Book Cover Layout & Design Tutorial

By: Niki Browning (a.k.a. SkyeWolf)

This tutorial is done using Photoshop 7.0 and presupposes a working knowledge of that program.

I’m going to start this tutorial at the point after the completion of the artwork but before the actual
layout design. Why? Well I figure by now you’ve had enough people show you how to make pretty
pictures.

Before I start there are a few basics I need to go over. I do covers for print on demand books. I do what
are called “full wrap” covers. This means the cover artwork wraps from front to back and isn’t just on
the front cover. If you look in my gallery you’ll see one or two exceptions, but for the most part I do full
wraps. Each cover is designed on a template provided by the printer. Each book has a different sized
cover needing a different sized template.

Why isn’t each cover the same size?

Because every book has a different number of pages making the width of the spine a different
measurement which in turn makes the total width of the book different every time.

However, they way I work, the cover artwork is designed before the book is finished being typeset so at
the time I am doing the artwork the spine width is still an unknown factor.

If you don’t know the exact size how do you size your artwork?
Because the front and back covers will always be the same size (6” x 9”) I can over estimate a spine
width of 2” giving me a full estimated width of 14” wide by 9” tall. To compensate for any bleed and
trim (which I will go over in a minute) I bump the cover size up to 14” x 9.5”. Normal print dpi is 300.
Because you are doing a book cover, all the “action” will be to the far right in that 6” x 9” space. If
you’ve overestimated your size it’s perfectly fine to crop the image cutting off whatever you need to
from the left hand side or the back of the book.

Bleed and Trim?

Trim marks are indications of where the cover will be trimmed and folded; they mark out the finished
page area. You will have them around all four edges of your cover and in the middle on either side of
center to mark where the spine folds.
Bleed is the area of the page that extends beyond the trim marks. You always want to be sure that any
text and “important” parts of your artwork are well inside the trim marks of the page. Otherwise you
risk them being cut off.

As you will see, in the dust jacket template below, it’s very easy to distinguish where the main part of
your cover needs to be. The blue lines signify the outside edge of your cover and where the spine and
flaps will fold. All text and important elements must fall inside the red lines.

While the template for the dust jacket may look complex, it’s not. The extra space on either end is simply
for the inside flaps of the dust jacket. Hard cover books tend to have a slightly wider front and back
cover area than a paperback.
Remember that you are designing a cover that will wrap all the way around. There will be text printed
on the back and spine that will need to be easily read so it is best that most of the action be kept to the
front (or right hand side) and that the back (or left hand side) be kept relatively simple.

Also remember that you will need open space on your cover for the title and author’s name and any
subtitles or quotations the author would like you to put there. Hopefully you will have this information
in advance and be able to plan for it.

One last thing before we begin. Because you are creating covers for print you will be expected to
produce in CMYK color mode. RGB is the primary color model used by electronic display devices (e.g.,
monitors). CMYK is the primary color model used by color printers. I don’t advocate working in CMYK
color mode as it makes your already large image even larger. For now we will work in RGB and I will
show you how to convert it at the end of the tutorial.

In RGB, images are created by combining red, green, and blue light. CMYK, in contrast, creates
different colors in a subtractive process using four colors or inks: cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow, and
black. CMYK works by removing color from a white background, whereas RGB adds color to a black
background. CMYK pigments absorb most of the white light that hits them, reflecting only part of the
spectrum back to the eye. Similarly to RGB, CMYK creates various colors by combining the cyan,
magenta, yellow, and black inks in different proportions.

One thing I can add to this textbook definition is that red and green do not convert well from RGB to
CMYK. They tend to become washed out. If you use those colors you will have to do some color
correction after converting.
For this tutorial we will be using a dust jacket template:

And this artwork:

The first thing we want to do is create guides where the guides are on the template. Why? You are going
to be building your cover design on top of the template itself. The Photoshop guides will make it easier
to see where your boundary lines are. If you are unfamiliar with guides, place your cursor over the top or

side ruler and drag outward. You will see it create a horizontal or vertical guideline. Place one of these
guidelines at each line on the template both horizontal and vertical.

Guidelines will also serve another purpose. In Photoshop you can choose the snap to guides feature. It
will help you make sure you are lined up with the edges.

The next thing you are going to do is create

the solid color block for the dust jacket
flaps. In order to do this you need to be
sure the snap to guides feature is turned on.
See the screen capture if you are unsure
where to do this. (Reminder: I am using
Photoshop 7 your “snap to” features and
your guides may be different if you are using
another program.)
When we create the end flaps for the dust jacket we are
going to do it in a light or dark color that compliments
the cover. It’s a good idea to use the dropper tool and
roam over the cover choosing colors at random to see
which will work best. You want to stay away from
medium shades, as it will be difficult to see both white
and black text on them.

