I had the pleasure of working with the artist Robin Hamman for over ten years on all her marketing for her art company ArtRobStudios (Website design, branding, social media, and book cover design by Marketing Geek Chic). She approached me a year ago with a vision to create an art book journal for her art compassion initiative, 100 Cups of Compassion. I was super excited to join her on this journey by designing the cover and back of the book. The overall design had to flow with her art style and dedication to her 100 Cups mission.
The book cover had to show the potential journeyers a clear message and answer the following questions:
- What genre is this book?
- Is this book fiction or nonfiction?
- What age category is this book?
- What is this book about, generally speaking?
- What is the tone of this book?
- Is this book professionally made or thrown together?
So, considering all those questions, the cover design started. I followed the following steps below:
- Look for book cover inspiration- This was easy. I took her paintings as inspiration to start the design.
- Choose your book design software- I only use Adobe Creative Cloud, and in this design, I used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.
- Select your cover dimensions- The publisher supplied this information.
- Find images for the book cover- I looked through 100’s 4×4 cup paintings and narrowed down the ones I wanted to use on the cover. Not an easy decision. I also pulled Robin’s favorite paper bag design from a local shop to use as a background overlay.
- Pick your colors- Her artwork is so colorful, and Robin loves pops of color, so the inspiration for the color pallet evolved from her paintings. Ultimately, I settled on a bright pink and crispy orange as the focus.
- Pick your font- Robin loves whimsical fonts, so I chose that route. I love the mix of typewriter font with a carefree handwriting font—a splash of paint for the I dot.
- Create a mockup- This is the fun part of putting everything together: images, fonts, colors, the title of the book and tagline, logo if applicable, and author name.
Make sure to check out her website (Website designed by Marketing Geek Chic) > https://www.100cupsofcompassion.com.
Buy her art journal here > https://www.amazon.com/100-Cups-Compassion-Robin-Hamman/dp/1950995410/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=100+Cups+of+Compassion&qid=1631801581&s=books&sr=1-1
I also helped launch her second art journal book (Website design, branding, social media, and book cover design by Marketing Geek Chic) > http://www.thetwistedleash.com
If you need marketing assistance in the launch of the new book, then fill out our let’s chat form > https://marketinggeekchic.com/lets-chat/.