Text Book Design Ideas – The Reedsy editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts dedicated to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.
Savannah is a senior editor at Reedsy and a published author whose work has appeared in Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. His short fiction appears in the Owl Canyon Press anthology, “No Bars and a Dead Battery.”
Text Book Design Ideas
You know the mantra: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But that’s easier said than done. Book covers are your not-so-secret weapon when it comes to sales
The Big Book Of Design Ideas [book]
The reader’s first impression of a book. Or, as famous designer Paul Sahre once said in an interview with Penguin Random House:
“On a purely functional level, covers exist to protect books, but I also like to think of book covers as doors. It is the beginning of the reading experience.”
Basically, your book cover design is one of your 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 covers to give you some book cover ideas. (Meanwhile, if you want to give a big inspiration
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Cover design by (from left to right, top to bottom): Tom Lenartowicz, Rodrigo Corral, Johannes Wiebel, Peter Mendelsund, David Drummond.
Quoting Antoine de Saint Exupéry: “A designer knows that he has reached perfection not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to take away.” The minimalist hood elegantly strips the cover down to its basic essentials. Often characterized by a simple font and a small amount of content, this quiet and smart cover relies on white space to transform acres
Cover design by (from left to right, top to bottom): Na Kim, Mario J Pulice, Janet Hansen, Adly Elewa, Keith Hayes, Suzanne Dean.
A great cover doesn’t have to be complex. In fact, the goal of most cover designers is simply to distill the essence of a book into an image—or “idea,” so to speak.
Book Cover Design Ideas For Indie Authors
“The goal of #kulitbuku is to distill the essence of a book into an image.” More tips here! Click to tweet!
, which features an outstretched hand under a night sky—an image that simultaneously conveys the theme of the book’s connection to the heart of the vast universe. To no one’s surprise, designers will want to make sure that this “single idea” takes center stage, so you’ll find that typography is most often restrained on these skins.
Cover design by (left to right, top to bottom): Joel Tippie, Christopher Brand, Alison Forner, Jeffrey Nguyen, Jarrod Taylor, Lynn Buckley.
Ah, the silhouette. There’s a reason it’s on the cover so much: it’s very, very effective at grabbing the reader’s attention. Who wouldn’t see a shadowy figure and automatically say, “Who’s THAT?”
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However, it could be said that the silhouette is a casualty of its ambiguous success. It’s so common that it’s hard to make it original these days. Successful designers often play this against cover typography (as in the case of David Nicholls).
For Galloway Justice, it was important to convey the mysterious tone and idea of a missing girl. I chose to create a blank shadow over the picture to represent the missing piece. I wanted an integrated use of photography, lettering and illustration to create an eye-catching design. I try to create a cover that fits the genre and is interesting and unique at the same time. — Jeffrey Nguyen on Galloway Justice design. 4. A collage is worth a thousand words.
Photo collages are an exciting trend in the world of cover design. Given the latest innovations in photo manipulation, they offer a wide range of possibilities to designers. As you can see, the photo collage gives the cover a slightly modern look. With a little twist, you might see this technique adorning classic covers – giving books like Charles Baudelaire
We are not interested in originality, which is an area that hand illustrations definitely cover. This cover is, in fact, so versatile that it is present in almost any genre. Not to mention how they let designers add that special touch! Where else can you find a lid with a “Y” is a wine glass carefully held by Gatsby?
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Let’s start with the big one: there’s no better illustration (!) of how awesome typography can be than a cover that turns your typography into an image itself.
Book covers are your secret weapon when it comes to sales. Find #design inspiration here! Click to tweet!
, for example: does an excellent job of conveying the book’s message in just a few strokes. You will notice that the “o” in the title ultimately creates the “little bomb” that is the heart of this book. As LitHub notes: “While we expect an explosion to cause chaos, the bomb effect in this composition is highly organized and evokes a network. It’s a timely interpretation of violence.”
Cover design by (from left to right, top to bottom): Asya Blue, Thomas Walker, Jon Grey, Neil Fujita, Mirandi Babitz, Adly Elewa.
Nendo Designs Children’s Book To Illustrate How Creative Ideas Are Born
Big, bold typography on covers is another trend in recent years, and it’s not too hard to see why. This type of typography screams, “This is the book you want to read.” That, or: “Here… we…
Expect to see this type of typography scattered amidst bright colors, as subtlety isn’t exactly at play here. You’ll also often find it next to books with bold titles – like Eve Babitz.
. Plus: If it’s done well, there’s a chance the type will gain iconic status. (See: typography for
Now let’s move to the opposite end of the spectrum. Simple and understated typography is actually used very purposefully on the book cover – it elegantly balances the elements to stand out
Paper Book Covers!
. Great designers aren’t afraid to let typography get in the way so that illustration takes center stage. Because of this, the final effect is amazing: this type of cover allows the (often) tapered art to really capture the reader’s imagination.
Make Way for Her is a book in the New Poetry and Prose series from the University of Kentucky Press. The design took several directions before we reached the final one: initially, the look was illustrative and abstract; then it changed to edgy and photography. In both cases, I kept the typography clean and simple. It allowed me to integrate it into the elements of the work, increasing the depth of feeling of young women finding themselves and making their way, and letting the illustrations shine. — Kathleen Lynch in designing Make Way For Her. 8. Type can create visual magic.
Cover design by (left to right, top to bottom): Scot Bendall, Janet Hansen, Oliver Munday, Timothy Goodman.
Interesting fact: not all magicians use wands. Oh, you want proof? Check out this cover set, also known as Appendix A: Typography as Magic. Baci’s visual dynamism
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Escape your attention – until you realize it exists to perfectly reflect the title itself? They are so attractive that they almost make you want to reach out and open the book (which is, of course, the designer’s goal).
“To minimize the theme of the book, I used a grid of boxes to write it: playful, funny, young, chaotic, sexual, edgy, personal, feminine and smart. I pinned this word sheet and looked at it for a few days before I started, and tried to approach the design with just the theme in mind.” — Janet Hansen on The Bed Moved project. 9. Handwritten titles keep things real.
Cover design by (left to right, top to bottom): Jim Tierney, Adly Elewa, Rodrigo Corral, Leanne Shapton, Adly Elewa, Leo Nickolls.
You know that feeling you get when a friend writes to you by hand? This is the idea behind handwritten headlines, which are currently trending in front page design. The hand-drawn title exudes a sense of warmth, sincerity and individuality. Don’t be surprised to learn that this type of typography works best with unique or super original books that show a lot of personality! For example: It is very popular in young adult fiction today, with one example being The
Book Layout & Design Ideas│layout 3│blurb Blog
Positioning is key to this type of typography, which allows the headline to become a direct part of the design. Sometimes this can mean it is obscured by the cover design, as in Brett Reetz’s book
. Other times, it means the title is an extension of the setting. See cover for
, for example: its combined elements create a sense of movement – replicating the point of view of the title character, peering out the window as the scene passes.
Suspense and mystery books, in particular, use this technique to great effect. By giving you an overview of the scene, the designer makes the reader wonder where other images will take them. And you can bet it isn’t