Tips on How to Design Fiction Book Covers (Ideas & Examples)

Looking for book cover design ideas? You’ve come to the right place. Today, we’ll share some terrific book cover examples and tips on how to make your cover stand out from the pack.

How to Design a Book Cover

1. Convey the mood of your book with your cover design. Your reader should know whether your book is funny, romantic, tragic, or scary with one glance at the cover. Mood is usually communicated through your choice of fonts, colours, and imagery, so each element you use to build your design has to support the overall mood of your book.

2. Use compelling imagery. Let’s be clear: you do not have to use imagery on your book cover. But if you do, make it riveting so that it piques your potential reader’s curiosity and makes them want to pick up your book to investigate more.

3. Use attention-getting typography. Though you may not use images on your cover, it goes without saying that you must use words, so be very intentional about your choice of font. You want your font to call attention to your cover. For some books, this will mean a big, bold font, while for others it will mean handwritten text. Whichever direction you go in, remember point one above: the font should not just get attention but also communicate the mood of your book.

4. Make colour work. Just as your images and text need to be selected with the intention of getting and holding your audience’s attention, the colour scheme you choose for your cover is also critical and can be used to direct your audience’s eyes and communicate meaning. A murder mystery is probably not going to use baby blues or pinks unless there’s a really good reason. Likewise, a children’s book will stay away from heavy, dark colours that aren’t consistent with its theme. 

5. Remember contrast. Using contrasting colours, sizes, and shapes is a great way to emphasise important aspects of your cover design. For example, readers will notice a larger font before they notice a smaller one. Likewise, a light colour against a darker background will definitely stand out more than a light colour against a slightly darker background. 

6. Honour the rules of visual hierarchy.  Visual hierarchy refers to the arrangement of elements in a design. It guides the viewer’s eye through the content in a predetermined order from most to least important. Visual hierarchy is intended to create a clear and logical structure that helps viewers sort through and understand the information presented. To learn more about visual hierarchy, check out these articles:

7. Keep things simple. The hallmark of great design is simplicity, so resist the urge to pack your book cover design with too many elements. The goal is to provide your reader with only what they need to know to be intrigued to pick up your book and learn more.

Romance book cover art is meant to communicate temptation and/or sexual tension, either indirectly or directly. It’s possible to note the changes in this genre over centuries, with the cover of Pride and Prejudice being very gentle and indirect and The Windflower being quite obvious and direct. 

Crime book cover art is most effective when it uses eerie landscapes, half-obscure images, stark contrasts, and strong colours to communicate that all is not well in the world of the characters who live between the covers. 

Horror book covers benefit from using bright, jarring colours (especially reds), as well as shadowy landscapes, dark silhouettes, and bold, in-your-face text to communicate the promise of terror. 

Sci-fi book cover designs should offer potential readers a glimpse into a futuristic world, whether that comes in the form of an unidentifiable alien landscape or genetically modified humans. There are some book cover designs, however, like Kindred by Octavia E. Butler above, which are designed to lure readers in with the idea of the recognisable and then turn that expectation on its head. 

Poetry is all about engaging with a subject in a unique and subjective way, and poetry book covers are no different. The room for creative suggestion and the communication of mood is vast. This selection of covers from artists around the world is testimony to that. 

For children ages 1 to 5, children’s story book covers and fairy-tale book covers tend to use bright, joyful colours that children are attracted to rather than dark colours or pastels. The Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter book cover examples here target children who are a bit older, so they certainly break that rule.

Whether you want to know how to make a book cover for a romance, crime, horror, or children’s book, Envato Elements offers a terrific selection of book cover templates and mockups that can make your job easier. 

For one low monthly fee, this subscription-based marketplace offers tons of graphic templates, fonts, logos, add-ons, and more. Let’s take a look at a selection of the premium book cover templates and mockups from Elements.

1. Antique Book Cover Template (PSD)

Antique Book Cover Template will save you time and money when you need just the right mockup to showcase your book cover design ideas. The template contains four PSD mockup files. 

2. Book Cover Mockup (PSD)

You can’t go wrong with these terrific book cover mockups. To customise them, all you need to do is replace the placeholder images with your own designs using the Smart Object function. 

3. Comic Cover Book Mockup (PSD)

Looking for a simple way to showcase your comic book cover design? This mockup allows you to add your image to the front cover and spine and change the background colours as needed. 

4. Book Cover With Autumn Leaves (PSD)

Here’s a great story book cover template to showcase your latest cover design. The template is highly customisable in Photoshop, so you can edit the object, background, shadows, and more.

5. Book Cover Mockups Scene (PSD)

With this mockup, you get six wonderful layout files. The files are all organised in layers, which makes customisation easy.

6. Comic Book Cover Template (PSD)

7. Book Cover Mockup (PSD)

Whether you’re a children’s book cover designer or a poetry book cover designer, this book cover mockup template is a great choice for you. The mockup offers a smart object which allows you to drag and drop your design onto the appropriate layer in Photoshop. Then you can change the background colours as needed.

8. Dup Book Cover Mockups (PSD)

If you’re looking for the perfect hardcover book mockup, you can’t go wrong with Dup Book Covers Mockup. Use the Smart Object feature in Photoshop to add your design to the mockup quickly and easily.

9. Book Cover Mockups (PSD)

This is an awesome book mockup design for a wide range of book genres, from romance to literary. Use this template to showcase your latest design to a client or display it on your social media page.

10. Book Cover Mockup With Autumn Leaf (PSD)

No matter what kind of book cover designer you are, you will need a way of showcasing your design ideas from time to time. This book cover mockup is a great choice. It’s well organised in layers for easy editing.

Conclusion

Now you know how to design a book cover and where to find premium book cover templates when you need them.

Here are more top resources and tutorials to try from Envato Tuts+: