Yoof October 2021

Once you understand the key elements from the plot,
then comes the job of actually making the cover. For
example, when I was working on the cover for
Monochrome Madonna, which is a murder mystery,
the obvious choice was to give the reader what they
would expect - blood, shadowy silhouettes, and
distressed lettering however I decided to take a
different route and use a comb and a scrunchy on
the cover instead (the killer liked to collect tokens
from all his victims, a comb and scrunchy being some
of them). With the right colors and typography, the
end result leaves you feeling uneasy and disturbed,
which was the whole point.
Another reputed book cover designer Bonita Vaz-
Shimray ( @bonitavaz) also shared her views on the
same. Bonita is a visual communicator, art director,
educator, design strategist and publisher. She has
designed iconic book covers like- Aanchal Malhotra’s
‘Remnants of a Separation’, Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni’s ‘The Forest of Enchantments’, and won
The Oxford Bookstore book cover prize.
There are no shortcuts to being a good book cover
designer. It’s a very intuitive form of design. At some
point, you have to trust your gut feeling and the team
that’s getting behind the book and hope it will be well
received. Being a keen reader is definitely one of the
key aspects of this profession. I try and never get
pressured into following a book cover trend,
consciously at least. I always prefer to go with what
works best for the book, not what’s trending in the
market. It’s also a great idea to look at works of other
book cover designers to develop your understanding
of different styles, techniques, approaches to a
storyline but at the end of the day go with your instinct.
“A foundation in visual communication is
useful for both design thinking and skillbased
learning. However, if you feel you
have an innate sense of composition and
a love for the printed word, experiment
with fan versions of books you like and
build a portfolio that can launch a career
as designer. It could be a specific area
of expertise like digital or watercolour,
botanical drawings or hand-lettering.
Publishing houses are always looking for
talent and freelancing on book covers is a
good start.”
CAREER & EDUCATION OCT 2021 21