For self-publishers, designing children’s book covers can be a huge challenge. The front cover of a book for young children has to stand up well to intense competition from other books on sale alongside. Somehow, it needs to be individual enough to attract the customers’ attention. The book cover has to appeal to the child, as well as the adult who will be buying the book. It needs to give a good idea of what the book is about, both in the title chosen and in the cover illustration. Ideally, your children’s book will have a distinctive and engaging front cover which stands out from the crowd, and is sufficiently interesting and appealing for the customer to take a closer look.
Choosing the Illustration
The first job in designing your children’s picture book cover is to choose the best illustration you have. This may be an illustration from within the book itself. This idea was originally popularised by Walker Books. The drawback to this approach is that putting the best picture in the book on the cover may lead to a sense of anticlimax when the customer looks inside the book. Unless all the pictures are equally good, they may disappoint. It might be better to have a specially designed illustration for the cover that does not reappear inside the book.
Very often the key illustration in a children’s book communicates the high point of the story. Designing a separate cover illustration will safeguard the plot details, while still providing insight into the story without spoiling it. If there is a main character in the book, such as Squirrel in ‘A New Friend for Squirrel‘, or Water Vole in ‘Water Vole’s Diary‘, this makes an ideal focal point for the front cover illustration. Children will want to know more about an appealing character they see in the cover illustration. The character should relate to the title, if possible. For example, Squirrel is looking at the title on the cover of ‘A New Friend for Squirrel’, and the Little Furry Creature is sitting on the title of ‘Professor Popple and the Little Furry Creature’.
Designing Children’s Book Covers
When designing children’s book covers, it is possible to use a small part of one illustration if the book title is longer, or will be taking up much of the space on the cover. For example, the cover on ‘Professor Popple and the Little Furry Creature‘ shows part of one of the book’s humorous illustrations. Ensure that the cover is not too complicated so it can be seen effectively from a distance, or among a crowd of other book covers. Choose a bright, attractive colour or a strong atmospheric one, depending on the content of your story.
See our next post for more details about choosing a font and designing the back cover!
Enjoy visiting our selection of original children’s picture books for the under-5s, published by LRM Books!