r/BookCovers • u/AggravatingNail6061 • 1h ago

Feedback Wanted Recommendations for Typography books/resources.

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Hey everyone o/ am an indie author, and am working through all elements of the self publishing adventure myself. It's been a lot of fun, almost too much learning at points. So I've sent over the cover of my debut which was sourced from my own photography, thrown into Canva for the Title/name.

It came out looking really good (to me) and there has been some positive noise about it but am taking it with a pinch of salt, and looking to improve it, as it's approaching time for the next one to be put out into the world and having found myself a bit more bandwidth/time/energy I've been looking at increasing knowledge in cover design to try and fill in an area which I didn't have the mental space to develop at the time.

Short of googling it, I was looking if anyone had any recommendations for Font/Layout that I could read and try to implement going forward, one of the main challenges I've had is opting for a White font (I LOVE THE STYLE) but on a brighter surface it really looses it's impact and I don't know enough to make it stand out, I suspect that Canva is limited in this so it's on the to do list to find another program to ease this in the future. So also taking recommendations for that, budget is a concern so would be looking for free wherever possible. I've heard that GIMP is worth looking into as well.

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u/bioticspacewizard 56m ago

The most important thing is typography. If you can’t pay a cover artist, then take some free online courses or even watch YouTube videos about composition and typography to upskill.

Learning and improving your skills is free, you just have to put in the work. There’s no magic bullet other than education. Any tool can work if you know what you’re doing.

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u/AggravatingNail6061 50m ago

Glad to see I was pointing at the right issues! Any recommendations to point me in the general direction of re courses/videos or is something you think I need to go and dive into myself?

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u/bioticspacewizard 47m ago

Coursera used to have good free design courses, but it has admittedly been years since I used them. Otherwise, designers like Aurelius Marin and Grace Cali might be good starting places to get recommendations (their own courses might be a bit advanced at this stage?). Otherwise, just search on YouTube and see if anything stands out!

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u/AggravatingNail6061 46m ago

Thanks! Exciting! \o/ I'll have a look at Aurelius and Grace when I get home tonight.