“Designers actually can change the world for the better by making the complicated simple and finding beauty in truth.”
— Michael Beirut, 79 Short Essays on Design
⚡️Pop Quiz: When were the first commercial book covers created?
In today’s issue:
- Design Feels: How to Evoke Emotions with your Work
- How to Create Attention-Grabbing Book Covers
- Deep Dive: The Racism Behind Fonts
Let’s dive in, shall we?
DESIGN IMPACT
Design Feels: 3 Tips for Evoking Emotions with your Work
Design is not only about how it looks, it’s also about how it feels.
Here are some tried and tested ways to evoke the right emotions through your designs:
👉Choose the Right Colors – Each color is associated with a certain emotion, learn more about color psychology to build meaningful color palettes that represent the energy of your brand.
👉Keep it Consistent – Use style guides to maintain a consistent visual & typographic harmony and set the right tone.
👉Add Personality – Create a mascot to add a more human touch that the audience can instantly recognize and connect with.
Go deeper:
- What is Emotional Design? – 99 Designs
- The Power of Emotions in Graphic Design – Retinart
- Visceral Emotions in Graphic Design – Zillion Designs
COVER DESIGN
How to Create Attention-Grabbing Book Covers
Learn more about the art of captivating book cover design.
- Get in the Reader’s Shoes – Make the title stand out so readers can easily catch sight of it on storefronts and online stores.
- Cater to the Target Audience – Narrow down a target audience and model the cover after their preferences.
- Think out of the Box – You don’t have to stick to genre conventions, try something new that’s unique to your book.
📚Check out the best book covers of 2022 for inspiration!
Go deeper:
- Book Cover Design 101 – Dribbble
- 5 Common Book Cover Design Mistakes – True Editors
- 9 Authors’ Tips for a Brilliant Book Cover Design – 99 Designs
Deep Dive: The Racism Behind Fonts
🔤What are Racist Fonts?
✊Fighting Racism through Typography
- A Typeface That Fights Racism – Eye on Design
- An Exhibition That Looks Racism in the (Type)face – Print Magazine
⚡️The Answer: Commercial book covers for advertising appeared around the late 19th century.
Leather or vellum covers were used primarily for protection of expensive hand-written books before the late 19th century. With the advent of new technology, book production became cheaper and book covers turned into a form of promotional material.