Once you have chosen the color for your inside

flaps, create a new layer and select the shape
tool making sure it is set to rectangle. Place
your cursor where the first two guidelines cross
at the bottom right corner (as indicated by the
arrow in the screenshot), and draw your
rectangle up to where the top left set of
guidelines cross.
Allowing it to snap to the guidelines will insure you have complete coverage of the entire cover area on

your template. This is important because you don’t want to be left with any white edges around your
cover.
Once you have your background color set you can add in your artwork. Let’s take a look at the template
once more to see where each piece of the cover should fall.
When you bring your artwork in (on a new layer, always on a new layer!) it’s possible it won’t fit exactly
within the boundaries for your cover art. If his happens it will only be a very small adjustment (if it is a
large one then you didn’t create it in the correct size to begin with. Remember we should be working
with a 9.5” (H) x 14” (W) 300 dpi image.) You can use Edit>Transform>Scale to adjust the height if
needed. Be sure to hold down the shift key to constrain the proportions or you will stretch the image out

of shape. Once you have the correct height, be sure the right corners of your image are up against the
right side guides for artwork. Select the rectangular selection tool and starting at the bottom right corner
of your artwork, drag to the top left corner of the artwork guidelines to select the entire artwork area.
Once again allow your selection to snap to the guides.

When you have the entire artwork area selected, choose “inverse” from the Selection menu to select
everything outside the artwork area. You can then hit the delete key to get rid of the unwanted portion
of your image. Once you have done this, your artwork should fall only within the artwork area
guidelines.

As a side note, before you start laying down all the different elements that will be going on this cover, in
order to stay organized I like to separate the elements out into layer sets. Back Cover, Front Cover,
Front Flap, Back Flap. And make sure you name all your layers. It helps when you need to go back and
change something later.

Now that you have the basic background laid out its time to add the text. I’m a bit of a fontaholic so this
part is rather fun for me. There are a lot of great free font sites out there but the best I’ve found so far is
www.dafonts.com.

You are going to want to choose a font that conveys the mood and general theme of your cover. There
are plenty of good theme fonts out there, Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy. The one thing you need
to keep in mind is readability. Having a cool font is great but it won’t do you any good if the person who
picks up the book can’t tell the difference between a “d”, a “p”, and an “r”.

Aside from readability, there are no hard and fast rules for font choices. You can combine a number of
different styles with very good results.

As I said above, choose your font carefully. You can change the entire feel of a cover just by changing
the font. Is it horror? Romance? Science Fiction?

In the image below I’ve used the font Abaddon. I’ve enlarged the D and R in the title to create drop
caps. The font used for the subtitle is Beryllium. Because the subtitle was a much smaller font size than
any of the others I tried to choose a fairly plain serif font so that it would be readable. You’ll notice that
the font has a metallic look to it. I have a set of filters called Eye Candy that I use to create specific
beveled looks for my titles. This is by no means a requirement, however my boss likes the beveled look.
For this title I used the Chrome filter to give the metallic look to the letters.
Readability. Hmm…not very readable is it? Something you have to remember is that you are creating
text over a surface where the hue, tone and lightness shift and change. This means that what is quite
readable at the beginning of your word might not be at the end. “Dragon Rescue” is fairly readable but
could still use a little help. “Don Callander” (the author’s name) is not readable at all. So what do we do?

This is where Photoshop’s layer styles come in extremely handy. Things like Outer Glow and Drop
shadow and various combinations of each will give your font a more solid background and stand out
more. Let’s look at some examples.

So half your cover is light, the other half dark.

This image is probably a rather extreme example
but it will work for our purposes. In cases like
this a simple outer glow layer style will work well.
(If you are unsure how to get to your layer styles,
go into your layer pallet and double click on your
text layer it will bring up the layer styles dialog
box)

To make light text readable on light backgrounds,

choose a dark color for your outer glow and set
the blend mode to multiply.
To make dark text readable on dark backgrounds,
choose a light color for your outer glow and set
the blend mode to screen.

Let’s take a look at a few more options:

Drop Shadow

Duplicated text layers.

Bottom layer outer glow, top layer drop shadow.

