How can I design a book cover?

Question

Can anyone share his or her experience on designing a book cover? I just finished writing my "Awk One-Liners Explained" e-book and now I am designing the cover. I tried \maketitle and the result was pretty ugly (see screenshot below). I'd appreciate any tips on designing book covers.

Answer 1

Here is a poor man's solution! Cover and title pages should ideally be designed by a graphics artist, as most of us are really challenged in this area! (If you have not watched this brilliant TED Talk by Book Cover Designer Chip Kidd, I advise you to watch it as you can gain a lot of insight into book cover design).

The code follows:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{graphicx}
%\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\begin{document}
\clearpage
%% temporary titles
% command to provide stretchy vertical space in proportion
\newcommand\nbvspace[1][3]{\vspace*{\stretch{#1}}}
% allow some slack to avoid under/overfull boxes
\newcommand\nbstretchyspace{\spaceskip0.5em plus 0.25em minus 0.25em}
% To improve spacing on titlepages
\newcommand{\nbtitlestretch}{\spaceskip0.6em}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{center}
\bfseries
\nbvspace[1]
\Huge
{\nbtitlestretch\huge
AWK ONE LINERS EXPLAINED}

\nbvspace[1]
\normalsize

TO WHICH IS ADDED MANY USEFUL ONE\\
LINERS AND CODE SO THAT\\
YOU CAN AWK LIKE A HAWK
\nbvspace[1]
\small BY\\
\Large PETERIS KRUMINS\\[0.5em]
\footnotesize AUTHOR OF ``A WORKING ALGEBRA,'' ``WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY,\\
ITS HISTORY, THEORY AND PRACTICE,'' ETC., ETC.

\nbvspace[2]

\includegraphics[width=1.5in]{./graphics/pic37}
\nbvspace[3]
\normalsize

DOHA\\
\large
PUBLISHED IN THE WILD
\nbvspace[1]
\end{center}
\end{document}

Answer 2

Create an own document (1 or 4 pages) for your cover and then merge it with the other document with the package pdfpages. Examples of book covers.

For more detailed workaround, see Creating Book Covers using PSTricks. You will be guided how to create a book cover as shown above.

For my own cover I use a template:

On this I put all text frames and additional images with \rput from PSTricks or \put from standard LaTeX.

Answer 3

You can use xcoffins package from LaTeX 3 project. This example is inspired by work of Jan Tschichold

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[a4paper,margin=5pt]{geometry}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{times,multicol,graphicx}
\usepackage{xcoffins}
\usepackage{times,color}
\newcommand\cbox[2][.8]{{\setlength\fboxsep{0pt}\colorbox[gray]{#1}{#2}}}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
  \NewCoffin \result
  \NewCoffin \aaa
  \NewCoffin \bbb
  \NewCoffin \ccc
  \NewCoffin \ddd
  \NewCoffin \eee
  \NewCoffin \fff
  \NewCoffin \rulei
  \NewCoffin \ruleii
  \NewCoffin \ruleiii

\SetHorizontalCoffin \result {}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \aaa {\fontsize{52}{50}\sffamily\bfseries mitteilungen}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \bbb {\fontsize{52}{50}\sffamily\bfseries typographische}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \ccc {\fontsize{12}{10}\sffamily 
                      \quad zeitschrift des bildungsverbandes der
                      deutschen buchdrucker leipzig 
                     \textbullet{} oktoberheft 1925}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \ddd {\fontsize{28}{20}\sffamily sonderheft}
\SetVerticalCoffin \eee {180pt}
                 {\raggedleft\fontsize{31}{36}\sffamily\bfseries 
                      elementare\\
                      typographie}
\SetVerticalCoffin \fff {140pt}
                 {\raggedright \fontsize{13}{14}\sffamily\bfseries 
                       natan altman \\
                       otto baumberger \\
                       herbert mayer \\
                       max burchartz \\
                       el lissitzky \\
                       ladislaus moholy-nagy \\
                       moln\'ar f.~farkas \\
                       johannes molzahn \\
                       kurt schwitters \\
                       mart stam \\
                       ivan tschichold}

\RotateCoffin \bbb {90}
\RotateCoffin \ccc {270}

\SetHorizontalCoffin \rulei  {\color{red}\rule{6.5in}{1pc}}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \ruleii {\color{red}\rule{1pc}{23.5cm}}
\SetHorizontalCoffin \ruleiii{\color{black}\rule{10pt}{152pt}}


\JoinCoffins \result                \aaa 
\JoinCoffins \result[\aaa-t,\aaa-r] \rulei   [b,r](0pt,2mm)
\JoinCoffins \result[\aaa-b,\aaa-l] \bbb     [B,r](2pt,0pt)
\JoinCoffins \result[\bbb-t,\bbb-r] \ruleii  [t,r](-2mm,0pt)
\JoinCoffins \result[\aaa-B,\aaa-r] \ccc     [B,l](66pt,14pc)
\JoinCoffins \result[\bbb-l,\ccc-B] \fff     [t,r](-2mm,0pt)
\JoinCoffins \result[\fff-b,\fff-r] \ruleiii [b,l](2mm,0pt)
\JoinCoffins \result[\ccc-r,\fff-l] \eee     [B,r]
\JoinCoffins \result[\eee-T,\eee-r] \ddd     [B,r](0pt,4pc)
\TypesetCoffin \result
\end{document}

Answer 4

Book covers, and title pages, should be individually designed --- the \maketitle macro is not of much help. On CTAN there is a document of mine showing a range of title page designs that could be adapted for book covers: Some Examples of Title Pages. If you have TeX Live then

texdoc titlepages

should bring it up as well.

