Essential Design Elements of a Bestseller-Worthy Book Cover

Book cover design is both an art and science, taking important artistic style techniques and combining them with proven statistics regarding reader psychology and engagement. Not only does a cover have to look aesthetically pleasing, but it also needs to represent the book’s content and theme while inviting readers to explore more. If you’re struggling to understand what your book cover should look like, you’re going to need to understand which design elements are critical.

Transformative Title

The book’s title is one of the most meaningful parts of the cover. Your readers will refer to your novel by its title, and clever writing isn’t all you need to worry about. How the title is displayed on the front of your book will give readers many clues to its theme. The first feature your title should have is legibility. Many fonts or logos can be very artistic and clever, but they’re not worth much if they’re too difficult to read. Make sure your typography is easily visually comprehensive. Most ordinary fonts are split into serif or sans-serif categories; serif fonts are usually used for more formal, sophisticated titles, like romance or medieval fantasy genres. Sans-serif is typically used for more modern titles and style preferences. The font’s color should stand out well against the cover’s background color and any other imagery on the page. It can be placed wherever you’d like, but it should be relatively large and take up a dominant part of the cover.

Popping Photography

One of the most popular cover options for authors of any kind is to utilize artistic photography. A cover photograph should be original and high quality; you shouldn’t use stock images. Hiring a professional photographer can provide unique, tailored photos that meet your cover’s needs. You can brainstorm photography or placement ideas with them or any cover designers you’re considering to create the most engaging results. The photo should represent your book’s plot or theme very well.

Illuminating Illustrations

If you want a more abstract or stylized image on your cover, you can opt for an illustration over photography. A gorgeous, commissioned illustration created specifically for your book can make it look unique and engaging. Illustrators can capture a wide variety of genres, themes, and moods to represent your book and cover properly. If you have an illustration idea, you can also bring that to the table for the artist to consider in their work. Artwork should have a high resolution and be formatted correctly for printing. You can obtain professional book cover design services to get any artwork formatted properly, but you may want to hire an artist who is already familiar with cover formatting to reduce work on your end.

Captivating Colors

Colors may not seem like a design element on their own, but they can transform any imagery’s mood or style easily. For example, a vividly colored illustration of a cat may indicate a whimsical story, but a black-and-white illustration of a cat could indicate historical, gloomy, or supernatural themes. Color can do a lot of talking. Make sure your colors are cohesive and relevant; they should mesh well together and not be too distracting from your cover’s imagery or theme. Certain colors can draw the eye first, which can be a useful tool when considering them. Red can often symbolize anxiety, passion, or urgency. Blue can be calming, otherworldly, mysterious, or even sad. Yellow can evoke energetic or cheerful imagery. These aren’t hard rules to follow; you can use red in a tragic tale or yellow in a horror novel, but they should fit the overall theme well.

Symbolic Styles

Have you ever noticed rough, sharp edges in an art piece and felt a sting of anxiety or danger? Certain shapes or line styles can evoke emotions within the viewer. Thrillers or horror novels will usually utilize sharp edges and unnatural shapes to create a sense of unease or anxiety; drooping or dripping fonts or shapes can symbolize blood drops or tears. On the other hand, children’s novels usually have simple fonts, shapes, and gentle linework. Consider genre and intended audience when stylizing your font, shapes, negative space, and images. Even simple subjects can hint at the novel’s plot; for example, if your main character turns evil at the end, placing the character’s profile in partial shadow is a common and popular symbolic design in movie posters and book novels. Choose your shapes and moods wisely!

Sightly Subtitles

Similar to the book’s title, you’ll want a subtitle or tagline to be legible and coordinate with the other colors and themes of the cover. However, your subtitle or tagline will typically be smaller than the title or author name. It’s important but shouldn’t take up the title or author’s attention. It should be a detail only noticed when one is holding the cover or studying it up close. You can think of it as nutmeg sprinkled on top of a sundae; it is a delicious and enticing element, but it is not the first detail one notices about the dessert.

Alluring Author Name

The prominence of the author’s name usually depends on their career. Established authors will usually display their names boldly and prominently, sometimes equal to the title. For incredibly famous authors, the name may even take precedence over the title. Most newer authors will feature their names smaller and out of the way of the title’s prominence.

Conclusion

When creating a book cover, the empty space can do a lot of talking as well. Negative space, or the space that design elements don’t take up, can create a certain mood. Large, empty spaces can help focus on central figures or generate a sense of loneliness or expanse. Negative space can form their own shapes, too. Play around with the empty space of your cover, and you might change the whole mood of the piece. Don’t be afraid to hire professionals to create the perfect cover, either. Writers may not have all the visual design expertise to take on the job entirely on their own.