A Showcase of Creativity and Captivation
Explore a curated book cover portfolio meticulously crafted by Rick Schroeppel, the creative mind behind Book Cover Design. Each cover tells a unique story, reflecting the essence of the author's work and captivating readers at first glance. From captivating book cover graphics to elegant typographic designs, Rick's portfolio showcases his versatility and dedication to delivering exceptional results for every project.
Fiction (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
In this moody and romantic book cover, we can see far away into the distance, which provides plenty of depth. The medieval castle adds mystery and intrigue and helps to place the time period. The queen adds additional beauty and enchantment to the scene.
Don't you love trains? Shown is a fictionalized representation of a Russian train on the Trans Siberian Railroad. Note the frozen tundra of the Russian landscape. Kind of reminds one of the movie "Dr. Zhivago." The cover is reproduced with permission of the author.
From the popular humorist Irene Woodbury. The bright red and pink suggest the love interest, and the computer with the crime scene banners across it suggests mystery.
More Fiction: Design That Inspires (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
Notice the contrast between a huge nature scene in the background and a woman quietly reading a book, sitting on her luggage in the foreground. This scene creates interest, color, and beauty.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are wonderful genres to design for because you can let your imagination run wild a little bit, seeking colorful and mysterious settings with the excitement and drama of looking to the distant future. For the second in the series of two, we kept the same basic design but changed the picture of the woman and the science-fiction scenery.
Yes, we offer children's book cover design! Sue Skelding's popular Vet Kids Club series offers exciting journeys and stories for kids, including all kinds of animal adventures that they love.
More Fiction: Experience the Magic of Our Design (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
Kind of a whimsical look on her face: not too sad, and yet not smiling either. The photographer had titled his photograph "Dreary Beauty." It seemed perfect for this book, Beautiful Dreamer.
Designers love short titles! This is probably the shortest title featured in this portfolio. Another well-known classic example of a really cool short title is Jaws.
The first book in The Stonehaven Saga. Can I admit something to you? For color and general composition, I was somewhat influenced by one of the designs for the #1 New York Times bestselling novel "The Whistler" by John Grisham. But I think that's ok. After all, didn't Norman Rockwell say that he was somewhat influenced by N. C. Wyeth? (But I am NOT comparing myself to either of those two!)
More Fiction: Our Creative Portfolio (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
This is one of a series of books in the Cozy Mystery genre, a relatively new sub-genre of Crime Fiction, where sex, violence, and cursing are kept to a minimum, and often happen off-stage. The tone of cozies is generally light, comedic, and comforting. This series is cleverly titled A Drop of Mystery.
Book 2 in the Irish Blessing Series. The fonts are the same as in Book 1 (shown at the top of this page), and yet, with a different picture, the mood is different. However, the style of the illustrations in Book 1 and Book 2 are the same, which shows consistency and good branding.
S G D Singh is a popular author in the YA Urban Fantasy Adventure genre. As for In the Heart of Babylon, everything on this cover means something, from the symbol in the middle to the dragonfly and the watercolor background. Add the distressed font and colors, and we have the perfect cover that she wants, and that will work well for her fans.
More Fiction: Visual Storytelling Is Our Work (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
The Stonehaven Saga Book 3 picks up when Bill is thirteen years old, and he gets his own horse, whose name is Chance. When it came time to think about the design for the book cover, the author had already commissioned and received a painting of Bill and Chance that we used exactly as is, and it worked out quite well.
Genre: Historic Fiction. Readers usually like to see at least one of the main characters on the cover of the book so that they can put a face to the story. This cover hopes to create drama by emphasizing the contrast between the fighting in the background and the sweet and innocent young woman in the foreground.
Author Oliver F. Chase offers this legal/medical thriller in his popular Phil Pfeiffer series. Oliver told me that he wanted a very readable font from which the title could be easily read from a distance. I think we achieved that goal!
More Fiction: Design That Inspires (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
We hired the model and took a photo of her for this book cover. The fancy font treatment serves to attract the attention of potential readers. Combining the beautiful young model, the cowboy hat, and the skyline of Nashville, it's a winning, feel-good cover for this author.
This third installment in the Irish Blessing series intensifies the action, utilizing a medieval scene with plenty of color and movement. Over the years, knights fighting dragons and such have come to symbolize good versus evil, a metaphor worthy of this particular collection of stories.
Book 4 of The Stonehaven Saga finds Bill hired on a ranch and meeting his lifelong friend, Fergus McClaren, who is everything that Bill is not. He is outgoing and has big plans to one day own his own horse ranch. Shy Bill thrives under Fergus' leadership, and they eventually strike out and build Stonehaven Ranch. Note there is plenty of action on this cover, which attracts the eye.
More Fiction (See Portfolio Page for Non-fiction)
Part of a series called Ocean Edge - A trilogy of books in the romantic fiction genre. Romantic fiction usually gives a chance to create a cover that is beautiful, instead of one that is maybe evil or dark in some way.
This cover attempts to show wonder and uncertainty. This is achieved by the mood of the picture itself, and also, the cropping is a little bit unusual, as the figure and the title are placed off-center. And, of course, not showing the face helps to add to the mystery and intrigue.
