The most important thing for a book cover is, of course, the general impression it leaves on a reader (or a future reader, author, the owner of a bookstore who arranges the shop window, the visitor of a website searching for ideas-whoever is your presumed audience). It would be the best if that’s a polished mixture of a picture, photo or graphics, font, highlights, effects and all those details which go on the front cover, which make an appealing, eye-catchy final image that represents the book if the best possible way. Though, achieving such an effect demands a lot of hard work-the more synchronized the title, colors, image, background and fonts used look at the end, the more effort is put to make it seem well-combined, natural and even effortless.
Even a simple research about original book covers and editions of the same book abroad would show some interesting facts about book cover design. Most of the publishers and their designers tend to use the same photo as the original or chose between two or three similar versions. The ones who decide to use more original solutions made the book harder to recognize at first glance, and that’s not always a good idea. Most of them also tend to keep the original title of the book, if it’s in English. However, they usually alter elements of the original book cover design, and that can lead to very interesting solutions. Some insert diagonal cutouts to the book cover, which lead to a more modernist design, others give a more graphical look to the original photo, add sepia tones to the black and white cover photo, lighten it, or add a little bit of red for a more dramatic effect. Others alter the font of the title, its position on the cover or just font size or color. The results can be pretty amazing-we get a dozen good, appealing book covers, and each of them maintains its originality and gave the space to the designer to play with effects.
The similar approach may be used when making a pre-made book cover designs. Adding right, carefully chosen details which address to that specific book to an original idea can change the whole image. If we, for example, have a winter landscape with high pine trees and a cottage in a distance, it can work for a romance, for example. If you sharpen the edges, add a little bit of red or green, and change the basic color of the cover from white to black, and you have a completely different image which makes a totally different impression on a viewer. In that case, you can use an idyllic winter photo as the basic for a suspense novel book cover, or a thriller, and you just altered a couple of elements.
If you choose your details well, they don’t draw too much attention, but complete the whole book cover and make it interesting, appealing and unique. That’s why choosing those small parts of a book cover may take more time than creating an original idea, but if it’s done properly, it helps a good book cover to become an excellent one.
