Home · Portfolio · 02 Cover Designs
02 — First impressions
Cover Designs
A cover has one job: stop the scroll, stop the browser, stop the passerby. The studio designs covers as self-contained dramas — bold silhouettes, readable at thumbnail size, rich up close — with variant editions that give collectors a reason to come back.
What it entails
One image, whole story
Every cover engagement starts with the emotional core of the issue: the moment everything changes. From there the studio composes three distinct directions — the icon, the scene, and the wild card — so publishers choose from real options, not variations on one idea.
Deliverables cover the full modern lifecycle: print cover with trade dress space, virgin variant art, and a social-ready crop set.
What's included
- Three cover directions as tight roughs, one carried to finish.
- Full-color final with title-safe zones and spine bleed.
- Virgin variant file plus a black-and-white ink edition.
- Thumbnail test: every cover is checked legible at 120 pixels wide.
Process
From logline to cover wall
- Logline readThe issue's turning point, distilled to a single image idea.
- Three directionsRoughs exploring icon, scene, and wild-card approaches.
- FinishInks, color, and trade-dress spacing on the chosen route.
- VariantsVirgin, ink, and social crops delivered as a set.
Selected covers
Recent cover work
“Our variant sold through its print run in a weekend. The cover did the heavy lifting.”— Tidebound Collective, publisher
Keep exploring
Related crafts
Need a cover that stops traffic?
Share the issue's logline and release date — the studio will pitch three directions within two weeks.