The Art of Creating Stunning Book Covers – Part Two - Building Your Stunning Book Cover

The Art of Creating Stunning Book Covers – Part Two
Building Your Stunning Book Cover

Designing a book cover may seem like a challenging task, it truly is at first, as I have developed over 30 book covers.  But as time goes on, and you continue to build book covers, your skills improve and your covers, depending on the style, start to look like a professional designed them.

The purpose of this article is to help you design your perfect book cover.  With any design, it all starts on a sheet of paper and a pen.  Let’s review: did you complete your assignment from part one? 

• Did you come up with three words that can be used to describe what your entire book is about?  If you don’t already have a title, you can use these three words in place of an actual title that you may think up later.

• Did you find a digital image that can be used to visualize what your book is about?  Since some people create images from seeing (visual) and others create an image from reading, the three words you picked above must also correlate with the image you have chosen.

• Since type fonts vary greatly, you will want to select one that has the capabilities of being in bold.  You will find that a bold face font attracts more attention from a potential customer that a thin font types. 

Building Your 3-D Stunning Book Cover with Gimp

Below are step by step instructions for creating your 3-Dimensional Stunning Book Cover.  You may want to print out this article, so you can follow along in the Gimp program.  I used Gimp 2.6 to create the cover below.

Depending on the dimensions, your 3-D book cover can also be a Cover Box, DVD/CD Case, Notebook, et cetera.

* Denotes A New Step
>Denotes to click on a button

Creating a Book Cover, Spline and Top portion:

The Book Cover Screen
*Open Program
>File
>New (window)
Image Size Width 1600 px. by Height 2400 px.
>Ok

Digital Photographic Image Screen
*Using Selected Image
>File
>Open
Select where Image is
>Open Image

*Resize image to fit the width of the book (1600 px.)
>Image
>Scale image Width 1600 px. by Height 1200 px. / quality – Cubic
>Scale

*Insert Image into Book Cover Screen
>Select (opens menu)
>All (makes dashed border move)
>Edit
>Copy Visible

Book Cover Screen
*Open Blank Book Cover Screen
>Edit
>Past Into
Note: the photo will appear in the center of the book cover, but you may wish to move it up or down by clicking on the move took button in the tool box menu.  To move, just hover over the image and click and hold down the left mouse button to move.)

Close the Digital Photographic Image Screen

Save the Book Cover Screen
*Save As
>File
>Save As
>Select A Name (example: Book cover screen.jpeg)
Select Location
>Save
>Export File
>Export
>Save As
>Save
Note: you always want to save the files you are working on a (Jpeg).  It makes it easier to work on the file.

Open Saved Book Cover (.Jpeg)
*Open Saved File
>File
>Open Recent
>Book Cover Screen
Note: new screen will open smaller than the original screen.  Close the first screen (larger), and increase or maximize the smaller screen.)

Note: you should have a saved image in your Book Cover Screen, if you do not, please repeat the steps above.

Filling the  New Book Cover Screen with Color
*Filling the Space Above and Below the Photograph
In the Tool Box Bar, select the (square)/ click left

Draw a Rectangle in the White Space above the photo by holding the left mouse button as you move the cursor across the image.  Release the mouse button when the rectangle is where you want it.

>Bucket Fill (in the tool box bar)
>Top Black Color Square (Foreground)
-Select a color that matches with the dominate color in your photograph.  If the color is white, choose your next dominant color.  Book covers with white around the edges wash out when placed against white backgrounds.
>Move the cursor across the possible colors, when you have found one, left click on it.
>Ok (to choose a color)
>Left in the space above the photo to fill the color.

*Repeat the same task above for the bottom square.  You may wish to use the same color, a contrasting color, or the next dominant color.

>File
>Save As (if you wish to save it as something different)
>Save
>Replace (if you wish to save it under the same name)
>Save

Open Saved Book Cover (.Jpeg)
*Open Saved File
>File
>Open Recent
>Book Cover Screen
Note: new screen will open smaller than the original screen.  Close the first screen (larger), and increase or maximize the smaller screen.)

