Book Cover Remix

Today's to-do list was surprisingly short, which meant plenty of time for creative fun! But all that free time can sometimes feel a little…meh. So, to perk myself up, I went for another cozy mystery cover, inspired by my audiobook adventure yesterday. I took to Pinterest, searched 'mystery book cover designs with pumpkins,' and found a bunch of potential projects. I picked one that's in a style I'm not wild about – it's not awful, just not my cup of tea. I’ve decided that when I have a project that I’m messing around with that is overall a fine piece- technically and I just want to have fun and see how I would change it we’ll call those ‘remixes’ instead of ‘redesigns’. So while this one is technically sound, it's not a cover I'd personally gravitate towards so I thought I’d see what I could do with it!

Original Book Cover

Honestly, this style just feels a little too 'clip art' for me. Like someone grabbed a bunch of pieces and threw them together. I know there's a lot of work in those layers, and I don't want to downplay that, but it's just a bit too busy for my taste.

My Remixed Book Cover

Since it's a genealogy series, the big tree stayed! I did nix the characters- I usually try to keep people off my covers and flyers. I like the idea of letting the readers picture the characters how they want. I know some authors want characters shown, but I think it's more fun to let your imagination run wild. It helps me get into the story more, anyway. I Kept the jack-o-lanterns of course, even though they’re subtle and I added a very faint skeleton down at the bottom in keeping with that theme.

Once I finished designing the cover I had a lot of fun putting it into some Photoshop mockups to see how it would look 'in the wild'! All in all I think this turned out great. It was a bit of a puzzle to strike the balance of maturity with the art, graphics, and fonts and still keep it cozy, but I'm super pleased with how it looks. And honestly, it totally turned my day around, which is a huge victory!

Before & After Side By Side