SOFTWARE
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
ROLE
Independent Editorial Designer
Book Cover Designer
DELIVERABLES
Concept Development
Title Development
Cover Design
Spine & Back Cover Design
Publication Layout
TOOLS & CREDITS
Envato Elements (licensed subscription assets & mockups)
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Death By Music is a conceptual book cover design project created for fictional author Aria Belle. The thriller follows a musician whose obsession with controlling the world of music leads to violence, creating a story centered around ambition, identity, and the darker side of artistic expression.
The goal was to create a cover that immediately communicates psychological tension while balancing musical elegance with unsettling visual elements. The project explored how typography, imagery, and composition can establish genre, introduce the story’s tone, and create curiosity before the reader opens the book.
Full book cover without mockup.
Moodboard establishing the visual direction.
CREATIVE DIRECTION
The visual direction combines theatrical typography, high-contrast imagery, and musical symbolism to create a cover that feels both sophisticated and unsettling. Piano keys extending across the front cover, spine, and back create movement and continuity, while blood-red accents reinforce the connection between music and mystery.
Typography became a key storytelling element, with customized display lettering, elegant script, and clean supporting text working together to establish hierarchy and reflect the contrast between artistic beauty and psychological darkness.
PROCESS
The process began with researching existing thriller and mystery covers while exploring ways to challenge traditional genre expectations. Instead of centering the story around a heroic protagonist, I developed the concept of an antagonist-driven mystery where the musician becomes the source of conflict. After selecting music as the foundation of the story, I created the title, fictional author identity, back cover description, and visual direction to appeal to both mystery readers and musicians.
Multiple concepts were sketched and refined before selecting the final direction through feedback and experimentation. The chosen design evolved through typography and composition adjustments, including customizing the dripping display font, refining the piano key layout, and adding subtle details such as the musical reference from Psycho on the back cover to reinforce the suspense theme.
Initial book cover design sketches.
GALLERY
Three final design options for the client to choose from.
Soft cover full cover mockup.
Great idea for a book? Let's create the cover it deserves.
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