You want to design a great cover for your novel, master white space.
White space can be the empty space on your covers, the space between graphics, margins, fonts, gutters, lines, objects. Any clean area on your cover. White space does not necessarily have to be white. If the background of your cover is green, then your white space is green.
Achieving balance between the images and the fonts on your page gives your cover a crisp, clean look. In fact, taking account white space is the mark of a true designer.
Why does white space even matter?
Because the eye loves clean and hates clutter. Just look at the example below.
I love to think designing a cover is the same as designing an ad for a professional magazine.
How many ads do you see out there with multiple pictures cropped and smashed together using masking? Probably next to zero.
Less is always more. If you are not a designer and are working on a limited budget, do not feel pressured to use a lot of masking techniques to create a cover that looks like every other book out there on the market.
Below are some examples of covers and ads that make good use of white space for your cover design inspiration.
Related articles
- Design Tutorial: White Space is Your Friend (jimdo.com)
- readers challenge – design – white space (aussiescrapsource.typepad.com)
- White Space: Let Your Graphic Design Breathe (roundpeg.biz)
Law Reigns 
very true…we do need to look at the concept of empty space as part of the whole picture! 🙂
So agree. Kathryn Baine’s daughter did her cover. And I remember thinking when I first saw it how clean, but intense it was. Really one of my favorite covers. Thank you for stopping by and reading Roxie!