Impactful Book Cover Design: An Art Director's Perspective
A course by John Gall , Designer and Creative Director
Learn how to design meaningful book covers that capture the attention of readers alongside an award-winning designer
Learn how to design meaningful book covers that capture the attention of readers alongside an award-winning designer
Award-winning designer John Gall believes that a book cover is like an advertisement—it is the reason we pick up a book or leave it forgotten among the shelves. John has designed book covers for authors like Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, and Don DeLillo, and has received over 50 awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
In this online course, John teaches you to create eye-catching book cover designs that work as a window into the author’s work. Learn how to translate words into a visual statement that connects with potential readers.
What will you learn in this online course?
14 lessons & 23 downloads
- 100% positive reviews (39)
- 1,718 students
- 14 lessons (1h 38m)
- 23 additional resources (5 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: English
- English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
Recommended software for this course
Adobe InDesign
Adobe PhotoshopWhat is this course's project?
Design an eye-catching cover series that reflects the essence of the books.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
This course is perfect for people who are interested in graphic design or book cover design.
Requirements and materials
Basic graphic design knowledge and experience with design-based programs like InDesign and Photoshop are required.
To take this course, you only need access to the software mentioned above.
Reviews
John Gall is a designer, artist, author, editor, and teacher. He is currently the creative director of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. His design and illustration work for Knopf, Vintage Books, Abrams Books, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Criterion Collection, and Nonesuch Records has been recognized by the AIGA, Art Directors Club, Print, Graphis, and American Illustration. Known for his book cover designs for authors like Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, and Vladimir Nabokov, his work is featured in the books By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design, and Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers.
John has written about graphic design covering an array of topics from the history of Grove Press to contemporary skateboard graphics, and is the author of Sayonara Home Run! The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card. He has also been the editor of two bestselling design books: Pretty Much Everything by Aaron Draplin and Sunday Sketching by Christoph Niemann. John is an internationally-exhibited artist and published a book of his personal work John Gall Collages 2008-2018 in 2018. He has served on the board of AIGA/NY, as an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, and is a frequent lecturer.
Content
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U1
Introduction
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About Me
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Influences
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U2
Book Cover
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What Is a Book Cover?
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Book Cover Design
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Book Cover Series Design
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U3
The Research
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Project Evaluation
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Reading the Manuscript
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Additional Research
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U4
Designing the Cover
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Generating Concepts
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Designing the Cover
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Designing a Series
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Designing the Spine
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U5
The Book Cover Presentation
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Mock-ups
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Presentation and Handling Feedback
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FP
Final project
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Impactful Book Cover Design: An Art Director's Perspectiv
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What to expect from a Domestika course
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Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
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Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
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Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
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Certificates
PlusIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
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Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
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Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
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Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
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Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.
All courses are 100% online, so once they're published, courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.
The courses are divided into different units. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with the teacher and with other students, as well as share your work and your course project, creating a community around the course.
You can redeem the course you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
bobperezb
Good!
edwarlvl
Good
leejee
I highly recommend this course! It focuses on the core principles of designing impactful book covers while fostering the use of intuition in the creative process, taught by a master of cover design. The instructor provides genuine, thoughtful feedback on each submission, which makes the learning experience more valuable.
plane_warden_01
I love this course!
neremo76
Excelente curso, me ha ayudado mucho. Es muy bueno explicando, lo recomiendo ampliamente.
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