By Dane Low

Ever wondered how book cover designers do what they do? How do they take a concept and turn it into a book cover? In today’s post, we’re pleased to have Dane Low of Ebook Launch explain to you how he does it. Be sure to watch the video, too. I think you’ll find this interesting.



The video below shows behind the scenes of a book cover design for The Floating Gourmet (available now on Smashwords). It works its way through the entire process from photo selection, photo manipulation, font choice to the completed concept. My hope is that it gives you some insight into what it it’s like behind the scenes of the book cover design process (at least the way that we do it at Ebook Launch).

Information Gathered About the Book

Here is the information provided to us by the author that was used to create the concept:

Book Title:The Floating Gourmet

Book Subtitle (optional): How to Cook on the Move

Author Name: Jean Wolfrum

Genre: Travel, sailing, cooking

Description of your book: This book is about cruising the oceans, traveling and cooking gourmet meals while under sail. It is the story of a couple’s once in a lifetime dream to sail the Transatlantic Circle for one and a half years away from family, cell phones and WIFI. The adventure is chronicled with life on the ocean for weeks, relationships of people on the boat, meal preparations and enjoying regional foods and gourmet meals on a boat.

Describe the key elements you want for your book cover design: The image of a sailing boat on the ocean with beautiful sunsets is what I picture. Anything nautical with some images of food – fish, clams, pasta dishes etc.

Please provide links or examples of other covers you like: sailing, waves, ocean, European villages, cafes, restaurants, food, cooking, chef, seafood, meats, fishing

First Book Cover Design Concept

Book Cover Design Brief

I can tell this book is very unique and I wanted to create a unique cover to match.

This design has many of the requested elements:

sailing

waves

fishing

cooking

meat

It’s been executed in a dreamy, whimsical style which speaks to the lifestyle aspect of the story. The couple is ‘living their dream’ of cooking and sailing their way around the world.

Lesson Learned

After sending the first concept to the author, the feedback was that she actually did not want something this whimsical (doh!). What she wanted was something more clean and contemporary so we went back to the drawing board.

The lesson here is the importance of understanding the aesthetic that the author wants before creating the concept. The time spent on the original concept could have been saved if I had done a better job of clarifying with the author before getting started. A good way for designers to accomplish this is ask the author to provide examples of covers that they like that are within the same genre.



Once I did a better job of understanding the style that she was after and got some samples, the result was the approved cover below.





Dane Low is a co-founder of Ebook Launch, a Book Cover Design and Book Formatting agency. He’s also a regular contributor to The Book Designer’s monthly e-Book Cover Design Awards contest.



Photo: bigstockphoto.com