Sometimes, you don't have to use too many design tricks to create the right cover. In this instance, all that was needed was just a beautiful young woman, some beautiful scenery, and the right font to create color and design.
Non-fiction (See Home Page for Fiction)
A major work of non-fiction for which I was privileged to design the cover. The publishing company was Abingdon Press of Nashville, Tennessee. This is a new edition of an already existing book. At the time, I felt lucky to have been in the position to re-design the cover of a book that I was assigned to read in college several years earlier!
Here's an example where the author wanted to express his own thoughts about religion and Christianity while quoting various scholars from throughout past history. The huge clouds and atmospheric colors help denote a feeling of grandeur and overwhelming mystery.
The color scheme on this cover helps to show depth. Note the deep blues of the sky seem to recede while the warm colors of the foreground seem to come forward. So the viewer can seemingly see for miles and miles. But as usual, for a book cover, it's all an illusion!
More Non-fiction: Design That Inspires (See Home Page for Fiction)
In this example, Photoshop was used to combine two separate photos to create one nature scene. As it happened, we were lucky that the top bright part of the picture corresponded to the word "Hope," and the bottom dark part related to the word "Hard Times." That is what I would call a happy accident!
Six separate photos were combined in Photoshop to create this digital illustration—The two separate characters, the Bible, the table, the candle, and the background texture.
Popular author Bob Goshen has created a self-help book that is valuable to us. The maze idea helps to reinforce the dilemma that we face, which is addressed by the bold statement in the title and subtitle.
More Non-fiction: Experience the Magic of Our Design (See Home Page for Fiction)
Who doesn't love dogs? I found this photo, which seemed to capture the love between dogs and humans, to which many people can happily relate. I combined it with some sky and clouds, which gave a nice summary effect to the scene.
From the Christian Living genre, targeting the Young Adult market. The pose, the sunglasses, and the monochrome color scheme help to achieve a young-adult look.
Adding the beauty of the sunset and a quiet, peaceful suburban atmosphere to an interesting and sometimes touchy subject - What are the psychological boundaries that we should set around others and around ourselves?
More Non-fiction (See Home Page for Fiction)
Another colorful book cover for popular author Brenda Murphy. Note we used the same font for both books by Brenda Murphy. This helps create branding, which is used by superstar authors such as Danielle Steele and John Grisham.
The cartoon figures in this cover help to create a lightness of spirit. Attention is drawn to the subject matter at hand—Listening to someone but constantly interrupting, which, in actual point of fact, is quite rude.
"Visions of the Heart" is a book of poetry.
More Non-fiction (See Home Page for Fiction)
Distressed and eroded fonts can be effective tools to help create certain moods.
Using cartoon-style drawings and a bright color scheme helped create attention and draw interest to an otherwise intellectual subject matter.
This is a perennial best-seller, with over 12 million copies sold. My publishing company at the time had purchased the rights to the reprint, so I was lucky that I had the privilege of being assigned to design the cover. Since then, design trends have changed, so for the purposes of this portfolio, I am updating my own design, as shown here.
More Non-fiction: Our Creative Portfolio (See Home Page for Fiction)
Nathan Greene of Eau Claire, Michigan, is the talented artist who rendered the wonderful illustration for this book cover, which was oil on canvas. This illustration was commissioned specifically for this book cover, and Nathan Greene did a fantastic job.
Dan Foote is the talented artist who created this wonderful illustration: A watercolor painting on paper. We commissioned this cartoon specifically for this book cover, and Dan Foote did a fantastic job!
This is a coffee table book. The railroad scene was created by photographing various individual pictures, including the automobiles and the station, and then combining them into one large panorama. The train engine is currently being restored to run and operate near Nashville, Tennessee.
More Non-fiction: Visual Storytelling Is Our Work (See Home Page for Fiction)
One day, I asked myself, "What would it look like if I were asked to create a book cover depicting the genius, Albert Einstein?" So, I imagined his mind thinking about the equations that were shown in his books. (Most of which I do not understand!)
The author was looking for something light-hearted and colorful. Whimsy is not always easy to achieve on a book cover, but we were pleased with the way this turned out.
Timothy R. Botts is the wonderful calligrapher who rendered this beautiful bit of calligraphy. Tim is the author of many gorgeous books of calligraphy, and I was pleased to work under him at Tyndale House Publishers in Wheaton, Illinois.
Non-fiction: Designs That Inspire (See Home Page for Fiction)
In this example, the author was a little concerned that the cover might be too scary or too evil for his audience. So, he shopped around with several of his friends and associates, and the verdict came back that, yes, this was the book cover design that he wanted. After publication, the feedback so far has been very complimentary, and this is an effective book cover for him.
Another non-fiction book cover example is political style. Politics can be an explosive and volatile subject matter these days. This cover featured bright colors and movement to provide plenty of emotion.
Over the last few decades, the self-help genre has grown immensely to fill a particular need in people. Previously, with white backgrounds, the self-help covers are getting more colorful today. The color scheme in this cover features a gradient in the sky, which repeats several of the colors in the foreground. This serves to unify the design into a pleasing composition.
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