by Misha Grifka Wander
The adage says not to judge a book by its cover, but in reality, people do, all the time. Covers are the first chance you have to influence a reader, to interest them, and to convey your genre and level of quality. Book covers provide a lot of information to readers, and so it’s in the author’s best interest to control what the cover is saying.
Independent authors often find themselves needing to be their own cover designers as well as writers. Not everyone has the benefit of an art school education, though, and graphic design is both challenging to get right and vital to initial audience impressions. Fortunately, the art world abounds with guidelines to help moonlighting cover designers get the best results. In this article, I’ll list just a few rules of thumb to follow when designing your next ebook cover. Note that this isn’t going to cover the practical and technical requirements for print covers; that would be a future article.
Work with a Grid
Photographers often use the rule of thirds when composing their shots—projecting a three-column, three-row grid onto the scene and aligning the photo’s focus with the lines and intersections. Similarly, in layout and graphic design, working with a grid helps you place everything from pictures and text to margins and paragraph spacing. Play with aligning your text and images. What does it look like to keep everything aligned with the same starting point? What about putting one element on the left of the grid and one on the right? What about varying how many grid spaces are between the items’ vertical spacing? Using a grid can greatly improve the composition of your page.
Play with Size
Often, if you’re working with public domain or other free art, you won’t have the exact size of image you’re looking for. However, nothing looks more amateur than simply plopping an image in a rectangle on a plain background and calling it a day. It’s an understandable impulse—most people want to see an image in its entirety. However, it can look much more dynamic to play with size. If you’re able to find an image with sufficient resolution (typically at least 450 dpi), consider blowing it up so it covers the whole page, or so you can focus in on an interesting detail. If it can’t go big, try balancing a small image with large type to minimize awkward blank space. You can also stretch an image to the edges in one dimension but not the other, creating a band of image that looks great against a colored background.
Use Color Theory to Your Advantage
Color theory characterizes how color interacts with itself. For example, complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel: red and green, purple and orange, yellow and blue. These color pairs are known to be bright, even jarring, when used together. Use them on a cover only with caution, as they will stand out aggressively.
Analogous colors, in contrast, are adjacent on the color wheel. For example, blue, blue-green, and green make up an analogous trio. Analogous colors always “go together.” They won’t clash. Rather, they provide an atmospherically consistent set of colors with minimum contrast. If you don’t have a good eye for color, analogous colors are a good bet.
Triadic colors can provide a slightly more advanced palette. Triadic colors are three colors evenly spaced around the color wheel, such as the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) or the secondary colors (green, purple, and orange). These colors are bright and dynamic together, but may look chaotic if they’re present in equal amounts. Instead, use one from the triad as a dominant color, and add the other two only as accents. This creates a harmonious but lively color palette.
Not sure what colors go with what? A color calculator, like this one, can provide an easy visual reference.
Minimize Unwanted Contrasts
Having some contrast isn’t bad—most of the time, you’re going to want some color change or difference in value. However, it’s important to make sure you aren’t trying to put text over a contrast point in the art. If there’s a meeting point between light and dark, between two very different colors, or between smooth and textured, placing text over those things will make it hard to read. The eye is naturally drawn to the contrast and doesn’t pay attention to the text. Minimize these transition points if you have other things you want the viewer to focus on.
Mix Serif and Sans-Serif Fonts
This might seem odd—wouldn’t you want your fonts to match? In a word, no. Designers recommend using one sans-serif font and one serif font. Perhaps a fancy serif font for the title of your romantic fantasy, with a simple and understated sans-serif for your name. Or a clean and modern sans-serif for your sci-fi epic, paired with a classic serif font for your name, to add that sense of timeless quality. Whatever combination you choose, make sure both fonts are readable. It can be fun to find a unique, thematic font, but if it’s too difficult to read, your potential audience will be turned off.
Pairing two different fonts adds visual interest, intention, and balance to your cover design.
Balance Your Elements
One of the most important things to consider in graphic design is what’s not there: negative space. While you might be tempted to fill gaps, negative space helps provide focus and clarity. For example, a common mistake is putting too much text on a cover. The loss of negative space might make the reader unsure where to focus, and the cover becomes a blur of chaotic imagery. Your cover should have the book’s title and your name. Any other text is optional, including subtitles. If your cover doesn’t have much imagery, you may be able to include a subtitle and/or one brief blurb, but beware the impulse to put everything on the cover. For print books, back covers and inside covers can hold more text, because they typically have less imagery.
This is how you should decide how big to make the text: It must be readable, but otherwise the font size depends on the balance of negative space and your other design elements. It should not overwhelm other important elements, but the title especially should command a major part of the visual focus. As much as it may sting, the author’s name is typically a less important part of the cover, unless they are famous enough to sell on their name alone. Your cover is a chance to pitch your book visually as well as verbally, and thus it’s vital to use negative space to highlight the most important aspects.
As in all art, experimentation and practice are vital. These rules are helpful, but they can only serve as a starting point, and your specific technical requirements may affect what you can do. Looking at other book covers you admire is also a great way to learn. Pay attention to placement, size, color, negative space, and the types of elements used. Even if full illustrations aren’t an option for you, there are still plenty of ways you can use free art, typography, and color to create beautiful covers.
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Misha Grifka Wander (he/they) is a writer, designer, and editor based in the American Midwest. They obtained a PhD in English from the Ohio State University focusing on contemporary global speculative fiction and catastrophe. Currently, they work in operations at SFWA and serve as part of the editing collective for Hugo-nominated magazine Ancillary Review of Books.