Book Design Made Simple

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You are here: Home / Archives for Book Design / Book Cover Design

Book Cover Design


Book cover designBelow 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

  • Using layers in InDesign
  • Using InDesign object styles
  • Placing an image inside type

 

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 spine

March 7, 2022 By Glenna Collett 6 Comments

book spine examplesFront covers attract and back covers sell—we’ve said it before. At the same time, a book spine should broadcast.

Most books in stores and libraries are shelved with their spines facing out. If a book has a great title and a well-designed spine, it’ll attract a lot more eyes than its neighbor on the shelf. So here’s how to accomplish that for your book. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: book marketing, color, text frames

Reference books for book designers

December 4, 2017 By Fiona Raven 9 Comments

Reference books about book designAsk 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?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: color, typesetting

Designing a book series

April 11, 2017 By Fiona Raven 4 Comments

Bawbs Raven Feathers, boxed set, by Robert ChomanyAre 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…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: book marketing, color

The evolution of a book cover

February 13, 2017 By Glenna Collett 6 Comments

book cover wtih question markDoes 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…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: color, images

What your dog can teach you about book design

April 11, 2016 By Glenna Collett 8 Comments

dog on cover of Book Design Made SimpleFor 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…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: book marketing

Developing an eye for good design

February 8, 2016 By Glenna Collett 4 Comments

eye_openerIn 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…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design Tagged With: color, typesetting

Is book design REALLY simple?

July 11, 2014 By Glenna Collett Leave a Comment

open book with strong colors to indicate good book designIf 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…]

Filed Under: Book Cover Design

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Recent Posts

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  • Advanced live index features in InDesign November 7, 2022
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