I’ve got a big project breakdown for you today. This was a super fun cover that had a lot of cool pieces that came with it.

This actually was a dream come true in some ways. In grad school, I did a whole series deliberately focusing on what Red Riding Hood would look like as different genres, so when Jennifer emailed me and asked if I would be willing to do a real Red Riding Hood retelling, (which could can purchase on her website and Amazon) I was stoked. I bought myself a new font and CGI bushes for this one (I was tired of cutting out unimpressive bush photos from stock websites).

This also happens to be the first book where I pull a classic Kirk DouPonce and feature myself on my own cover (my friend didn’t want to pose for me). And if you had told twelve-year-old Jenneth that she was going to grow up and be a model, she would have laughed you right out of the room.

I also was able to do a quick design for Jennifer’s publishing name, En Pointe Press, which we added to the back. En Pointe is a reference to ballet, while also meaning “on point” so the swoosh at the end of the publisher’s name reflects both a ballet foot, and a point.

This was the first book that originally had Amazon A+ content for its Amazon page, as well. A+ content is the extra advertising under an Amazon listing, often additional information or product features. This came with a higher risk because the image was much larger—you’re more likely to see errors, like where I airbrushed the branding off my bike, erased the brake lines, replaced the actual tires so I didn’t have to cut out the spokes myself, and hand-painted fake lighting and hair on me. That’s where shadows are your friends and you can hide anything that doesn’t blend perfectly (see the raw build below).

The other fun thing I was able to do was design a bookmark for the launch. This was the back (the front was a slightly adjusted version of the cover itself).

If you’re still with me, here’s some more behind the scenes for the cover. This is the original image I used for Rider, the protagonist—I’m forever thankful for my mom who’s willing to take ridiculous photos of me in the name of employment.

I actually tried a ton of different ideas for this cover (more than ten, actually which I’ll post as a batch below) but it’s neat to see the progression between my three main drafts.

These include the drafts that actually made it to the client for approval. I first went with a cold, dark, green-blue color scheme until the author mentioned that the story actually took place in the fall.

One thing I want to point out, though, is the lighting and model choices between the first and third one. This is the same model (me), but the first one doesn’t provide a good silhouette at all, and it’s not even possible to see she’s on a bike from a first glance or thumbnail. The lighting is also elementary and reminiscent of those cheaply-made ten cent middle grade books the mass market liked to push out, and I realized I needed to do better than a flippant sun flare behind the protagonist.

Some of these are truly awful…. Not to mention I was spelling the author’s name wrong for like six drafts. I swear I can design, guys. Keep scrolling for a breakdown of why each cover was a colossal failure.

Draft one was my initial concept. I wanted a low-eye epic hero shot of the protagonist on her bike, either looking in or looking out from the edge of the city gates. If I had more control over the environment—maybe learned 3D modeling software—I might have been able to make it work, but planning perspective with a half-baked idea and limited stock images…wasn’t cutting it.

Draft two doesn’t deserve much commentary, other than the model’s face gave me major uncanny valley, considering it was attached to my body. If I had worked on the lighting to the same extent as I did the final, I might have gotten it to look decent, but the cover itself was just giving me a really low-budged 80s/90s children’s book.

Draft three was my second big idea, but my bike had hand brakes and a reflector light, which didn’t fit with the mood of the story, and the aspect ratio just wasn’t working either (similar to my problem with draft one). I also didn’t have any realistic hair assets at the time that I could use for something so close up. And again with the uncanny valley, because that’s not my face. Scrap.

Draft four was back to the second idea. Maybe I could try and fix it. What if I at least added some text—oh no, please. Make it go away. Nevermind. I regret everything.

Draft five is where I finally found my title font and design, but the colors were all wrong and it still wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t horrible, but it still wasn’t right.

Draft six was where I tried pulling from draft three. It almost worked, except it was giving me paranormal romance rip-off from 2008 vibes and I couldn’t allow that.

Draft seven I almost like, and maybe will even reincorporate into another design one day. The main detractor, though, was that the color scheme and some of the design looked like Marissa Meyer’s Heartless, and though they’re both YA retellings with a romance plot, the fence was still making it look like it belonged in 2008.

Draft eight was where I felt like I was really getting somewhere, and I was confident enough to send it to the author. At some point, I had to break down my layers and rebuild the file from the ground up so I could effectively change the color scheme, and that’s when I started to put more effort in the model and the lighting.

That’s about all I’ve got for this one. If you’re actually still reading this, I’m impressed. But hopefully this gives you a little bit of context to what goes into a cover design. This one was definitely more involved than many of my others, but it’s one I’m really proud of, and it feels a little like the culmination of my cover design skills (the Red Riding Hood genre covers being the practice that landed me this job).