How to design a book cover using Adobe Stock

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Award-winning designer and illustrator, and founder of London studio Brand Nu, Radim Malinic is also a successful author. Volumes 1 and 2 of his Book of Ideas  offer indispensable advice on making it in the creative industries, and have been huge hits both critically and commercially.

Getting the cover of any book right is vitally important; it's essentially your main "sales window" for attracting and tempting the buyer. And when you're a renowned designer, and the book is aimed at your fellow professionals, the pressure to get it right is even greater. 

So it may surprise some that for his latest volume - as with the first book - Malinic turned to Adobe Stock to create his cover design. But it certainly shouldn't. 

Because in this day and age, Adobe Stock - with its smooth integration into the Creative Cloud - as is being used by top professionals across multiple disciplines to help them become more creative and efficient.

In the video below, Malinic discusses in detail his creative background, his approach to creative tasks, and his process for creating the cover using Adobe Stock from start to finish. (*Note: If you'd rather jump straight to the latter, then the click on the second video instead.)

Watch the full video...

.... OR straight jump to the cover discussion

Why Adobe Stock?

So why would you use Adobe Stock to create your book cover? In Malinic's case, it's partly a question of efficiency.

"The reason why I use Adobe Stock is because I work really fast," he explains. Working for multiple clients at the same time as side projects like his books means he simply can't afford to waste any time.

"I wish I had time to just to sit down and make my own sort of elements, but stock imagery exists for a reason," he says. "So I just wanted to kind of speed up my workflow and see what I can do."

Radim Malinic draws on Adobe Stock to make his process more efficient

That said, he's got no intention of just downloading a stock asset and plonking into a design: it's more a starting point for creativity. 

As he points out, there's a big trend in digital illustration right now that involves manipulating objects - "bending things and multi layering things in exciting ways" - you just have to find your own style and way of doing things.

"It's a little like when different musicians write different pop songs with the same chord structure," he explains. 

This beautiful cover design was created using Adobe Stock in tandem with Photoshop

In the case of the Book of Ideas Vol 2, Malinic's starting point was shapes, but not the ones you might expect: his base objects were actually nail varnishes found in Adobe Stock! 

And that's the great thing about using Adobe Stock: not only are there millions of assets to choose from, but the sophisticated search tools, powered by AI, mean it's easy to find the perfect image for your project, quickly.

From that initial inspiration, Malinic built up a cover design using multiple assets that he then smoothed out using the Oil Paint filter in Photoshop. "I wanted to use Photoshop in the most paint-like way," he explains.

The smooth integration between Photoshop and Adobe Stock made the whole process nicely streamlined. And Malinic took advantage of Photoshop's Warp tool, colour control features and non-destructive editing capabilities to produce a striking and stunning looking cover design.

To learn more, watch the video above, which was produced as part of Adobe's Creative Collab series of livestreams. To see further Adobe livestreams, check out this YouTube playlist. 

Try Adobe Stock for free!

In 2019, designers like Radim Malinic, at every level of the profession, are harnessing the power of Adobe Stock to make imaginative and eye-catching designs. 

If you haven't started using Adobe Stock, then it's high time you got on board, and here's a great offer to help persuade you. Try Adobe Stock for free for one month and you'll get 10 standard assets with your free 30-day trial!

You've nothing to lose, and everything to gain, in terms of making you more efficient, productive and creative. So don't delay, get started with Adobe Stock today!

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