Listen up shrimps.

Let's start with the simple tips first.

Like colour.

Colour is definitely one of the most important parts of graphic design, yet it's the part that a lot of people look over easily.

Colours aren't really hard to grasp, so I understand, but just as easy as it is to use colour to add beauty to a cover, it's also easy to use colour to fuck your cover up.

note : the designs used here were made by me unless stated otherwise , and are not to be copied, redistributed or edited over.

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1. MONOCHROME

Sometimes, using one colour alone isn't the way to go.

And I don't mean when you use Red, then colour pick between different VALUES and TONES  in red, even bordering into pink. I mean when you use just ONE SHADE of red, never adding a bit of green hue or purple into the mix. It's JUST red.

I'm guilty of this until recently. Usually my designs would stick to ONE colour, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But look at this :

It's too much blue.

(Update : It's also ugly but i digress)

Sometimes Monochrome can make a cover look either boring or make the colour look excessive. This is why I stopped painting a layer with a single colour and then changing the settings to hue, because it makes the cover look dull in comparison to one with more colours.

This is not to say that one colour covers aren't great, because they can be! But just always remember to add a splash of a different colour in there, just to make things pop.

This is monochrome but there's a bit of dull green in it, to contrast slightly with the bright pink.

This is Monochromeish but because there's hues of blueish gray in it, it doesn't look so bad.

2. CONTRAST AND SATURATION

Sometimes too much contrast is what kills a cover.

Keep the contrast looking natural, and instead settle for light contours and soft highlights.

Also, saturation most times is your enemy. If you want to make colours pop then sure! But try to avoid the face. Yes, don't oversaturate and over contrast like this :

Bc her face is just jesus

But there are times where we UNDERSATURATE

and it's just

She looks like she doesn't belong in there. She looks boring, and the only thing that catches my eye is the hair. That's a problem.

Always try to make sure the saturation and contrast suit the environment she's in.

3. COLOUR SCHEME

So when I say add a splash of colour I do not mean douse the entire cover in colours

You need to have this thing called a COLOUR SCHEME

A colour scheme is the main group of colours that are used in any form of art.

There's monochromatic colour schemes which I spoke of before.

Source : https://decorating.visitacasas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/color-scheme-2.png

Play around with them! 😃

But with sense

For example. Let's say I pick the complementary colour scheme and choose something like pink and green! And then I make this :

Something about it's off...

Oh wait!

The green hair was good, but off. And the only way I was able to tell was when I played around with the two colours. So don't be afraid to switch it up a little!

4. COLOUR MATCHING

There are times we don't take into account that what happens in the background affects the focus's hue and value. This one looks off because there's a yellow tone coming out of seemingly nowhere, throwing the whole complementary colour scheme off balance.

In Ibispaintx we have colour balance. In Photoshop you have HSV and allat. In Picsart I can't remember but I know damn well y'all have ALL the editing tools.

So use it.

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| I HOPE YOU LEARNED SOMETHING. IF YOU DIDN'T THEN THAT'S OK THERE'S STILL MORE TO COME |

| NEXT CHAPTER |

HOW TO MAKE TEXT LOOK GOOD.

PSA. PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME ON HOW TO MAKE A SPECIFIC COVER. I MAY HAVE DELETED THE FILE AND WILL HAVE NO WILLPOWER TO RECREATE LOL.

Captain out.

Stay safe or walk the plank.