Love and Salsa Book Jacket: A Senior Narrative Book Jacket by Quinn Beckstead (2017)

For my book jacket I wanted the themes to represent the story that I wrote in English. My story was about salsa dancing, so I wanted bright colors to make the jacket pop. I ended up choosing pink. To give the background some texture I used a cardboard texture over the color with a low opacity. Coffee also plays an important role in the story so on the front cover there’s a coffee cup on it with roses. From the cup, two dancers that I created with a steam looking brush. There were also little roses spread around the book jacket to help lead the eye in the right place. I’m also really happy with the font that I chose because I felt that it was the perfect mix of unexpected yet it fit. On the back cover, I continued the steam theme. One component on my book jacket that I really loved is the gold foiling effect that I put on some of the text. I accomplished this in Photoshop after watching a tutorial on YouTube and I’m super happy with how it turned out. The author image was one that I took with studio lights.

The book jacket was probably my favorite project that I’ve created thus far. I’m so happy with how it turned out. My ultimate dream would be to design book covers specifically vocationally because it combines two of my favorite things- books and design. At first, it took me awhile to figure out which direction I wanted to go in with my jacket. I knew that I didn’t want to do any photography because I never really like how that looks and I also wanted to continue using my skills in Illustrator and Photoshop. I also wanted to do a better job of challenging myself and be more knit-picky because usually my main priority is just getting it turned in on time. There were at least two instances where I went back and made a change because it was bothering me. First, I changed the teacup so that it looked less flat and later when to reprint my book jacket because it didn’t fit my book as well. This project gave me a lot of confidence in what I can accomplish in an allotted project time and I really look forward to designing more book jackets on my own.