How to Design a Book Cover: 6 Hours of Work in 2 Minute Video

So you think you can design a book cover? Just push play above to watch the six-hour process unfold at superspeed.

Orbit Books creative director Lauren Panepinto gave aspiring artists, science fiction fans, and publishing aficionados a peek into her long process of designing a book cover. This two-minute video captures every Photoshop tweek and edit on the cover design of an upcoming novel by Gail Carriger.

Here’s more about the video: “Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time … and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post misidentified the author of the book.

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