How to Design Book Covers

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner, and today, I'm going to talk with you about how to design book covers. First of all, you have to read the book before you design the cover. And then, you also probably want to design a cover that will tell the reader what the book is about; at least in some way. You can use a symbolic design illustrating the ideas of the book, or you can be very literal; like for example this cover for Don Quixote which just shows Don Quixote and Sancho Panza walking, or riding on their horses. And this is just something that is very literal. It comes straight from the text. It shows you the two main characters of the text, and that's all there is to it. You may pick up a book due to its cover. I've done this many different times, especially with a book like The Field Guide To The Urban Hipster which is sort of a parody on a field guide to, you know, like plants and other things, insects, and you might actually pick up this book just due to the the cover because it's it seems like a book that's going to be different. And of course, you know, the inside of the book is illustrated as well. So, you're going to give an idea of the illustrations in the book with the illustrations on the cover, okay. And also, you know, it is popular sometimes for books to be covered as far as, you know, if they've been made into films. But sometimes I look at that and I think, you know, well, wouldn't there be a better idea for a cover than just the film? Wouldn't there be something more that could actually give an idea of, you know, something symbolic about the book or something like that. Some of the themes in the book rather than just the film picture, okay. And if you are writing your own book, trying to design your own cover you might actually want to put down your ideas, and then have an artist help you to actually design the cover and make it pretty. So, that's just some ways to design book covers."