How to Design a Book Cover: Dark Rhythm

The first freelance book cover I ever designed

Hello! Welcome to How to Design a Book Cover, a series from A Book Designer’s Notebook in which I share book cover design process from start to finish. This is a bi-weekly bonus series for paid-tier subscribers.

This week, I’m sharing the process behind my cover for Dark Rhythm by Charles Taylor.

This is the very first paid book cover I ever designed. I designed it for Fifth Avenue Press, the publishing imprint at the Ann Arbor District Library, where I now work. 2019 doesn’t seem so long ago, but in this book designer’s career, it’s a lifetime.

The Brief

When I work with publishers, I receive a creative brief that usually shares a description of the book, technical specifications, potential art direction from the author, and art direction from the press itself. Here’s the synopsis for the novel:

After waking in a San Francisco hospital with no memory of her identity, Cindy Carrington encounters three violent individuals searching for someone they call Terri Blackmon, and discovers a connection between herself and three locals who have gone missing. What Cindy unravels about her relationship with Terri forces her to run for her life, allied with a collection of fugitives who share an astonishing talent. Can they survive the determined forces that threaten to overwhelm them all?

Dark Rhythm is a thriller, but also a story about the power of memory, and how we’re shaped by and impact both the families we’re born into and the ones we choose.

Notes & Sketches

These days, my process is much more refined than it was. I didn’t really sketch much for this cover in my notebook, but I did take notes on the book as I read.

Digital Sketches

I made a lot of digital sketches for this one. I was eager to please for my first paid cover gig. I’m not sure I’d even have the stamina for this kind of exploration today.

Fun fact: for some of these covers with the bubbles, I printed a stock photo and placed it under a running sink and took photos. I also played with the scanner.