How to Design a Book Cover in 2 minutes

Judging by most book jackets, I always thought that their creation took neither time nor skill, much like the book's written content.

So she copied, pasted, erased, and re-arranged. It just looks like a tacky photoshop job, sorry. The Soulless cover looks good, though. The girl seems to fit in better with the background.

Bobo, you would be surprised how much 'art' is done that way now. I work for a video game company doing all sorts or 2D art. The computer has seriously stolen the talent of many artists. It IS another medium, but its so easy to take shortcuts now.

film matte paintings are done much the same way. take whatever photo stock you have and manipulate it to suite your scene.

It IsN'T easy though. you would think it was by the video, but it takes much time to properly size assets, change their hue, saturation, and even perspective so that it seems like one seamless picture.

Let's not overlook that this book is one of a series, so a lot of major design decisions were made long before this particular jacket project and are not reflected in the clip.

I hope the guy is not paid on an hourly basis, overwise all his current and future clients, will ask him to review his invoices and work rates :)

Hiddnfox, I'm a 2D illustrator. I can use ink and paint and so forth, but I do most of my work in photoshop. It is not in any way easier to use than traditional media. It requires a whole new set of skills. I recently acquired painter 11 and for the life of me I just can not get used to it.

That said, I hate most book covers these days. They're all the same uncreative cut/pasted stock photos of women's shoulders and feet, maybe with a flower somewhere. They just look interchangeable.

It also kind of sucks that authors have little or no power to decide what goes on the cover of their books, but they get all the blame if it's bad.

That clip doesn't show design, it shows execution.

Design is done in the head and is usually expressed with a pencil or pen on paper, as thumbnails, scribbles, whatever. Designs are ideas. The thinking leads to a series of thumbnails or scribbles, some branching off tangentially, others following a developmental thread until a concept which seems sound is arrived at. No computer has been used to this point. But the design now exists.

This is the point at which a computer may start to be useful, to render the idea either as a comp layout or finished illustration, fleshing out, crystallising and refining the idea which was first developed in the head with the aid of pencil and paper.

This clip does not show design at all.

@Hiddnfox:

That's the thing, though, the finished product doesn't look seamless. I have a lot of respect for people that are good at photoshop, but she is not one of them.