FANTASY BOOK COVER DESIGN
THAT TELLS A STORY
Book covers are powerful marketing tools. Having a unique and eye-catching cover attracts attention on the shelf, sets the right tone, and sparks emotions with your potential readers.
A good book cover embodies the physical presence of your book, becoming part of the reader’s tactile and visual personal space. Investing in a great cover makes you stand out among the competitors in your genre so you get more people interested in your book.
What makes a great fantasy book cover design?
Creating a compelling fantasy book cover takes time, skill and attention to detail. It’s a process that involves choosing the right imagery, colors and typography and making these elements work together.
The goal is to draw the reader in and create a unique design that reflects the main theme and tone of the book.
Building a strong concept
Readers are always looking for clues to determine what sort of story to expect, so your potential reader will have ideas about your book just after taking a quick look at the cover. By understanding your novel’s theme, you can make sure your book cover evokes the same feelings as the story inside, whether your theme is war between good and evil, epic quest for knowledge or a coming of age story.
Fantasy covers are often instantly recognizable but that doesn’t mean they have to look generic. There’s room for unique and interesting ideas that still give the reader hints about the style, genre, and subject matter of the book. You need both familiarity and originality.
Essentially, there are two ways to design a book cover – depiction of a character and setting or symbolic design. The majority of fantasy covers use depiction, but choosing a less literal approach can make your cover more unique.
Whichever way you decide to go, make sure you have a strong concept that conveys your story’s main theme. Your book cover needs to help communicate what’s happening on the pages in a meaningful and compelling way, without being distracting.
An aesthetic that matches the fantasy genre
The aesthetic of your cover must suit your target reader (e.g. young adult, or adult) and subgenre (e.g. epic fantasy, high fantasy, dark fantasy or urban fantasy). Building the aesthetic includes choosing the right colors, style, imagery, fonts, and composition.
Colors are an exceptionally powerful way to spark emotion and set the tone for your book. Using certain color schemes, a book design can convey a sense of calm, urgency, fear, or passion. For example, red and orange tones can create a feeling of urgency or fear, while the color blue brings out a sense of calm. Typically, a dark color scheme would reflect darker content.
When you’re looking to capture a mood and communicate what your story is about, your color scheme is a great place to start. This brings us back to you analyzing your story and understanding its tone, theme, and the feelings you want to convey.
Imagery
When it comes to illustrations or images on your fantasy book cover design, set yourself apart by not using images that are commonly used within the genre, such as hooded figures or swords. Having an original image is the best way to recreate the imaginary universe for your fantasy book. Traditional illustration and 3D imagery gives you the freedom to display your characters or settings in many different ways.
Your image may highlight an important symbol or theme. It could be abstract or display something concrete from your story. But remember to keep it original and not fall into the trap of clichés. At Coverkitchen, we do hand lettering and create our own typography for your book cover. We also take our own pictures so your cover will be truly unique.
Typography
For a strong fantasy book cover design, the font you choose should also be connected with the novel’s sub genre, writing style and tone of voice. For example, if it’s a dark gothic novel then a distorted or grunge font might work best.
While classic serif fonts may suit some cover designs, the Fantasy genre allows for more decorative fonts with high visual impact. An unusual font or even hand lettering can be a great way to create a more personal and unique cover. But remember that the typography needs to be clear, so it’s not difficult for readers to understand the title or what the book is about. Font, colors and contrast should work together to make the text easy to read.
Production and print quality
The final step in creating a professional cover design is its physical form and print quality. How your book looks and feels when a reader picks it up is essential for its success. No matter how well-written and captivating your story is, your sales are likely going to struggle if the cover’s production quality is low.
Publishing with KDP and IngramSpark is a quick and easy option, but their finishing choices are limited and the quality isn’t the same as with a traditional press. With a traditional press, you have a wider range of options like embossing, foil stamping or selective varnishes which can distinguish a self-published book from a press-published book.
Our 3-step design process for fantasy book cover design
Our team of clever cover cooks can help bring your fantasy book cover vision to life. With an in-depth process, we make sure we get to know your project thoroughly so we can create something unique and in tune with your story.
Step 1: Pre-design process
Before starting your book design, you’ll need to select a service package and fill in our design brief form. The brief helps you understand your book project on a deeper level, and it gives us the information we need to create a successful book cover.
Step 2: Design process
We collaborate with you to achieve a result we can all be proud of. You choose a design from up to three sample covers with our strong concept building and art direction guidance. For the in-house image creation, we use different techniques like hand – and computer illustrations, photography, typography and 3D imagery. For covers created with stock photos, we use only licensed stock images and royalty free stock photos.
Step 3: Production process
We have a built-in production consultancy, which means our team will help you with any questions or problems you face during the production process.