Book Cover Design

The Revenant mountain men revealed!

Little did I know a few years ago when I designed the book covers of this quartet would these characters within these titles show up in the movie The Revenant. The likes of Jim Bridger and Mike Fink from the movie can be found across these pages as well as several of their cohorts, mountain men, fur trappers and Indians of then territorial America. You folks that loved The Revenant movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio will surely love this four book set that can be purchased at Christopher Matthews Publishing called The Temple Buck Quartet.

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Top 12 CMP Trade Book Cover Designs

On the eve of starting my fifth year at Christopher Matthews Publishing as Art Director I am impressed with the body of work of almost 50 book covers. A good designer should never stay impressed with their look too long, they must be their best informed critic so as to consistently improve their design vision. Looking over my body of trade book cover designs for Christopher Matthews Publishing I now can isolate what I think were the most successful book covers in terms of branding our authors core vision into strong and compelling visuals to get any customer to pick these off a book store shelf or download a ebook copy. Enjoy these dozen book jackets they hold the conceptual seed to create even grander covers in 2015!


 

“The Witch Hunter’s Amulet” Illustration & Design

Book cover illustration & design for this cover took much research to achieve the authentic feel of the 1500’s era of Inquistions and convey the rich cultural and spiritual tapestry that was India then and still is. Below you will see a snapshot of my drafting table with some test illustrations to warm up with as well as references. Each page of this book is a visual and sensory delight, you won’t regret reading its pages, you can get your copy at <a title=”The Witch Hunter’s Amulet” href=”http://christophermatthewspub.com/?page_id=3601″ target=”_blank”>Christopher Matthews Publishing</a>.<!–more–> Goa, India—16th Century. With the Inquisition extended to Portugal’s overseas territories, Manuel Andrade is sent by the Catholic Church to Goa, India, to arrest witches—the consorts of Satan. In 1564 he arrives in India— deathly ill, he is convinced that in order to recover, he needs to assemble a jeweled amulet. Andrade is ill-prepared to deal with the intricacies of life and the culture in India. The country is on the brink of war between the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire and the Muslim Sultans of the Deccan Plateau. The Portuguese, ever-hungry for territorial expansion and for more Catholic converts, add fuel to the fire, bringing the cauldron to its boiling point. Based on both real and fictional events and characters this novel graphically explores the terrible themes of hypocrisy, persecution and torture that characterized this period. Rich in lush detail, <strong><em>The Witch Hunter’s Amulet</em></strong> allows the reader’s senses to experience the exotic smells, sights and vivid colors of 16th century India.


Putting Spine in your Book Cover Design!

Book Cover Designs for Christopher Matthews Publishing, designed by Armen Kojoyian

As 2014 rolls on through our fourth year of publishing operations we are proud of the challenges we met for our authors and the quality of art and design produced for each title. At Christopher Matthews we don’t rely at all on cookie cutter cover creator software programs to produce your book covers. Each new manuscript we analyze and discuss in detail with our author’s to establish the key conceptual message or graphic essence that must be elucidated visually on a book cover, this attention cannot be poured out of a formatting program for book covers that unfortunately proliferate the internet world of self-publishing module’s. Our book cover’s at CMP are created in the book making craft of the guild system, all original concepts, all original graphic creation or stock art supplied from the most reputable sources, all these components we then merge with the finest type treatments that are required, either of a classical treatment or avant garde flair. Our goal is to “Put Spine in your Book Cover Design” to achieve a creation of pure art that will translate into marketplace success for our authors.

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Advocate for Professional Book Cover Designers

Thank you tenfold Nathan Shumate for being the defender, advocate and promoter of professional book cover designers and saying what has been long overdue and necessary against the prevailing winds that are diluting a once glorious creative venue called The Book Cover!

Creator of ‘Lousy Book Covers’ by Nathan Shumate, author 

read complete article at link

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The reasoning which can prompt a writer with no marketing or design experience to feel qualified to be his or her own art director, or even artist, is seductive: Who, after all, knows and understands the book better than its author? Especially among those who have never been published professionally (i.e., by a third party), the finished book probably represents a labor of love, carefully crafted directly from the heart’s desire in moments snatched from career and family. If the purpose of a cover is to express in instant visual impressions the gestalt of the book within, who better to know intuitively and unerringly how to reveal the appeal of the book than the one from whose mind and heart it sprang?

The reasoning, I said, can be seductive. Unfortunately, it can also be flat-out wrong. Print design is a mode of communication all its own, and there is at least as much study and experience involved in gaining a competence in design skills as there is to becoming a credible wordsmith. If you don’t think that a cover designer is automatically qualified to write a book to go with his cover, you should admit that the converse is true: a book’s author is not automatically qualified to design her own cover.
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Principles of Proteomics • Book Cover Design

Book cover design variations for the title Principles of Proteomics, Second Edition by Richard M. Twyman for Garland Science a Division of London based publisher Taylor & Francis.

My approach was to diminish the overall darkness of the spotted green graphic that author provided for cover use. Eliminating most of the black background and over enhancing the effect of horizontal movement and highlighting the unique spotting achieved the desired look with a crisp type treatment. The top cover was the winner in this event.

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Mathematics Series Book Cover Design

MathBookCoverDesign

The following three book covers were designed as series approach for the publisher Eye On Education in Westchester, NY recently purchased by Taylor & Francis a London based publisher.

Authors for these text gave strong visual input in the design approach stressing the importance of showing movement, light, and motion which the core graphics succeeded by using the effect of a classroom door slightly ajar and wooshing light. A added challenge was to demarcate the class levels that each text focused on through grades K-12. Each distinct level was set off by different color combinations as well as entering different math formulas and symbols pertaining to each of the three class groups.