newsfeed

DO COVERS SEEM INTIMIDATING? IMPOSSIBLE? 

Well, hi, I’m Joanne Kwan, a creator here on Tapas, and I know a thing or two about covers (considering I have a few comics hosted here). So listen up, comic artists and illustrators! This will be the tutorial to help you create a cover you can be proud of! You can already draw, so that’s half the battle won right there, now all you need is just a bit of guidance to see you through to the end. Today I’ll share some advice on how to optimize your images along with the text and list a few things to keep in mind and to actively avoid. 

And the first thing to note is: a Tapas cover is a thumbnail, but larger! 

But before I jump into some specific cover design advice, great tips can be found in the Quick Guide to Thumbnailing article here where the basics of composition are covered as well as a couple of other pointers that may be reiterated here. 

In essence, think of your cover like a thumbnail, but with more room to play around with! (to reiterate, the Tapas cover dimensions are 960 x 1440 px) For the most part, you want to keep things simple, especially for the site, since your cover will appear among many in a small space. Be careful not to make it too cluttered with extraneous elements like too many characters, needless flourishes, or an overly detailed font.

As you work on your cover, look at it from a distance. Zoom out until it appears roughly as a thumbnail size. Does it still catch your eye? Or is it too muddied and you can’t tell what’s going on? With your cover appearing in a sea of other covers, contrast is what will get people to notice yours. Contrasts like: light and dark, empty space and detailed space. 

So what should be the focus of your cover? Well, it’s natural for people to be drawn to other human faces, so it’s advised to showcase at least one character. Better yet, perhaps two! Having more than one character is good whether the second is a love interest, best friend, side kick, or villain, especially if that second character is important to the story. This way your main character has someone to interact with and gets a potential reader wondering about their dynamic in your story. 

If you have multiple characters, present them at different sizes, putting an emphasis on your main players. But be mindful of the previous point of not making things too cluttered. This cover is not meant to be displayed as a full movie poster! For example, the Star Wars theatrical posters stagger the various characters wonderfully, but many of the ones presented smaller would get lost entirely if the poster shrank down to a fraction of your screen size. Your cover will mainly be displayed on the desktop site and on the mobile app. So it will only go from small to smaller.

Should your cover be in color? Most likely. The majority of people are attracted to color. Bright colors are usually the most eye-catching, but what if you have a darker tone in your story or have horror/mystery elements? Along with black, you can play around with cooler tones like blues, purples, and greens, then cut into it with a contrasting shade like red or go bright white. The Gap, Daniel, and the Curse of the Eel do this excellently.

For a cover, it’s usually best to dress up your art a little, or make it slightly more stylish. But don’t make it too far off from your regular comic pages. Potential readers may find it jarring to see a whole other style when jumping into the story. Some may even feel cheated, thinking they were ordering one thing on the cover, and then getting served something else entirely. 

But WAIT! What if you don’t have time to draw a new cover from scratch? Or if you have an old comic that you completed before the cover requirement and don’t feel like making a brand new illustration? The solution is simple: use old art assets! Create a collage with old illustrations or panels from your comic. 

Here I just took 5 separate chapter illustrations straight from my comic Erie Waters, cropped them mindfully, added some color with a layer filter (since it’s a black and white comic), and arranged them in a pleasing way. And wow! I like it so much I actually uploaded it as Erie Waters’ official cover on Tapas! 

Now that general tips for art have been addressed, let’s level up with typography since titles are required for covers. Text is essentially another art asset that you have to accommodate just as much as the background or character drawing when designing a cover.

First of all, use legible fonts! And depending on the length of your title, don’t make it too small. A title’s important! Don’t give it a passing thought. You want people to read your story’s name and hopefully remember it!

Now when putting text and art together, be careful of how the title looks when put over imagery. If the text is too thin or is a similar color to your image, it’s going to get lost. Switch to a different font or change the color of your text so that it can be more easily distinguished from your art.

Next, be careful of dead space! It can work super well on a minimalist cover if it suits your story. But it can look awkward if it comes up accidentally. Be mindful of your text and compose it just as you would an drawing. Look at your art and find natural spaces in it that can happily accept your text. Dynamic lines formed by your image can also emphasize the text.

Lastly, let your text breathe and give it some space away from the edge of the cover. If you have more than one line of text, give some space between the lines as well. Cramped and unbalanced spacing is one of the hallmarks of beginner work, and it’s one of the easiest things to correct.

And if you work traditionally and don’t have a fancy program like Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint there is still little excuse to not make a cover. Don’t forget about free art software like Gimp and Krita! In this day and age, it’s now easier than ever to make something, do a bit of digital editing, and share it with the world.

People say don’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it, people do! Sometimes it’s the little things that can elevate an image. By putting in just a bit of effort, and following a few design tips, a cover can go from jank to just right!

This article was brought to you by Joanne Kwan, veteran Tapas community member with a background in graphic design. A few of her series include Demon House, Heavy Horns, and Secunda. Any cover examples not mentioned by name in the article were created for the purpose of illustrating design points.

Looking for our tutorials?

Tips and Tricks for New Creators

Cover Tutorial for Novelists

Cover Tutorial for Artists

Want to learn more about Tapas and our creators?

[Tapas Insider] Success through grit and dedication - Sera Swati

[Tapas Insider] Quarantine at Tapas

[Tapas Insider] Between Horror and Cute - Koolaid-Girl