to tweet!
For example: It works very well in conveying the message of the book in just a few moves. You’ll notice that the letter o in the title at the end creates the “little bombs” at the heart of this book. As LitHub points out, “While we expect explosions to create chaos, the effect of this compositional bomb is highly organized and evokes networks. It’s a timely interpretation of violence.”
Cover art by (left to right, top to bottom): Asia Blue, Thomas Walker, John Gray, Neil Fujita, Miranda Babitz, Adele Alva.
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Big, bold typography on covers has been another trend in recent years, and it’s not hard to see why. This type of typography screams, “This is a book you want to pick up.” That, or: “Here… we…
Expect to see this type of typography among bright colors, because subtlety isn’t the game here. You’ll often find that with books with emphatic titles—like Eve Babitz’s
. Also: if executed well, the genre has a chance to achieve iconic status. (See: for typography
Now let’s go to the opposite side of this spectrum. The simple, understated typography actually serves many purposes on the book cover – it balances the elements in a strikingly elegant way.
This English Book Cover Design All Stock Illustration 1231922704
. Great designers are not afraid to limit typography so that it can take center stage in the image. Because of this, the end result is amazing: covers like these allow the (often) amazing artwork to really engage the reader’s imagination.
Make Way for Him is a book in a new collection of poetry and prose from the University of Kentucky Press. Before we got to the finale, the design went in several directions: initially, the look was expressive and abstract. Later it became fast and shooting mode. In both cases, I kept the typeface clean and simple. This allowed me to combine it with elements of the artwork, adding depth to the sense of young women searching for themselves, making their way, and letting the image shine. – Kathleen Lynch on the design of Make Way for Him. 8. Typing can create visual magic.
Cover art by (left to right, top to bottom): Scott Bendall, Janet Hansen, Oliver Mundy, Timothy Goodman.
Fun fact: not all magicians carry wands. Oh, you need a certificate? Exhibit A: Check out this collection of covers called typography magic. Bassey’s visual dynamics were done
Book Cover Digital Design Minimal Style Template / Can Be Used F Stock Vector
Avert your attention – until you realize that they exist to perfectly reflect the topic itself? They are so enticing that they make you want to reach out and open the book (which is what the designer intended).
To narrow down the book’s themes, I used a grid of boxes to write them down: playful, funny, young, messy, sexual, passionate, personal, feminine, and smart. Before I started I kicked this word sheet and looked at it and tried to approach the design by thinking about these things before starting. – Janet Hansen on the creation of The Bed Moved. 9. Handwritten titles keep things real.
Cover art by (left to right, top to bottom): Jim Tierney, Adele Alva, Rodrigo Corral, Leanne Shepton, Adele Alva, Leo Nichols.
You know how you feel when a friend writes you a handwritten letter? This is the idea behind the currently popular handwritten titles in cover design. Handwritten titles convey a sense of warmth, intimacy, and personality. Don’t be dismayed to find that this type of typography works best with whimsical or original books with an alphabet! Case in point: Young adult fiction is very popular these days, an example being The John Green.
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Key placement for this type of typeface allows the title to become a direct part of the design. Sometimes this means that it is hidden by the cover design, as in Brett Ritz
. At other times, its title is an extension of the visuals. Look at the cover
For example: its compositional elements create a sense of movement – echoing the point of view of the title character, looking out the window as the scene unfolds.
This technique is particularly effective in puzzle and mystery books. By only giving a glimpse of the overall scene, the designer leaves readers wondering where he is taking the rest of the photos. And you can bet