━━━━ there's a saying of "never judge a book by its cover" that people swear by, but don't live up to. i myself am guilty of judging a book by its cover, both in a real life situation, and on wattpad. a cover is the first thing that readers will see while they scroll by, so it must be captivating. a good cover means more readers, viewers and roleplayers.

key points when making covers:

━━ the font ,
━━ a prominent title ,
━━ colour palette ,
━━ book genre ,
━━ imagery ,

every time you create yourself a cover for your book or your roleplay, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a reader and ask yourself, can you tell the following from just the appearance of the cover:

━━ the books genre? fiction? non?
━━ what's it about?
━━ target audience?
━━ what's the tone of the book?

you have to be honest with yourself and readers. if the cover is about dragons, include a dragon. there is no point in labelling your book "the dragon king", if the imagery depicts a hearty looking cafe.

━━━━ designing a book cover can be difficult. it takes a lot of time and effort, but it's not wasted time if you do it right and get a positive outcome out of what you've made.

how to design a book cover:

━━ look for cover inspiration ,
━━ choose your software / app ,
━━ select your dimensions ,
━━ find suitable images ,
━━ pick a palette of colours ,
━━ pick a font to use ,
━━ create a mock—up ,

before you start designing, it's helpful to have a look at what others produce. pick up a few books off of a shelf in your house, go to a library, or look online, take a look at what is produced. look at the style of fonts used, the type of imagery, colouring, quotes, subtitles.

book covers need to match the theme and mood of said book. if your book is about a murderer on the loose, then bright colours and a cheery aesthetic is not the way to go. the books main themes must be outlined when deciding on imagery.

consider the genre of your book. for example, if it's a book about romance, then the likelihood of their being a steamy, shirtless man, or a couple holding one another on the cover is high.

but, shift it to crime: it's dark, it's gloomy, there may be blood and grit.

cluttered work is a big negative, and i see it all the time. i will browse graphic stores and take a look at what people produce, and a number of workers tend to forget that, while their finished orders may look bright, colourful and nice — they tend to be way too cluttered and 'in your face'.

choose one focal element for your cover. this could be the title itself, or the image used on the cover.

finally, a books biggest down—fall or asset tends to be the colours used. the right palette used will draw in readers, and give them a taste of the books mood, while the wrong colours will cause confusion.

darker colours are often used with serious or scary moods and bright or neon colours can indicate a fun read.

━━━━ finding suitable resources for your covers can be both easy and difficult. if you're looking in the wrong place, you'll have a hard time finding what ever it is you are looking.

everyone's go to for images tends to be pinterest, and while it may be a great app to use, quality of images tend to be poor — so if you use a picture off there, it may be fuzzy, a smaller size than what you wanted, or perhaps have a watermark on it.

so if you are looking for high quality images, your best bet is to search the internet, and browse from any other apps or websites.

cover making resources:

━━ google ,
━━ tumblr ,
━━ dafont ,
━━ canva ,
━━ novelart ,
━━ picsart ,
━━ photoshop ,

━━━━ i'm going to use myself as an example. for all covers, be it my own, or ones i am making for others, i always do the same thing.

first, i'll google whatever it is i'm looking for. for this, we'll say i'm making a cover about a warrior cats story about a clan based in the desert.

things i may google for images:

━━ cat in desert aesthetic ,
━━ desert aesthetic ,
━━ cat beach aesthetic ,
━━ sand aesthetic ,
━━ warrior cats graphics ,

now that i have my image ready, i'll create my font. i always create a few variations with different fonts if i'm not following a set theme.

the book title is added onto a blank canvas, and fonts will be cycled until i stumble on some that i like the look of. they are saved as a transparent png.

i open up the app i use to create my covers, add the image i collected earlier and edit it if i see the need to. the title is added on and shifted around the page until it's in a suitable place.

i add any subtitles if they're needed, author name, and a border if i want one, save then add it to the book it belongs to.