Book Cover Design

Eurovision!

Eurovision! by Chris West is now on its fourth update. For the cover, I went for a simple, bold design, based upon the ‘heart’ from the official Eurovision logo and using flags from the countries involved in the song contest. I also typeset the interior of the book and designed the picture section.

The Reflection

The brief was to use an illustrated approach for the front cover, incorporating silhouettes, elements of noir, 1950s style clothing and a New York City skyline.

I have designed many covers for Hesperus Press across a range of genres, including classic and contemporary fiction, crime, science fiction, horror, biographies and poetry collections.

The Nine Lives of John Ogilby

With the Nine Lives of John Ogilby book cover, I selected one of the map scrolls he had created and used that as the primary focus of the cover. I only had a poor quality image to work with, and I had to create the top part of the scroll.

The Bonjour Effect

I designed a cover using a bold colour palette based upon the colours of the French flag. For the imagery, I chose a simple, flat illustration style. The book is about communicating, so it made sense to place the tile and sub title in speech bubbles.

Arcadian Nights

The client only had a small budget for this cover and wanted a simple design based on a Greek pottery pattern.

Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks

For the Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks cover, I chose a flat illustration style and used an absinthe inspired colour palette.

Grammar Rules

General Grammar was the original name of the book. Written by a former army officer, the client wanted to emphasise the ‘military’ aspect in the design. During the design process, the title changed to Grammar Rules and moved away from the military design. I based the finished design on an old school exercise book.

Following its publication, the client needed a new cover design for a book club edition. For this edition, the title changed to Grammar for Grown-Ups. Aimed at a different market, the new design needed to reflect this. I kept the school book look but went for a more playful direction, using a lined paper background, ink splashes and hand-drawn typefaces.

This book was to be a collection of Beadle's Wild West 'Dime' stories. I designed two approaches for the front cover. One used an illustration of two cowboys, which I manipulated and designed to look like a distressed retro book/magazine cover. The second, with the original title of Tales from the Frontier, used a retro illustration and a colour scheme designed to appeal to the Dangerous Book for Boys market.

Beyond Death

This is one of my first book covers, which I designed for Vega, an imprint of Chrysalis Books. I discovered this image during my research. Everything about it worked – the colours, the tree, the beach, the horizon and the empty deck chairs.

Empty Force

Another of my early cover designs for Vega. I found a suitable image that reflected balance and calm and matched the typography to suit it.