Assignment 2: A photographic book cover

I've been reading a head, as recommended when you get your new module, and have been thinking though how to approach this assignment as I'll be asked to design a book cover from a proscribed list of books.


I've decided to type in the assignment as it let's me get it into my head rather than read it through rather than just read it and forget parts of it.

The assignment asks you to design a book jacket (which wraps around and included front cover, spine and back cover) for a work of fiction, using your own photography.  The main photograph should be one that you've shot specifically for this project.  Approach this assignment as one facing a professional photographer, to be completed to the same professional standards that you see in book publishing.  The assignment focuses on fiction rather than non-fiction, so that you have the opportunity to conceptualise rather than choose a literal image.


Choosing a book title

Choose from the following suggestions, producing a fresh alternative to the published cover:

• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
• Choice by Renata Saleci
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Outsider by Albert Camus
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart

The suggestions above have been chosen because the possibilities for illustrating them are interesting and challenging.  The purpose of this assignment is to make a cover that will interest a prospective reader, and which involves, creating a concept.

Conceptualising the cover

Consider the following options, which will affect how you set abou the photography and the post-production:

• a single photograph with sufficient clear space for typography
• a single photograph with the background extended or retouched to allow space for the typography
• a photograph of a subject that is then cut out (by means of a selection in Photoshop) and placed on a background
• two or more photographs to be combined in Photoshop.

Planning and executing the photography

First make a sketch of your cove design with positions for the title, author's name and other text so that you can shoot the image to fit.

Logistics, props or models and finding and travelling to a particular location.


Preparing the image

You'll need to size and probably crop it to fit the format of the book cover.  Make note of typical paperback dimensions, bearing in mind that the width of the spine will vary according to the number of pages.

Do this to actual size, at 300 dpi.  According to have you've decided to execute the photography (single image, extended, combined, etc.) perform whatever post-production is necessary for the image to be ready to receive the typography.

Incorporating type

Produce a complete wrap-around jacket, which include the front cover (the main part of the project) the spine and the back cover.  The spine and back cove needn't contain a photograph, but they could.  

The type elements for the front cover ar:

• title
• author's name
• strap line (optional)

The type elements for the spine are:

• title
• author's name

On the back cover is 'blurb'. Allow for 100-200 words, but you can use Lorem Ipsum placeholder text.

Choose the fonts and weights that satisfy your design sense.  An additional sophistication is to consider their placement in relation to graphic elements within the photograph.

Finally, please remember this is a photographic assignment rather than a design one.  The design is certainly important and it will help if you make yourself familiar with various typefaces (fonts) although success in this assignment will rely more on the photographic considerations.

These are, in summary:

• conceptualising the theme of the book visually
• taking or selecting a photograph that suits the purpose
• allowing for type elements in the composition

Send your cover design as a full-size TIFF or high-quality JPG RGB file at 300 dpi. Send as either one single file, including spine and back cover, or three separate files: front cover, spine, back cover.

And that's it in a nutshell. Now to get on and do it!