Ask any book designer about their collection of reference books and you’ll get a long list of the usual suspects: books about design, typography, layout, and grids; dictionaries and style guides; software manuals; and lots of books and magazines kept for inspiration. But which books are indispensable to a book designer?
Book Cover Design
Below you'll find links to all the information about book cover design that’s available on the Book Design Made Simple website, book, videos, and blog.
Get started with Part I of Book Design Made Simple, where you’ll learn how to lease and install Adobe InDesign, create a document, and import your manuscript from Word. Download Part I for free by subscribing to our blog—simply use the form below.
Excerpts from Book Design Made Simple
- Basic principles of good design: what are they?
- Typeface vs font: what’s the difference?
- Book binding: many options beyond softcover and hardcover
- InDesign layers: how to use them with text and shapes
- InDesign object styles: why and how to use them
Video tutorials about book cover design
Blog posts about book cover design
Below are all the blog posts in the Book Cover Design category, starting with the most recent post.
Designing a book series
Are you designing a book cover that’ll become part of a series or boxed set? If so, you’ll need to think ahead! There are a few design considerations to take into account when you plan your book cover design. Not only should your cover design be successful using different title lengths and images, but more importantly, it must create a look or brand that’ll easily identify all future books as being part of the same series. Sound challenging? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! [Read more…]
The evolution of a book cover
Does the prospect of designing a book cover make you feel anxious? Jittery? Terrified? Do you start to contemplate cleaning out your basement instead? Don’t worry! You’re not the only one. [Read more…]
What your dog can teach you about book design
For some reason I never fully noticed this before. But when I helped out at two book sale events this past fall, it became all too clear: People love dogs more than anything else. Dogs are cute. Dogs attract. Dogs are cuddly and lovable. Dogs rule. [Read more…]
Developing an eye for good design
In Book Design Made Simple, we have given you samples and instructions that serve as foundations for your own book designs. And if you follow them, you can be certain that you have produced something very good. But are you confident about your work? Do you think it looks good? Do you wonder if anyone else will think it’s good? Do you worry that if you come up with ideas of your own they might be “bad”? [Read more…]
Is book design REALLY simple?
If you are a book designer reading this, you have probably just put a huge question mark at the end of our book title, Book Design Made Simple. “There’s nothing simple about it!” you say, and I have to admit that I agree with you. Especially when typesetting and page layout are added into the mix with book cover design elements. [Read more…]
Design your book and get it to press with confidence—even if it’s your first book!
Do you want to create your book cover and/or pages yourself using Adobe InDesign? Well, now you can! Follow easy step-by-step instructions to create your own book design and typeset your pages. [Read more…]
