This was a small book I put together in InDesign for a client of his old poems. I chose a layout that would lend itself to the poems, and made the cover very clean and simple.

This is a good example to talk something that always comes up with outside designers. When we as the printer receive files from outside designers, a lot of times the layout is incorrect. That is because there is no BLEED. As pictured, this front cover needs bleed. Bleed is an area that artwork “bleeds into” in order to get an image or block of color all the way to the edge of the paper. Bleed is typically 1/8″ to 1/4″ of extra image/color block.

So, if you are designing a cover for a book that needs half of it to be one color (as pictured), and your final book size is 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″, then you need to design your print-ready file to be 5 3/4″ x 7 3/4″. This will give 1/8″ of bleed on all 4 sides, allowing your design to seamlessly end at the edge of the paper.