The Ready Room – Create a Book Aesthetic

Welcome to The Ready Room, where I explore random topics to help you kick off your week.

This week’s topic targets image manipulation and book aesthetics, something a lot of us writers love to show off during writer competitions like #RevPit, #PitchWars, #WonderPitch, and #SunvsSnow.

I often see or get asked the question: how do I make an aesthetic (or collage) for my book? While the answer is never the same for any two people, I am here to offer some solutions to help you on your journey.

www.canva.com

This will likely be the easiest option for someone who wants an aesthetic done fast, clean, and free. Canva.com is free to sign up, offers tons of templates and imagery to use, and you can slap text on top, change colors, and do basic manipulations with the click of a button.

While Canva is super easy to use, it only offers the most basic of options. If you want color filters and blends, this site isn’t for you.

www.gimp.org

“GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program” and employs the use of layering to get a bit dirtier with your photos. With Gimp.org you can do some coloring on your image, create blends, and use your own creativity to lay out aesthetic or collage blocks in a way that works for you and your story. Gimp is a free, downloadable program. If you’ve never used layers before and want to try it out, be sure to check out their tutorials.

Photoshop

I’ve been using Adobe.com‘s creative suite since back when it was just Photoshop and cost more than anyone could afford. If you’re a designer or creative professional (or trying to become one), this is the program for you. The good news is you only pay a small monthly fee now and can manipulate imagery and learn to your heart’s desire. If you’ve never used layering styles before, it’s a bit of a learning curve at first, but there’s thousands of tutorials around the web. Just polish up that Google-Fu and go!

If you need some inspiration or ideas, check out the Twitter hashtag #bookaesthetic where there’s some beautiful imagery. You can also save your inspirations to Pinterest board and create a wall of imaages.

And since I love looking at book aesthetics, let’s do something fun. If you have an aesthetic for your book you want to show off, send me a link and I’ll write an article later this month showing off everyone’s beautiful imagery. 🙂

If you like this article, be sure to check out The Ready Room for more tips and tricks. You can also subscribe to this blog and be the first to know when new content is delivered.