Panel: Elliott Kay, Lee Moyer, Heather McDougal

This was a very worthwhile panel. It was particularly fascinating to watch the creative process at work in turning a book cover design from an author’s summary to a design concept:

the rise of independent and self publishing has been a boon for cover artists
it gives artists a chance to work directly with authors to understand their vision for their book
readers pick up books because of their cover — regardless of whether in person or online
line design is important: choosing common fonts, layouts, and colors that to all of the books in a series, or by the same author (some authors have distinct fonts for their books)
Example: “Stranger Things” uses a “Stephen King” font, so people intuitively know what kind of content they are going to get
imagery and fonts combined give the overall design of a book cover
“fiction and the images on the covers are aspirational”
The best thing to tell a cover artist on a deadline: “crowd scene” (yes, sarcasm)
there are documented bumps in sales for books with dragons on the cover
don’t the entire cast on the cover; stick with 1 or 2 characters
there is a similarity in book cover design between humor and children’s books
there are implications in font choices: serif typically implies feminine, while sans serif implies masculine (I had to step out for a few minutes here, so missed some of this discussion)
some series book designs also have a common “emblem” that ties them together as part of a series (or shared universe)
the size of the author and title can depend on the popularity of the author; sometimes the name of the author will be as large as — or larger than —the title if that is what will drive sales
design for how it will look as a icon (thumbnail image) on Amazon, making sure that the title is readable
“type matters in a big, big way”
cover design can be driven by either realism or symbolism — symbolism steers better toward a YA audience