I *heart* book cover design
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 9:47AM Since February is the month of love (and in an effort to get me to blog more frequently) I am going to *heart* each area of my business that I love and go over some things that my blog/website features that a lot of my blog frequenters or new visitors might not know exists over in the right hand column of my site. One of the great things about Squarespace is the ability to show your images big and large and in a nice portfolio style for the whole world to see. I've got areas for my mixed-media artwork (kind of lacking samples at the moment), my design portfolio, and my photography portfolio.
Today I'm highlighting my book cover design area. For seven years prior to 2011 I worked at a craft book publisher and did many, many book covers. The book covers in this area are some of my favorites that I've done and you'll see a lot in a style I do best, photoshop “collage” of the particular authors artwork or imagery. It’s fun to take the vision of an artist and make a cover for them that showcases their art and style and makes a reader intrigued enough to pick up the book (or click on it online) and see what the author has to offer in their book. An example of this is shown below with author Kelly Rae Roberts book, Taking Flight. Kelly Rae is a fantastic artist that has her own unique style (although I’ve seen it emulated a lot lately online!) Her artwork is distributed worldwide by Demadco now in several different styles of products. When I worked on this book, her popularity was trending but I still wanted to create a book cover that was the true essence of Kelly Rae and would stand the test of time, even as she emerged as a popular artist. I couldn't accomplish that with a staged photograph or just one piece of artwork ... her cover called for a collage of her body of work to entice a reader into knowing they were getting a full book giving insight into all of Kelly Rae's creative process. It's been a top seller for Kelly Rae and the publisher and continues to sell well.
Of course, I don't just do “collaging” (although I really really enjoy it and think I do it very well.) There are book cover designs that call for simple, to the point, focal imagery and impactful typography that makes a big impact at first glance. A book cover designer strives to do both styles well, and I'm proud of all of the covers I've done over the course of my almost 14 years in design and working on books. Click on over here to take a look at all of my book cover design work I have up as samples.
What makes you pick up a book, and “judge it by its cover?”
Reader Comments (4)
You're missing my favorite of all your book covers!! :)
Such beautiful work, Marissa!! Love them all!
I know, Courtney. I thought about that again when looking through my website this week, I never got the digital file from FW before I left and now I'll have to scan it. I hate scanning my covers when I know a digital one exists, but ack! now I can't access them so easily like I could a year ago. :)
What a cool job! I love great book designs and beautiful book covers. I think it is a combination of typography, title, author, colours and theme that draws me in, but a beautiful cover design is so important of course. Yours are yummy!
So weird - I was just looking at Kelly Rae's book sitting on my coffee table and was drawn again to how lovely the cover is and how proud she must be that the book is not just totally helpful but beautiful to look at... and then find you. I am drawn to a book's cover by it's color strength and composition - but mostly good art and particularly portrait faces. For instance, I'll pick up anything that looks like Modigliani, or a french country feel. I'm sure that's just a personal preference but that is what you were asking.