Creating the Side Spline
*How to Create the Spline for Your Book
>File
>New
Image Size: Width 250 px. by Height 2400 px.
>Ok
>Maximize side Spline screen
>Edit
>Paste Into (inserts photograph from earlier in the middle of the Spline)
>File
>Save As (example: side Spline.jpeg)
>Save
>Export
>Save

Open Saved Book Spline (.Jpeg)
*Open Saved File
>File
>Open Recent
>Book Spline Screen
Note: new screen will open smaller than the original screen.  Close the first screen (larger), and increase or maximize the smaller screen.)
- Draw

Adding Color to The Spline
*Filling the Space Above and Below the Photograph
In the Tool Box Bar, select the (square)/ click left

Draw a Rectangle in the White Space above the photo by holding the left mouse button as you move the cursor across the image.  Release the mouse button when the rectangle is where you want it.

>Bucket Fill (in the tool box bar)
>Top Black Color Square (Foreground)
-Select a color that matches with the dominate color in your photograph.  If the color is white, choose your next dominant color.  Book Splines with white around the edges wash out when placed against white backgrounds.
>Move the cursor across the possible colors, when you have found one, left click on it.
>Ok (to choose a color)
>Left in the space above the photo to fill the color.

*Repeat the same task above for the bottom square.  You may wish to use the same color, a contrasting color, or the next dominant color.

>File
>Save As (if you wish to save it as something different)
>Save
>Replace (if you wish to save it under the same name)
>Save

Creating A New Larger Blank Page
*Marrying the Images Together
>File
>New Width 2000 px by Height 2800 px.
>Open

Click on the Book Cover Screen ‘Tab’
>Select
>All
>Edit
>Copy Visible

Then Switch back to the Blank Screen Page
>Edit
>Paste Into
>Maximize Screen

Move Cursor to the Toolbox Bar
>Select – Move Tool Button
(Move Image to the Far Right, but not up or down in the white space.
>File
>Save as ‘the new’ BookCoverScreen.jpeg
>Save
>Export
>Save

Close Book Cover Screens One and Two
>Save Book Cover Screen One Changes
>Save

Next, Save the Open Spline Page by Clicking on the Tab
>File
>Save

Creating the 3-D Look
Open the New Book Cover Screen
(Note: During This Process, Do Not Save until you have completed each 45% Transformation. You cannot do these steps if you save the pages first, then reopen them.)
>File
>Save
>Open Recent (select Book Cover Screen from the top of the menu)

Draw a Small Rectangle on the Top of the Solid Blue Field, approximately two measure lines thick.

>Tool Bar (Bucket Fill Tool Button)
>Fill Type
>Pattern Fill
>Select Stripes

Select the Perspective Tool from the Tool Box Bar, hover over the newly created box and left click.  Hover cursor to the Top Left, and angle to the LEFT approximately 45 degrees.

Repeat the same on the on the Top Right of the box.

Then open the Spline Page
>File
>Open Recent (select Spline Screen from the menu)

Then Paste the Spline Screen into the Book Cover Screen Page
>Select
>All
>Edit
>Copy Visible

Close the Open Spline Screen Page

Select the Perspective Tool from the Tool Box Bar, hover over the Spline and left click.  Hover cursor to the Top Right, and angle to the RIGHT approximately 45 degrees.

Repeat the same on the Lower End of the Spline of the box.

Save 3-D Cover
>Save As (example: 3-DbookCover.jpeg)
>Save
>Export
>Save

Open 3-D Book Cover (.Jpeg)
*Open Saved File
>File
>Open Recent
>Book 3-D Book Cover

Open 3-D Book Cover Add words and other finishing touches.  To Get Rid of the Excess White Space Created in changing the dimension of the Book Cover:
>Image
>Auto Crop

Then Resave your completed Book Cover:
>Save As (example: 3-DbookCover.jpeg)
>Save
>Export
>Save

(Note: Finished Image Soon)