Whilst trying to design my own book cover recently I have started to take note of designers/illustrators on the books that I am picking up.
Love From Paris, by Alexandra Potter was one of those books that I picked, pure and simply because I loved the cover. Thankfully I loved the book too, you can read my review here.
But I had to check out the designer Adrian Valencia.
If you check out his website you will see gorgeous covers for writers like Lindsey Kelk, Jane Costello, Ella Griffin, Nicky Pellegrino amongst others.
There are several that stand out for me, that one for Alexandra potter featured above, but also one for Elizabeth Buchan for her novels ‘Separate Beds’ and ‘Daughters’.
They are stunning. Plain, simple, yet lifts from the page and begs for you to lift it up and read it.
If you are into book covers like I am, his website is a good place to look at fonts, titles, designs etc.
Take notice of where the author name is placed. What type of font is used? Is it uppercase, lowercase, cursive, script? What do you like, if you do, about it?
What don’t you like about it?
If you are going to design your own cover take tips, take note, bookmark his website.
If you are planning on self-pubbing your own books and have a series planned, see how he keeps things like titles and fonts the same across that series, or by the same author. This is what you need to be doing. After all, what you, the self-pubbing Indie author needs to be doing, is building your brand. Make it cohesive and easily recognisable. Sometimes keeping it simple is the better option.
The other place you must see is his blog where he has illustrations to die for! Kate Middleton, pop stars, models etc. They are worth a drool.
Have you designed your own covers?
Have you a favourite illustrator or designer?
Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you.
Susannah Branson 