Welcome to the 7th and final installment of Ashley Ruggirello’s guest post series on cover design.

For those just joining us, meet Ashley, Creative Director/Founder of REUTS Publications, and owner of freelance design company, Cardboard Monet. She’s been sharing her design expertise, taking us through the process behind designing a book cover. From inception to finished product, she’s illustrated the collaborative steps authors and designers go through, using my nemesis WIP as the guinea pig. And today, we’ve reached the end.

Know what that means? That’s right, next week I’ll be revealing the announcement I’ve been teasing you with since the beginning. I’m pretty excited about it, and hope you will be too. So follow along as Ashley walks you through the finishing touches on Unmoving‘s design and get ready for next week’s surprise! 😉
 

Chapter 7: Unmoving Tutorial Finale

By Ashley Ruggirello

 
The end is near. We’ve entered the closing chapter of our Book Cover Art Series! We started the series with an idea, something abstract and intangible. After playing around with that idea, and different forms of representation, the final cover was revealed. And, if you’re interested in how the cover was created, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 have documented that process. But now, the time has come to put the finishing touches on the Unmoving cover, and close the book on the wonderful journey we’ve taken together.

Last, but not least . . . the necklace.

Picking up from last week:
 

 

And again, the basic design elements

• The bench background. (Unlimited usage on DeviantArt.com; Permission needed off-site)
• Floral filigree. (Free to use if credit provided)
• Necklace inspiration. (Used only for inspiration, as the final necklace was drawn in)
• Stripe generator. (Generate the stripe texture)
• Proxima Nova font. (Feel free to sub with Collaborate – Thin, font)
• Gotham font. (Feel free to sub with Century Gothic font, standard on most operating systems)

Part III: Step-By-Step Tutorial for the Unmoving Book Cover

 
Open the Necklace inspiration image in a new browser tab. You don’t need to pull it into Photoshop, just have it easily accessible to reference. In a new layer, above all the background/bench layers, zoom in and draw with the brush tool (“B” on your keyboard to bring it up). It doesn’t matter what color you use, but remember to keep the brush sharp:
 

 
Before I show how it looks on my screen, we’ll have to add some FX to the necklace base. Remember the button? Make sure you have the necklace layer selected, and from the toolbar at the bottom of your layer window, click the FX icon and select “Drop Shadow”: (We’ll start with Drop Shadow, but we’ll be adding a couple different effects in one swoop.)
 

 

 
This’ll open the effects window, where you can change the Distance to “3″, Spread to “0″, Size to “38″ and Angle to “150″:
 

 
Then, from the left-hand column, click “Outer Glow” (as you see from the above screen shot). You’ll change these options to Blend Mode of “Hard Light”, Opacity of “100%”, Spread to “29%”, Size to “90px”, Range to “50%” and Color to “#c0c9cc” :
 

 
Then hit OK. And, while keeping that layer selected, set it to Multiply, Opacity “48%” and Fill “0%”:
 

 
It should look something like this (zoomed in):
 

 
Duplicate the layer by either clicking CTRL/command + J or right-clicking the layer and selecting Duplicate Layer:
 

 
On your new layer, open up the FX window again. You’ll notice the previous effects have already been applied to this duplicate layer:
 

 

 
We’ll be adding a Gradient Overlay, so select that option from the left side bar. Set Blend Mode to “Mulitply”, Opacity to “100%”, Style to “Linear”, and Angle to “90”:
 

 
The gradient colors themselves look like this:
 

 
From left to right the colors are “#262626”, “#575757”, “#8a8a8a” and “#262626”. Hit OK and OK, then look back at your layer. Make sure you change your layer Opacity to “87%” and you should see something like this:
 

 

 
In a new layer below the necklace, using a soft-edged brush with a black color (#000000), add a slight drop shadow to the bottom edge of the necklace:
 

 

 
I want to apologize for this next step, which I forgot to document: the gem image and coloring. For this, you can either play around and come up with your own gem, or use the following image (taken directly from my design file) and add it as a new layer below your necklace, but above the drop shadow layer:
 

 
With the gem in place, you should have something that looks like this:
 

 
Zooming back out, the last thing we need to add is the chain. Zooming out allows you to better see how it’ll fall off the bench in relation to the design as a whole. This step was as simple as using the brush tool with a hard brush to draw out a chain:
 

 
To add a little bit of realism, we’ll add a Gradient Overlay to the layer, so open the FX and select Gradient Overlay:
 

 

 
Set your options to Blend Mode at “Normal”, Opacity at “100%”, Style to “Linear” and Angle to “90%”:
 

 
With the gradient colors from left to right at “#262626”, “#575757”, “#000000” and “#262626”.
 

 
Hit OK and OK one final time, and you’re done! Take a moment to bask in your new cover, and the new techniques, tips and tricks you’ve learned.
 

