Toxic Tethers

“Toxic Tethers” is my favorite cover that I have designed. For this design, I needed to create a book cover depicting two individuals in a toxic relationship. I came up with the idea of two hands being “tethered” by a loose string. It was important that the hands represent two different people. The string tethering the hands together symbolize their unhealthy bond. I made the string appear loose and not strong to give hope to the readers of the book that they are able to release themselves from the unhealthy relationship. For the hand colors, I chose cooler tones to symbolize the misery from feeling stuck. The background of the book is yellow to represent the hope they should have to be released from ties that the toxic person has on them.

To create this cover, I first sketched it on paper with a pencil. I uploaded the image to photoshop and made it transparent. I then vectorized it on Adobe Illustrator, added color, and added text. I exported that image back to photoshop where I made small adjustments to my vectorized drawing in order to better translate it to digital form. Finally, I placed the finished product with the completed cover to create the book cover mockup.