Happier Book Cover

This is a book is a story about a couple working through hardships in a relationship in hopes that it will make them stronger and happier in the end. Red is the main color because it symbolizes both love and hurt (the theme of the book). I wanted to have a cover that depicted these contradictory emotions. The heart balloons express the emotion of happiness and love, while the water droplet overlay intends to inflict sadness. I feel that this contradiction gives book design some mystery and interests people to read the book.

To complete this cover design, I used 2 stock images (water droplets and heart balloons). For the water droplet image, I adjusted the brightness and contrast. Once I finished editing that image how I needed it to be, I changed the layer type to “exclusion” so that everything underneath that layer shows through, but in their inverted colors. That includes the title, heart balloons, and the author’s name. I then inverted the colors of the layers underneath of the rain overlay so that I could still see those images though the rain, but it would be back in their normal colors. Doing this, it made my design appear a though the rain drops were on top of the words and the hearts.