At Portfolio, one of the hardest things we do is package our books. We spend hours…long, agonizing hours…coming up with the perfect title, subtitle, and cover image that we (and the author) think perfectly convey the message we want to send. In most cases, the hard work has a huge payoff, but even though our editors, publicists, and authors brainstorm our ideas, the real credit goes to our amazing designers and illustrators. Without them all of our books would be wrapped in brown paper grocery bags, which might be edgy, but we’d probably get bored after a while.
That’s why I loved this video created by Lauren Panepinto, the creative director at Orbit books, which gives a warp-speed look at the process involved in desiging the cover of one book. According to Panepinto, the full process took 6 hours–all in a day’s work…literally.
Orbit: “Blameless”, or “How to Design A Cover in 1:55 seconds
(thanks to GalleyCat for originally sharing the link to this video)
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Covers are so important and I think there’s a science behind them. If a cover doesn’t stand out in a bookstore, then it will get passed over. There are hundreds of thousands of books that come out each year, so a catchy title is key.
We couldn’t agree more. Portfolio considers the package to be one of the key factors in a book’s success, and there really is an art and a science to getting it right. We pride ourselves on our covers. I hope our readers agree!
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