Stroke

Inner Glow

I could write a tutorial just on the number of different text attributes, filters and styles out there. There
are many to choose from, but if I tried to show you all of them here this tutorial would go on forever. A
great place to start learning is www.photoshopcafe.com.
Now let’s get back to our cover. How do we make the text stand out from the background? Well as I
illustrated above there are many ways to do this but for this particular cover I simply used the Outer

Glow layer style in a dark color with the blend mode set to multiply. I gave it a low setting for spread
and a high one for size. Play with layer styles. That’s the best way to learn what they all do and what will
work best for whatever need you may have.

Once you understand font choices and layer styles the rest of your cover should progress quickly. Let’s
move on to the spine.
There are no hard and fast rules for the spine. If you look at the books on your bookshelf you’ll most
likely notice the bigger the author the larger their name on the spine. Unless you are dealing with
Stephen King or Tom Clancy though, you can probably safely assume that the author’s name will either
be the same size or slightly smaller than the title.

Your spine should always include the title of the book and the author’s name. Take another look at the
books on your shelves. Most of them probably contain a publishers name and/or logo at the top and
bottom of the spine. My publisher requires this as well. You’ll also notice that they all face the same
way. You are going to want to rotate the text for your spine 90 degrees clockwise.

You may notice above that I gave the spine text the same outer glow layer style as the text on the cover.

The back cover needs to be approached somewhat

differently than the front. The font size you use will
be smaller because you will need to incorporate
more information. This can prove problematic
especially if your cover is busy. The first thing we
are going to do is give the text a more solid color
base to sit on.

Use the rectangle shape tool and a light or dark

color. White or black both work if you don’t want
to choose a more complimentary color from the
cover itself. Draw a rectangle somewhat smaller
than the artwork area of the back cover (on a
separate layer!).
 With the shape layer selected choose
Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur (it will ask you if you want
to rasterize the layer, click “yes”) and set it to a
number high enough so that you get nice fuzzy edges
on your square. Then set the opacity to a number
between 30 and 50 percent depending on how much
of the cover you want to obscure.

(Please note, this is only one way of creating a base for

the text that goes on the back of your cover, there are
many other ways including using a completely opaque
box)

This is what you should be left with when you are done.
The information that goes on the back of the cover is information that will be given to you by either the
publisher or the author. It will generally consist of the blurb or “hook” and possibly some quotations
about the book by other authors or reviewers. You will have a bar code (it will either come with the
template or be given to you by your publisher) and price box and most likely the publisher’s logo.

You may also incorporate an image having to do with the book as a separator. I like to choose things
that make sense as a separator such as a sword or staff. You may also use shapes from the Custom
Shape tool in Photoshop. Sometimes you will use the title of the book again on the back cover.

Added the title, once again done in the gold chrome.

Below the title I’ve added some quotations about the book given by other authors. I’ve separated the
quotations using a small leaf shape from Photoshop’s custom shapes.

Below that I’ve added the barcode, price box and publisher’s logo. Trying to obscure as little of the back
cover as possible.

Now we move on to the inside flaps. Sometimes you are given too much text. Sometimes you are given
too little. Your job as the designer is to make it look good either way, but it’s the author’s job (or
publisher’s) to make sure you have to tools to do so. Never be afraid to contact them if you run into a
problem you feel you can’t handle.

The back flap (you’re still separating your sections into layer sets aren’t you?) generally contains the
author’s biography and, if available, a photo.

The front flap contains the title and either a longer synopsis or an excerpt from the book itself. My
publisher also likes to have the logo on the front flap as well.
Are we done? No not quite. We need to get rid of the leftover template around the edges. Here’s where
“snap to guides” comes in handy again. Make sure snap to guides is still turned on and select the crop

tool. Start at the bottom right corner and drag it to the top left, the same way you drew the background
color block in the beginning, letting it snap to guides. Right click on the image and choose “crop”.

After cropping:
Now just clear your guides:

Your almost completed cover, still in separate layers. (right?)

Still not quite there. Save your image as a multi layered
tiff or psd file. Then flatten your image and save it
again under a different file name. Now we convert it
to CMYK color mode.

Once you’ve done that you might discover some of your colors have shifted slightly. You’ll have to go
into Image>Adjust and make some color corrections to the various channels. Chances are if you used a
lot of Red or Green, you’ll never get back the exact colors but you can get it pretty close.

That’s it. You’re done. Congratulations, you just completed your first cover

Some things to remember:

Save often
Put everything on a new layer
Use Layer Sets to keep organized
Name all your layers
Save often
Snap to Guides is your friend
Did I mention save often?

Good Luck!