 
Thank you for participating and following our Book Cover Art Series! REUTS would love to showcase the work you come up with based on our series, so email them to hello@reuts.com, and we’ll display them on our blog! Happy designing, reading and writing!

Welcome to week 4 of Ashley Ruggirello’s guest post series. For those of you who’ve been following along, feel free to jump down to the chapter header. You know the drill by now.

For those just joining us, I’ve teamed up with Ashley, Creative Director and Founder of REUTS Publications, to bring you a series about cover design. (And by “teamed up”, I really mean asked permission to syndicate her work. ) I know nothing about cover design, so why not defer to an expert like Ashley? Because that’s what she is. Not only is she the creative genius behind all of REUTS, she’s also the owner of freelance design company, Cardboard Monet. I’ve had the privilege of watching her talent in action, so I’m extremely thrilled that one of her brilliant designs will be featured on my work.

That’s right, not only will she being giving you inspired insight into the design process, she’s using my nemesis WIP, Unmoving, as the example cover. No, that doesn’t mean I finally managed to finish the darn thing. But after this, I’m certainly feeling inspired to!  So stick around. At the end of the series, I’ll reveal the big announcement I’ve had up my sleeve. If you’re a fan of my work, you definitely won’t want to miss it!

Alright, take it away, Ashley!

Chapter 4: More Mocking

By Ashley Ruggirello

 
This week’s post is exciting for me as a designer, because I’m able to show you in a side-by-side view how we use feedback to transform a design. As promised, I’m going to recap Kisa’s thoughts on the original cover mock-ups from Chapter 3, and then give you a chance to catch the subtle, and not so subtle, updates in the new versions. The mock-up and revise process can consist of many rounds, but for the sake of this series, we’re only going to show one. Kisa and I went through a couple more after this point to get to the final design, but those will stay behind-the-scenes. Next week, we’ll debut that final, and jump right into a step-by-step tutorial on how the cover was created. We’ll provide all the stock and styles so you can practice and create the Unmoving cover yourself. Follow along, and we’ll have some fun! 🙂
 

Mock-Up #1

 
Feedback points from Kisa:

• Can the necklace be more prevalent, maybe with a chain interacting with the text?
• Add the filigree from mock-up #2 to mock-up #1, faintly in the corners
• Increase the title, and move it up more.

Overall, Kisa’s feedback regarding mock-up #1 was very positive. I think there was even an “I love this!!!” somewhere in the email, which is great! But, it also makes it more difficult for the second mock-up. I made somewhat of a mistake sending Kisa this first, while working on the second. It allowed her to focus on the design in front of her, develop a love (or hate) relationship with it, and then hold the second to a higher standard. I would recommend sending all mock-ups at the same time, to give a fair comparison of both against one another. Fortunately for me, Kisa has an artistic background, and didn’t let the appeal of mock-up #1 get too much in the way of discussing mock-up #2 😉

Back to the covers…

The contemporary, faint feel of this cover would stand on its own on a bookshelf, and captured many of the main elements of Unmoving, so overall, she was pleased with the direction. I took her feedback and requests, and got to work. To the left is the original, to the right is the updated mock-up #1 (let’s call it mock-up #1.2):
 

^{Note: I began to play with the font, but didn’t complete this round of revisions. The same with the chain – since these are just rough mock-ups, I didn’t take the time to shade/accentuate a 3D effect on the chain.}
 

Mock-Up #2

 
Feedback points from Kisa:

• Portland is very lush (constant rain) so the dirt below the bench feels out of place.
• Try something more along the lines of a gray palette similar to the first mock-up.
• Apply the same styles but with an image we’ve referenced before, in Chapter 2.

As I expected, after sending mock-up #1 first, mock-up #2 wasn’t received with as much excitement. Kisa had a little more of a clear direction to take this design, though, which is always helpful on my end. Overall, Kisa liked the styles of mock-up #2, but with mock-up #2.2 she wanted to try a new, lighter image.
 

 
Quite a change, isn’t it? But you can still see how these two designs fall within the same vein: a more prominent bench, a fantastical overlay texture, movement bringing your eye around the design, etc… I’m actually much more pleased with round two of this mock-up, than the first – proof that a design continues to get better and better with collaboration, edits and multiple rounds of reviewing.

We’ll unveil the direction Kisa picked (and together, we finalized) in next week’s post. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments below, or Tweet us: @REUTSpub. I have a favorite, and I have a feeling I know which one Kisa favors, but let us know what you would do, and which you’d pick if you were in her shoes. Maybe you can sway her opinion 🙂

Remember, next week we’ll get into the cover’s creation, meaning over the course of two or three posts, I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of recreating this cover. You can practice and practice the techniques I’ve used, and maybe apply them to your own cover in the future. It’ll all begin with the Stock Permission Request mentioned way back when, and how to deal with copyrighted stock.

Until then, have a fantastic week, everyone!