I went a-searchin’ and found this here dude who designs book covers for people who are self-publishing. His name is Derek Murphy and his business is CreativIndieCovers. He shares a post about working on his first design for a cowboy western book. Derek writes about the author giving very specific instructions on how he pictured the cover — each of three people and where they are and how they’re looking at each other — and how difficult he found it to do exactly what the author wanted. He says he probably should have suggested an emotive cover instead of trying to find people who look like the characters as the author envisions them. He includes 10 samples and says they are likely to find one that will work. I really want to see an emotive one, wonder what that would be like, and wonder why he didn’t throw one in the mix! The samples are pretty predictable, western typeface at the top, photo of cowboy(s) on horse(s) in the middle, and author name in a simpler typeface at the bottom. They are cleaner and modern compared with the ones Katie posted but still appropriate to the genre or formula. I think this is the comforting part that Andrew mentioned.
