How can I add the WOW factor to my cover?

Spring is the time of year when rising staffers can dream big about the books they want to produce next year. It’s also the season for workshops and yearbook exchanges, so keep your eyes open for cool cover ideas that might inspire your next design. Despite what they say, your readers DO judge the book by its cover, so it’s important to go for high impact.

Whether your book is going to be classic or contemporary, the cover is the place to get the readers excited about what’s between the binder’s boards.

If you’ve had silk-screened books for the last few years, you might consider a litho cover this year. A couple of gloss laminated books can make it seem like you’re in a rut. Some staffs strive never to repeat cover processes on back-to-back volumes.

Let’s take a look at some of your many options. Lamination now comes in many finishes. While we usually think of the high-gloss version, matte and specialty lamination give a completely different look and feel.

Gloss lamination

Matte lamination

Specialty lamination

UV Lamination, which is usually very high gloss, can be applied to specific parts of the design as opposed to coating the entire cover.

Embossing gives your cover dimension; graphics raise up from the cover surface to emphasize the design. When designs are instead pressed into the cover, it’s called debossing. Grained covers used to be found only on silkscreened books, but that’s no longer true.

Foil comes in a variety of colors and patterns and will draw attention to a specific part of your design.

Metallay is like a very heavy foil that is embossed or debossed and then pressed into the cover. While there are many colors of foil, metallay is available in metallic silver and gold.

To get even more detail to show, we sometimes see an overtone rub applied to metallay, embossing or grain. In this process, an opaque dye is applied to the area you want highlighted and then it is rubbed in/off by hand to accent the detail in the embossing.

A die-cut cover will literally have a hole in it, or part of the cover might be cut away.

And a tip-on is added to the cover itself. There are so many possibilities for tip-ons. Traditionally, it was a photo that was added to a leather-look cover, but colorful Metallicolor graphics are available to create tip-ons that appear almost holographic. And anything is possible; you can attach nearly anything that’s relatively flat to your cover.

Tip-on

Metallicolor tip-on

Yearbook Discoveries, Volume 11, Issue 3