🌾🗡How I Designed My Own Book Cover (And How You Can Too!)

13 minutes ago

4 min read

Hi guys! It's me, AiTommy✨️

Can anyone tell me how to be a good artist? I am writing a novel and I wanna make a good cover but I don't wanna spend money nor I am a good illustrator. Any tips or suggestions?

Whenever I mention that I drew and designed my own book cover, I get a lot of questions about how I did it.

So in this post, I want to walk through exactly how I approached designing my own book cover. Let’s get into it!

First, Get Clear on What You Actually Want

This connects directly to the question above, and it’s the most important thing I can say:

You need to decide what your actual goal is.

Do you want to create a good book cover? Or do you want to become a good artist?

They might sound like similar goals, but they're actually VERY different.

Becoming an artist who can draw just about anything takes significantly more time and effort than learning how to create one specific book cover.

If all you need is one simple cover, you don’t need to master perspective drawing, dynamic action poses, vehicles, animals, or intricate architectural details.

Now, if you have plenty of time and you genuinely want to develop your art skills broadly alongside your writing, that’s a different conversation.

But for the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on one goal: making your own book cover.

Step 1: Figure Out What Kind of Story You’re Telling

You don’t need to know how to draw cars or skyscrapers if you’re writing a medieval fantasy novel.

Before you touch a single drawing tool, ask yourself:

What genre and setting is your story?
Do you want characters on the cover, or would you prefer something more typographic, built around symbolic elements like flowers, swords, snakes, castles, apples, or other imagery from your story?

These decisions will be shaped entirely by the book you’re writing. Finishing the story, or at least understanding it deeply, before you start designing the cover is genuinely important. You need to know what you’re representing.

Step 2: Identify the Key Visual Elements of Your Book

Even while I was still writing my novel, I already had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted my cover to look like:

My main characters, front and center
Flowers and plants
A dagger
Green as the primary theme color

These were all elements that connected directly to my story, so I knew I wanted them in the design.

If you’d rather skip decorative elements and let your characters do all the selling, that’s completely valid.

Let’s say what you need is one or two bust-up illustrations of your main characters. That is a far more achievable goal than trying to become an artist who can draw any character in any situation.

You can focus your learning on the specific skills your cover actually requires.

Step 3: Think About Typography Early

This is really important! Where is your title going to sit? How large should it be? How will it interact with the illustration?

These are questions you should ideally answer before you start drawing.

You can design your title treatment in Canva, or commission someone to handle the

typography if you’d prefer to outsource that part.

Personally, I think leaving typography until after the illustration is finished is a risky move.

If you don’t account for where the title will go while you’re planning and drawing, you might end up with a beautiful piece of artwork that has no good place for text.

I highly recommend planning for the title from the beginning. It will save you a lot of frustration later.

Step 4: Collect References. Lots of Them.

Save artwork from artists whose style you admire. Collect book covers that have the look and feel you’re going for.

Keep all of your visual references and ideas in one place, whether that’s a folder on your desktop, a Pinterest board, or a note in your phone.

Then use those references to decide on your composition.

Once you have a clear idea of what you want your cover to look like, focus your energy on improving the quality of that specific design.

You don’t need to master every aspect of illustration first. You need to understand what your cover requires, learn the skills to make it, and keep refining until it’s right.

A Quick Summary

Decide whether your goal is to make a book cover or to become a broadly skilled artist. Both are valid, but they require different approaches.
Understand your story before you design the cover.
Identify the specific visual elements that represent your book.
Plan your typography early, not as an afterthought.
Gather references and use them to guide your composition.
Focus your skill-building on what your specific cover needs.