As a children’s book, I think that the front cover is one of the most important elements of the whole book. This is what will attract the audience to buy it and read it, as well as them coming back to it again and again; because it portrays the story inside and the mood in which it encapsulates. With this in mind, I decided to design the front cover now because I already had all of the elements that I needed to produce it, and I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like from the research that I have already done.
I have decided to call the book “Why the monster hides”. I came up with this name as I was brainstorming possible names that worked for the contentious theme and subject of the narrative. I wanted something that was subtle and didn’t incorporate many words, while reflecting the story inside and being interesting to the audience. I think this does the trick because you think “Why does the monster hide?” and it also denotes who the monster is on the cover. It’s also easy to read and the young target audience will understand it as well as it being suitable for the older target demographic who will, fundamentally, be buying this book for their children.
This was a first version of the front cover. I wanted it to look simplistic with minimal components so that it would be recognisable on a shelf. This meant that, because the story was centred around Nessie, I decided to only have the name of the book, the authors name, and Nessie herself with a distinct sea background so that it sets the scene for what is inside. I tried this with a typography that looked hand-written and authentic, but one that was also easily readable and was suitable for illustrations on the page. I chose this one and had it in a white because it juxtaposed against the blue background to make the readability better, as well as it fitting in with the palette that also existed on the page.
I experimented with a few different compositions to see what would work with Nessie and to decide how big the components would be. The image above displays a first idea that I had and how the typography would fit around Nessie. I didn’t like this because it didn’t look professional and I felt like there was something missing. Thus, I decided to centre the imagery and scale it down to a size that was more appropriate for the square format.
This is the front cover design that I came up with and have finalised as the front cover of my book. I love how the centred Nessie fits the page, and by scaling down the typography and adding the author name it balances the visuals while keeping it readable for for demographic. Everything together is in the same style and I love how, in my opinion, it looks professional and is suitable for the story which I wanted to create. I think by doing this is has given me hope on how the rest of the book will turn out, and I know that by pushing myself to create a full book it will look professional and I will not cut corners in order to produce such an amount.
