How to Design an Art Book Cover
Art books combine the visual appeal of the graphic arts with the written information of a book. These books feature beautifully photographed art usually on a shiny cover and are meant to attract the eye and to encourage browsing. As such, care should be taken to ensure that the artwork is photographed in the best possible light and that these photos should be complemented further by an eye-catching design on the front cover.
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Things You'll Need
- Sketch pad and supplies
- Camera and accessories
- Computer
- Design and layout program
Instructions
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Sketch out a rough layout for the cover. Most designers make rough sketches for a project before beginning it. Doing this will give you an idea of what compositions will work, how certain photos will work with the whole design and bring forth ideas that you haven't had a chance to fully develop. You can do sketches by hand or by computer. The idea behind this is to develop a visual interpretation of the book's theme.
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Determine the photos you need to take for the front cover based on your design sketches. With illustrative or photographic art, you may be able to scan the picture instead of photographing it. Three-dimensional art, such as sculpture and ceramics, will have to be photographed.
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Take photos of the art you want to feature on the cover. If you don't consider yourself a competent enough photographer to take the kind of photos you need, go to an art photographer. You can find one by several methods---a quick search of the phone book, a phone call to a local printer or by contacting a university art department in your area. They will be able to refer you. Get the pictures on disk so that you can transfer them onto your computer.
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Set up a file on your computer to store all your book-related files in one place. Load the photos onto your computer either using the equipment that came with your digital camera or by inserting the disc from the photographer. If you're uploading the photos from the camera, follow the instructions that came with it.
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Crop any photos that require it. When you're doing photo correction, use the computer program with which you have the most familiarity. This saves time, because you don't have to spend time learning the program to perform functions like this. Some design programs that do this are Adobe Photoshop, Paint or Corel Digital Studio.
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Open up your graphic design program and begin laying out the book cover according to the sketches that you made. Begin with the background images and work your way forward. For example, if you have a large photograph with text over it, place the photo in the design file first and then the text.
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Save the file and make it into a PDF to send to the printer. To do this, go to "File > Print". Look for your printer's PDF writer in the print menu. To find this, look in the box with the arrow right after "name." Click "OK." Another pop-up will appear asking you where you want to save your PDF. Once the PDF is made, burn the file onto a disk for your printer.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit art image by cico from Fotolia.com
