Hi hello, it's Divya G. What does the g stand for? The g sounds for graphic design.
In 2018 I had an illness. I was sick of these ya book covers looking the same and
I started a series called how to design your own trashy ya book cover. Let's say you're an
author and you're like "I want to design a contemporary romance novel but I can't afford
to pay a graphic designer on fivver £10 to make my book cover!". Honey don't worry, I got you.
Learning is basically just googling the answers. And here we can take a look at all the romance
covers now already you can see there is a trend. The color palette: bright colorful summery.
They've got these really short disproportionate block color people. Giving me bisexual flags. You
really want your book to scream "you must read me in the summer". The titles are kind of vague
like "It happened one summer". That could even be a murder mystery. You really want the title to be
one of the main elements of the cover as well, you know. You want a big handwritten font. Right now
it's all looking very hetero some sort of woman some sort of man. Sometimes your title doesn't
even have to relate to your book. So we've got "beach read" which lily (@LilyCReads) has said
is not even set on a beach. Don't ask me what that's about. The epitome of romantic couples
is obviously Camilla Cabello and Shawn Mendes. Two het people (assuming) in a warm embrace, about to
kiss... what more could a romantic author want?! I love these quarantine photos because they look
like they've been locked in a dungeon for like 25 years and they finally escaped and discovered
light um which i feel like is such a mood. I just typed in romantic plot generator because
i'm not out here trying to think for my own. Main protagonist Camilla Hernandez. Shawn
Miller basic name and a person who might cause conflict? I know the best person:
Jeff Bezos. Nothing says "this is the evil person of a story" than the bald man who hates unions.
Well Jeff Bezos is pretty spiteful, callous he's also cold-blooded. Man's a reptilian. They gotta
have artsy jobs you know like one's an aspiring struggling actor and Jeff Bezos? Well he's a
hairdresser. Camilla Hernandez is a sexy hot and special journalist from England. Her life
is going nowhere until she meets Shawn Miller a stunning handsome man with a passion for food
because you know women's lives don't go anywhere until they meet the man! Miller takes an instant
disliking to Shawn and the spiteful and callous ways he's learned during his years in ohio.
Enemies to lovers? We love it. However when a ghost tries to shoot Camilla, Shawn springs to
the rescue. Camilla begins to notice that Shawn is actually rather modest at heart but the pressure
of Shawn's job as a musician leave him blind to Camilla's affections and Camilla takes up
writing to try and distance herself. Finally when a cold-blooded hairdresser Jeff Bezos threatens to
come between them Shawn has to act fast but will they ever find the magical love that they deserve?
Sounds a bit [ __ ] i don't think i'm gonna use this.
Here I used the app procreate to do this. Just because it's easier and i have a pen.
All you want to do is trace the outline of your two romantic characters.
If you notice in these examples, they just have like some element of interest in the background.
I thought I'm going to set my story in Havana because you know Havana-oh-na-na-na-na-na-na-na/
And you basically just want to fill it in with a color filler. I just typed in summer
color palettes - pick one that looks nice. The background you want it to be bold, simple color
so I use yellow to kind of make it stand out and I find that a lot of these covers have like
this illustrations that look like they've been traced which is why I'm tracing it and I don't
feel bad about it. I added like the tiniest bit of like shading and I blended that out with a noise
brush to add a little bit of texture and interest and by all means you don't have to worry about the
lighting or like "are the shadows right"? Because in some of these covers they really don't care
either. I didn't want to put Jeff Bezos on the cover just because I feel like if you're trying
to attract people to read your book you don't want to be putting a reptilian on the cover unless you
know that's your vibes. Font choosing is like the longest thing in the world i looked at so many of
these fonts. I genuinely felt hypnotized and now whenever i meet anyone I just call them senorita.
I tried this font but it was giving me too much "call me by your name" and i was like my story
is not gonna be about a predator... so. Adding a little bit of grain really makes it a little bit
you know *kiss* and that's not just because i like rice. We add a novel just to make sure the reader
knows that it's a novel(!) Added in my name and you know that this isn't a book cover tutorial if
i'm not the new york times bestselling author. And there we go you know call me senorita and
pretty much every single contemporary romance novel of 2021 looks like this. And i thought
okay let's make another one but this time make it covid themed because nothing says romance
like a virus. I wanted to play with this whole "two characters are polar opposite ends of the
book to show that there is a bit of division or some sort of conflict between them". Just trace
and block you don't even need shading and then i was like okay we need some sort of pandemic themed
romance title. I was really struggling and i was like what do I call it? I called it quarantined
with my ex and then i called it like plagued with love and then i called it stuck with you
you know Ariana Large ft. Justin Bieber. But i ended up sticking with the distance between us.
I find it so difficult, I would love to hear your own versions of what you might
call a pandemic related love story. Typography might represent like what's inside the books.
So I was like let me put some distance between the words "us" but I didn't like the way that
that looked and I thought okay we're not gonna go metaphorical with the title like we don't
have a big budget!. Um i just play around with the blending layers so that it looks like it's
got some sort of texture. So i thought, okay, pandemic romance story two people are spread apart
but maybe locked down right? Separated from her boyfriend she's locked down with her worst enemy!
Enemies to lovers bam! There we are! Tick! Just write me up the CHECK penguin house!
Write me up the check! Ring me ring me. There we go. This is a covid contemporary
romance story in 2021. Let me know which book you prefer which one would you rather read
you know? If you've made it this far you get a gold star well done my g! So i want to do this
thing where you can send in like the book cover title or genre or elements that you want on the
cover and make up like some random ass weird ass book cover and i'll just like make up a cover for
it which i think will be interesting. Interacting with this video like liking or even commenting and
subscribing really helps out my channel helps support me and the algorithm you know algorithm
really sucking me dry recently like follow me on my socials and i'll see you guys next time