Today you design the front cover for a novel: the novel your teacher names today, or another novel you know well. You also lock three choices that the other two covers will share next lesson: palette, title treatment and image approach. Those three lines are your design system.
A strong cover does one job: it makes a stranger pick the book up. It needs a title, an author name, one image that carries the mood, and nothing else. A series on a bookshop shelf works the same way: one mood, a few colours, a title you can read at a glance.
| Term | What it means for you | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Design system | The locked choices shared across a set of covers. Write them as three lines today. | Same type and colours across a trilogy |
| Palette | Two or three colours you stick with. Match the mood, then stop. | Deep navy, amber, off-white |
| Title treatment | How the title is set: size, weight and place. Decide once; reuse it next lesson. | Tall thin capitals in the top third |
| Image approach | The rule for what kind of picture you use. Choose one and keep it. | Empty night bus stop, one lit window far off |
Promise means the one mood or story-type the cover sells to a stranger in three seconds.
Same invented novel, three treatments of The Last Bus Home by Niamh Byrne:
Treatment A. Palette: deep navy, amber, off-white. Title treatment: tall thin capitals in the top third. Image: empty night bus stop, one lit window far off. Promise: quiet, cold, a journey alone.
Treatment B. Soft cream and moss green; lighter letters in the lower third; folded timetable in a young hand. Promise: ordinary detail, something about to start.
Treatment C. Full orange dusk and white; heavy block letters across the middle; silhouette walking away with a bag. Promise: leave-taking, more drama.
Three different promises from the same story. Pick one promise and lock the three choices that deliver it.
Have your novel's title and author ready. Write your three design-system lines as soon as the choices feel clear, before you polish.
Design the novel cover on the canvas below. Set your palette colours, style the title and author, and place one image that carries the mood.
Images: choose one picture from the canvas's own picture library. Each picture shows its licence; credit the ones that ask for it.
When the cover feels finished, export or download it from the canvas (or take a clear screenshot if export is not available) and save it as a PNG or JPG. Complete the work box: your three-line design system, plus the short story and graphic novel for next lesson. Use the class titles if your teacher has set them; otherwise any short story and graphic novel you know well.
Save two files into your own Communication Portfolio folder:
m1_l11_novel_cover_<your-initials>.png (or .jpg)m1_l11_design_system_<your-initials> (export or copy the completed work box into a document your portfolio accepts)Keep both filenames as they are. Next lesson will file the next two covers beside them for the full set.
Review your own cover against the design choices. Rate each row, comment on anything below Strong, and name the one change you would make first if you had ten more minutes. Check that your three design-system lines are locked and clear enough for next lesson.
Talk this through with the person beside you, or sit with it on your own:
If someone only saw your three design-system lines and not the cover, could they sketch something that still felt like the same book?
A longer thought can go in your Reflective Journal later: one sentence on the mood you wanted the cover to sell.
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