Back to the Drawing Board: A Showcase of Rejected Book Cover Designs
A painstaking amount of time is spent crafting creative concepts, ideas, and layouts in order to achieve the perfect book jacket. Arriving at a final design that’s worthy of notice in today’s design-heavy market requires collaboration among the author, designers, art directors, and marketing experts.
Along the way, many ideas are scratched, nixed, thrown out, and re-worked. Though the final outcome of this process is well worth showcasing, we’ve decided to showcase a different and unique collection of cover designs which never made it to the final stages. Not that these cover designs are bad or ugly—a different design was simply elected for the final product.
The Journey Out (click here to see the final book cover)
The Day After Yesterday (click here to see the final book cover)
A Carpenter’s View of the Bible (click here to see the final book cover)
An Inconvenient Purpose (click here to see the final book cover)
Ignite (click here to see the final book cover)
Hard Times Coming (click here to see the final book cover)
Your Book in Print v.1 (click here to see the final book cover)
Your Book in Print v.2
Your Book in Print v.3
The Endless Hour v.1
The Endless Hour v.2 (click here to see the final book cover)
Human Wisdom (click here to see the final book cover)
Down, Set, Hike (click here to see the final book cover)
Put Out the Fire (click here to see the final book cover)
Joy-Spirations for Caregivers (click here to see the final book cover)
Over Coffee (click here to see the final book cover)
The End of Human History (click here to see the final book cover)
The Invisible Attack Against Your Child (click here to see the final book cover)
The Apocalypse Within (click here to see the final book cover)
Second Chance (click here to see the final book cover)
Building Faith with Bible Pathway (click here to see the final book cover)
Which is Your Favorite?
Out of these cover designs, which do you like the best? Do you agree with the final outcome? Feel free to leave us a comment with your vote, or to let us know your experience with the cover design process. We appreciate your feedback!
Additional Resources
- 5 Essential Keys to an Effective Cover Design
Discover key points and elements that comprise effective cover designs. - 7 Simple and Easy Steps to Receiving a Mediocre Cover Design
A tongue and cheek article showcasing the step-by-step process of how to receive a mediocre cover design. - PubToons™ #3: Self-Published
A comic depicting the potential results of doing your own cover design.
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Hello,
All of the final covers are great! The final product captured/displayed the title best on all the books except, Building Faith with Bible Pathway. The final cover on this book is good, however I just see more of a “building” connection with the rejected cover.
It is difficult to choose a “best” book cover with the way the viewing is setup. Perhaps a different layout would provide a better viewing of the rejected and final copy as well as all the books.
Verna
Hi Verna,
Thanks for your feedback. While working out the Building Pathway cover, while nice looking, I think the idea was to steer away from a “carpentry” or “construction” look to allow the title to speak a little more for itself.
Excellent idea for the article layout. For future posts that are similar, I’ll definitely display both designs together for an easier “before and after.” Thanks again for your feedback!
I’m a designer, and I have some experience designing book covers. And must I say that sometimes we designers don’t really know what’s in the mind of the publisher, why they choose to go with another cover that’s not, in our opinion, better than the one we root for? Part of the job, I guess. :)
Many of these covers are wonderful. And many of them are well-chosen for the final look. But I feel like some covers like the rejected “The End of Human History”, “Human Wisdom” and “Over Coffee” are better, design and typographic-wise, than the commercial-looking final.
Thanks for this helpful post! I sure will return to this to somewhat decipher clients’ ideas in the future.
It was very helpful to see the various possibilities for book covers. Personally, though, I liked some of the earlier versions better than the final ones, particularly the ones that had to do with carpentry.
Thanks for sharing these design ideas!