The Best (Recent) Book Covers Including MINE!
Channel: vlogbrothers
Date: 2018-03-02

Pre-Order now :-) http://www.hankgreen.com

OK, this is exciting and scary. So, while I wait for the time at which we are all coordinated for this thing to go live let me tell you how this worked.

First, the designer got the manuscript, then they read it, then they sent me three sample covers that I did not like. They were obviously rough mockups, but I didn't like the direction. There was good energy, but all of the fonts were hand-written and, honestly, I wanted it to look visibly distinct from a John Green book. 

So then I sent them a few things: 
1. Three images that I really liked that were not book covers. They all had bold colors, repeating patterns, and felt illustrated but now hand-drawn.

2. A few of my favorite recent book covers.

3. A few lines, less than 400 words about what I really hoped for that included this sentence: "Getting the mix between high energy and fun and deadly serious is something I thought a lot about when writing, and it's hard, but it may be an impossible thing to hope for in a cover design."

Then a few weeks went by during which time I was assured that a lot of time and thought were going into sending a long a more finished product that took my thoughts into account. I feel very lucky that I got to have this much feedback.

What I then got in my email was five designs...three of which were color variations on the final product. And I was like, "YES! THIS!" but then of course I had some thoughts. I asked for some other color treatments, and I also suggested adding the eyes to one of the Carls, which I think is a very cool touch. In the end, I went with one of the original color schemes but was glad I had seen the others anyway. And with a couple of very very minor finishing thoughts we had it. 

I have a lot more thoughts on covers and I could critique great design all day, but I only had four minutes. I feel bad that there are so many great covers out there (and on my bookshelf right now) that I didn't get to talk about, but there are only so many minutes in a vlogbrothers video and only so many hours in a day!

Thanks everybody, I hope you like it!

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