Cover Design: a Case Study for Fragments of Spirit
A successful book cover speaks instantly to the desired audience. It’s the sexy sizzle! It’s both sales pitch, and billboard. Readers look to the cover for a guarantee that a book’s content will not waste either their time or money. Something different, harmonious, exciting, age-appropriate.
To me a cover is also an invitation so irresistible that the bookstore browser or museum gift shop visitor looking for a suitable souvenir reaches for it immediately. Intrinsically interesting, geometric, an element of the abstract (currently popular), textural, luxurious. to touch The varied audience for Fragments of Spirit posed challenges, along with designing both case bound coffee table and soft cover versions: photographers and photo collectors of course, Western history, Native Americans, spirituality, New Mexico lovers, casual tourists, poetry, environmentalism, mysticism, memoir.
There is a huge, specialized industry for book cover design. There are so many, crucial choices to make. You need a communicative, sales-generating cover that imparts lots of information at a glance. As a design juror, I judge a cover as effective if I am attracted without being really interested in the subject matter.
Breaking every rule that you should never design the cover for your own book, I tackled the job myself. Fortunately, beta readers had been fascinated my initial rendition. One reader held it in her hands so long I didn’t think she was ever going to get around to opening the pages! But I stipulate: most authors absolutely must engage a pro.
Intermediate book cover mock-up with tan background and early working title of the book Fragments of Spirit
The right design was not immediately obvious to me, nor was my title, nor the type face (I love the Papyrus font that designers hate). Its’ hard to feel really good about any photo or art book that does not display a cover image to hook you in. My chosen image right from the start was definitely the perfect combination of mystery, flames, night, feel of something old and images of people—even though they are shown from the back—which gives yet another layer of spiritual mystery to the promised content. People or faces on the cover are heavy draw: you want to discover what is happening to them inside the book.
Final, luxe chocolate fabric cover for the case bound edition—the most popular edition
Luxurious cover material, along with quality paper, make an art book feel great in the hands; after all, a book transforms two dimensional photography or art into sculpture. It begs to be touched. There’s a fine line. I didn’t want the styling to scream stuffy-elitist. Worn leather was an obvious look, but after trying a number of textures and colors, I chose a creamy chocolate linen for the the coffee table version, titled in embossed silver with an actual photograph affixed. A background somewhere between leather and ancient, cracked adobe became the soft bound version, to mirror the sepia brown tone fo many of the images and also the text.