Designing a Book Cover
Between everything else going on lately (working from home for my real job and balancing that with brand design clients), I’ve been dying to make time to work on a dream project. I finally snagged some time this past week, and took a few hours to redesign the cover of one of my favorite novels - A Room with a View! This is such a lovely book - it’s funny, romantic, and light, even though it addresses class differences in the late 1800s.
Another designer on Instagram brought attention to the New York Public Library’s digital collections, and I decided to rifle through and see what I could use. Lo and behold, they have hundreds and thousands of digitized free-to-use imagery that can be downloaded in beautiful high resolution!
I decided I wanted my book cover to have a vintage feel, and be reminiscent of Florence (where the first part of the book takes place) without being in your face. I found a beautiful drawing of Italian architecture right out of the 1800s, as well as a gorgeous botanical illustration that would layer perfectly. Together with a paper texture from Design Cuts, a few typefaces I’ve been wanting to use, a gentle palette, and the perfect mockup from Mr. Mockup, I was able to create the book cover of my dreams. How I wish it existed in real life!
Here’s how I did it:
Open Photoshop and create a new document that is 1600px by 2560px.
Bring in your base image (in this case, the Italian countryside!).
Resize to fit - I wanted it to show the building’s details, and the file was in TIFF format, large enough to resize comfortably.
Next, bring in your paper texture - I used one that is slightly crinkled and worn. Change the blend mode to Screen.
Create a Solid Layer with an off-white shade, such as #FFFBEF, and set the Opacity to 20%.
Last, bring in the flowers! Rasterize the layer, and use the magic wand to cut out around the flowers. Change the blend mode to Multiply, and Opacity to 55%.
Create your title and author, utilizing typography to create interest around the title. Save, and mock-up using a book cover mockup to show off your work!
Happy book cover designing!