Here is, hopefully, an example cover of mine. I have used as the background a photo I took of an old manuscript (cover2.jpg) and overlaid the title information on top. The cover (and book) will be trimmed to eliminate the margin white spaces.

\documentclass{10pt,letterpaper,twoside,showtrims]{memoir}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\raggedbottom
\frontmatter
\pagestyle{empty}
%% front cover The Decretales of Pope Gregory IX 1505 recto
\begin{picture}(0,0)%
   \put{-105,-675){\includegraphics[height=10.4in,width=8.5in,keepaspectratio]%
                  {cover2}}
\end{picture}
\vspace*{1.5\onelineskip}
\begin{center} \LARGE\textbf{A Few}\par
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\HUGE\textbf{Notes}
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\LARGE\textbf{on}\par
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\HUGE\textbf{Book Design}
\end{center}
\vspace*{0.6\textheight}
\begin{center}
\Huge\textbf{Peter Wilson}
\end{center}
\end{document}

I have a PDF of the above and thanks to Yiannis I now know how to include it in this answer.

Answer 5

There is a relatively new package on CTAN, called bookcover. It seems to be quite straightforward to use and includes two examples.

Answer 6

For graphic layout tasks such as this, I reach for a full-page pspicture:

\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[centering,width=8.5in,height=11in]{geometry}
\usepackage{pstricks}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

\psset{unit=1in}
\begin{pspicture}(8.5,11)% use your page size
  \rput[b](3.5,8){\parbox{5in}{\begin{flushright}
    \Huge\bfseries\sffamily Awk one-liners\\ Explained
    \end{flushright}}}
  \uput[-90](3.5,8){\color{red}\rule{5in}{1ex}}
  % ...
\end{pspicture}

\end{document}

Answer 7

You can of course redefine the \maketitle macro to acquiesce to your design wishes.

But as Martin has mentioned in a comment, the cover title is actually a later addition to a book. \maketitle is not the way to do this.

The KOMA documentation says the following:

A cover is actually something that should be created in a separate document. The cover often has a very individual format. It can also be designed with the help of a graphics or DTP program. A separate document should also be used because the cover will be printed on a different medium, possibly cardboard, and possibly with another printer.

\maketitle’s job is to create the title page(s) inside a book, not the cover.

Answer 8

The current page node of TikZ is very helpful:

Code

\documentclass[parskip]{scrbook}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,shadows}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{lmodern}

\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{tikzpicture}
[   overlay,
    remember picture,
    mynode/.style={left,fill=yellow!10,general shadow={shadow scale=1, shadow xshift=-0.8ex, shadow yshift=-0.8ex,
opacity=1, fill=gray!50}},
]
    \fill[red!30!gray] (current page.south west) rectangle (current page.north east);
    \node[mynode] at ($(current page.north east)+(-0.2,-6)$) {\fontsize{25}{30}\selectfont \textbf{Awk One-Liners Explained}};
    \node[mynode] at ($(current page.north east)+(-0.5,-8)$) {\fontsize{20}{24}\selectfont \textsc{Peteris Krumins}};
    \node[mynode] at ($(current page.north east)+(-0.8,-10)$) {\fontsize{15}{18}\selectfont Samizdat, 2012};
    \node[above right] at ($(current page.south west)+(5,5)$) {\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{awk}};

\end{tikzpicture}
\clearpage
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}

Result

Answer 9

As always I want to recommend Inkscape which with some meddling can export PDF's that you run through LaTeX and get the best of two worlds.

Answer 10

The source code for the title page from the The TikZ & PGF Manual might be interesting.

Also, the source code for cover graphic from another version of the title page is available.

Although these are specifically used as title pages, with some study of the source code, similarly inspired designs could be used in the design of a book cover.

Answer 11

If your book is not a textbook or technical reference, then there is no substitute for graphic design. The design does not have to be exotic. It merely needs to convey the impression that "this is not a textbook or technical reference" to potential readers.

If you will be using a print-on-demand service, nowadays most of them are happy to accept a PNG or JPG image, prepared according to their standards. Their web sites will explain. You may also be able to provide a PDF, but in most cases that would only be a wrapper around a single graphic image, not a file produced by TeX.

Unless it is a solid color, the background should be created in a raster graphics program. Usually at 300 pixels per inch. You can add text there, or create text in TeX, then import the result as layers to the graphic. If you use TeX, you do not need to worry about positioning or rotation or color, since you can do that to the imported text in the graphics program.

The finished cover should be flattened (no layers), which rasterizes the text. It will always be rasterized before print, so you lose nothing.

Depending on the print service, you may be required to submit RGB, or CMYK, or your choice. You may be required to attach a color profile, or omit a color profile, or your choice. Given the choice, it is best to submit as RGB without attached color profile. Let them do the color conversion.

Be sure that the text does not have any excessively fine structure. The four-color printing process tends to make fine (small) text hard to read.

The printed color will be in a different color space than you saw on screen. Without a calibrated monitor and graphics art experience, just live with the effect of color conversion. In general, very brightly-colored reds, greens, and blues will print less brightly. Dark colors (deep browns) will appear slightly washed-out. Black may not be as black as you expected.

Professionally printed books use a different print technology. That is why those "instant best-seller" books can have brilliant reds and deep blacks. Same with textbooks, which can be printed using expensive technology, because students have little choice.

You are strongly discouraged from submitting vector artwork. Some services refuse to accept it. If you wish to design using a vector program, then import to a raster program, and finish it there.

Answer 12

This method has worked well for me:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}

\begin{document}
\includepdf{cover_page_art.png}

\section {Chapter 1}

blah blah blah...
\end{document}

Just requires that you have your book's cover page in a PDF or PNG file --- e.g cover_page_art.png in this case. Relates to solution here.