As soon as you’ve coped with writing a book, you face a new challenge. The creation of the cover is a tricky task for a person unfamiliar with design. But you can hire a book cover designer and communicate your ideas.
Fancy how to find a book cover designer and build a sufficient work process?
In this article, you’ll get to know some tips on how to choose a professional, provide instructions, and arrange the working process to get the book cover of your dream.
Go ahead and check out our advice!
How to gather your ideas about book cover design
Initially, you have to understand what a result you want to attain. Highlight your thoughts about a book cover design and ask the professional vision. Yet, it’s better to mention all the details before you start the collaboration.
To avoid disappointment, pay attention to the basic and specific elements. Besides, you can find examples that visualize your ideas before ordering book cover design services.
Here is what you can do to stay on the same page with the book cover designer.
Decide on the basic features: the genre, color scheme, imagery (both background and foreground), fonts
Tell the designer about the overall concept of the book cover design. It’s crucial to state the genre because a color scheme and fonts express it. As you may already know from our article “Fiction Book Cover Design: The Definitive Guide,” designers use specific palettes and typography inherent to a particular genre.
Outline specific details
Well, it’s time to move to the features which you want to see on the final version of the book cover. Initially, focus on the number of people, their gender, appearance, outfit, and historical timeframe depicted in the novel. If you want some outstanding elements to appear on the cover, select their place, color, and size. It works the same way for typography. Tell the designer about your preferences in fonts. He/she will choose a suitable one.
Search for the examples
Eventually, you may finish the stage of drafting the book cover concept by doing some research. In other words, find examples to illustrate your choices with visual evidence. It will help a designer understand your thoughts. You may select one cover or several to represent your ideas.
As soon as you end up with a summary of necessary and specific details, it’s time to search for a person or a company that can implement your ideas.
How to find and interview a book cover designer
At this stage, you may wonder where a professional book cover designer dwells. You can hire a freelancer or make an order in design companies. The following tips will ease the search for you.
Ask for the sphere of proficiency and portfolio
You may start by finding out what is the designers’ area of competence. They can cope with a book cover design for fiction and non-fiction, but the covers will differ in colors, fonts, and images. Thereby, have a look at the portfolio and pay attention to the best works in your genre when hiring a book cover designer. Clarify what covers the designer completed in your genre. When checking it, you’ll notice a professional who will create a book cover of your dream.
Agree on time and payment
You should ask about the price. Make sure that the service of the selected book cover designer is affordable for you. For this reason, you’d better clear up the services your package includes as well as the prices of extra services, which aren’t there to avoid unexpected payments at the end. An illustrated book cover design is more expensive than the one with a customized image from the depositories. Allocate your budget correctly and assess all the expenses beforehand.
Set deadlines
It’s essential to agree on deadlines and ask the designer to divide the task into several stages. It will help to meet your expectations and make corrections step-by-step.
Discuss revisions
You should discuss the number of revisions the designer is ready to make. It’s profitable to clear up about the corrections to fix some minimal issues. Although you pay money for the service, it’s a bad idea to change the concept of your design at the last moment. Ask whether prepayment is required and returned to you if you are dissatisfied with the result. Agree on all the points with the designer.
Check copyrights
You have to be sure that the images used for your book cover are licensed. Clear up about copyright because it may belong to the designer. If so, find out how to attain it. Also, it’s beneficial to know whether you’ll get a source file. You can use it to fix or redesign the cover in the future.
How to indicate book cover design instructions accurately
When you’ve hired a designer, it’s time to tell him/her about your requirements. Use the following list when you set the assignment. It will simplify your work.
Check it out and not miss a thing when ordering a book cover design:
- Book title
- Book subtitle
- Author’s name
- Platform or publishing house
- Print or electronic version
- Cover, back, and spine needed
- Size and number of pages
- Extra text (summary, author’s bio, etc.)
- Ideas on general and specific details
- Examples as a reference to visualize your book cover concept
As the process is launched, it’s time to learn how to communicate with a designer, give feedback and insights to attain desired outcomes.
Cooperate as a team
An effective communication is vital for work. How can the writer make it productive?
The key to success is to remain specific and flexible!
Give constructive feedback and clarify your position
“Pretty good” or “bad” is vague. No one can understand what is right and wrong, receiving such feedback. So, try to provide enough arguments that will help the designer understand you and fix the cover. For instance, if you don’t like the script font, state that you want it to be edgy. Don’t merely criticize the designer, but give constructive feedback and your detailed insight.
Be flexible in communication with a designer
Rely on the designer’s competence and ask about the ideas for your book cover. Be flexible and respect a professional opinion. Don’t be afraid to trust your designer and ask for advice. As a result, he may offer you a compelling option you couldn’t even think.
Conclusion
Summing up, now you know how to communicate with the book cover designer and present your ideas. You’ll make your cooperation fruitful when using these tips to organize the working process. What is more, it will give you positive results – a book cover design of your dream. Ultimately, precise feedback and words of an appraisal will motivate a designer to create the book cover you want.
Keep that in mind, and may your communication be productive!
