Book Cover Final: They Both Die At The End

 


In designing this cover for They Both Die At the End by Adam Silvera, I wanted to stick with a few themes. I went with my fourth choice. TBDATE is a Young Adult novel that's very popular. It's likely to be adapted into a series or movie of some sort. For my cover, I leaned into the movie aspects. Using two stock photos of teenage boys as the two main characters, I  had a few things in mind.

After removing the backgrounds and cutting the objects, I did some really light feathering and smoothing of the pictures. I also had to convert the pictures of both young men into smart objects, as resizing them completely ruined the quality the first time around. I also had to cut out portions of one of the young men as well as play around with their sizing, as the proportions of the initial photos were different. 

I looked up a few movie and book adaptation covers to get a feel for how I wanted to place the main characters on the front. In placing them, I realized that I didn't know what to do with the negative space that I'd initially planned to place a bike in. The picture of the city worked perfectly because it was the setting for the book. The shade of blue that the cover is in comes from the evening sky in the photo. 

Sticking with a blue-and-white theme was very intentional when it came to the lettering and overall theme of the book. The title, white lettering, and sky-blue cover all evoke a little sadness in the person viewing it. I added a clock and made it almost transparent, as time is a recurring theme in the book. 

I didn't want to go font crazy, but I knew that I wanted to use a few. The font on the spine and synopsis are the same. The title cover font was only used for the title and author's name. I used the same font for the author's name and the NY Times sign on the front. I spent a lot of time browsing but I wanted to find font combinations that didn't overpower one another. 

I made a new friend with this cover; gradient blur! Initially, I thought about adding clouds above the city but I didn't want it to mess up the original. I made use of gradient blur around the characters as well as between them and the city. It added a cloud-like effect without having to be actual clouds. 

Book covers are challenging. In looking at videos of covers, I realize how specific you have to be with certain things. If I were designing this for real, I would need to take into consideration the borders of the book for printing, as they might not come out right. Sizing is also very important. 

"Mateo": https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-black-hoodie-looking-down-4100484/


"Rufus": https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-ethnic-guy-resting-in-park-with-ball-in-hand-5553108/


City background: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-skyscraper-buildings-887845/


Harper teen logo: https://twitter.com/harperteen 


Barcode: https://www.free-barcode-generator.net/isbn/


Wall clock: https://www.pexels.com/photo/round-black-analog-wall-clock-1010480/




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