Poetry e-Book Cover Design

I have been working on a cover design for Shirleyann Regis’ poetry book “Tears of the Heart.” Shirleyann was our Winner of the “Get Noticed Contest”, but was not using a book cover for her ebook on Kindle. So I asked. The goal was to come up with a professional cover design that evoked the meaning of her poetry AND stay within a budget. I will admit I spent more time on this project than anticipated (at no extra cost to her). What can I say – it’s the perfectionist in me.

The Concept

My first thought was a heart made of water, fading from red to blue into a pool of water. But, I couldn’t find any stock photos I could use. Normally, this would be an illustrated design I could draw by hand or on the computer, but the cost / time would have exceeded her budget. So I chose to rethink the process searching royalty free stock photos from CanStockPhoto and BigStock.

I tried several different heart shaped water elements, combining them with reflections, pools of water or ringlets of water. Good, but not right. I even tried a heart made of ice, melting and a stylized illustration of a woman crying. It still wasn’t right.

I took a step back and ran Shirleyann’s poetry through my mind. What were the connecting elements of her poetry? They talk of love: young love, new love, old, love, lost loves, parental love. And I wanted to use a symbol that would show that love never dies, it is never forgotten — a symbol that stated: Love, Cherish, and Remember. A Gold Locket.

Before and After

Below is the original book cover, and two mockup designs I created.

	The Original Design When looking at the cover created for Shirleyann, it screamed – BUSY! Too many elements, and when viewing online in a small format – it was difficult to see. It desperately needed simplification. The ebook cover also needed to have enough contrast to be viewable on the Kindle as well as in color. This meant I needed to choose complementary colors that had contrasting hues. Remember, when viewing on the Kindle (in black and white), a color design turns into gray scale. If the hues (shades) are too similar, then they blend together – making it hard to differentiate the different elements of the design.
	Mockup ONE While this is a pleasing color design, it fails when converted to gray scale. I also felt it was a little busy, dark and — well, just not right.
	Mockup TWO Cleaner, more white space, flows well. The font is “almost” right. But again, staying within budget and time, it works well. I used three layers of the locket chain to make it appear “hanging” from the letters. I created a blurred white ringlet circle on a graduated white to blue field, and used a “house font” {Edwardian Script}. PHOTO: BigStock.com.