to be persuasive

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

— Edward R. Murrow

I found this quote by Edward Murrow while reading my RSS feeds via Swiss Miss‘ blog. Recently I gave a lecture at a local college to a few graduating classes on the topic of running an independent design business. One of the topics I discussed was the importance of being able to sell and talk about your work as a designer. How being good sells yourself to other designers and being persuasive sells your work to clients; I found this quote to be quite fitting and true.

book cover design for web design inspiration

In a recent effort to step outside the online realm of web design inspiration I decide to head over to the local bookstore this past weekend and soak in the beauty of book cover design.

My iPhone came in handy—see images below—to capture many beautiful covers with brilliant typography, color palettes, layout, texture, and style. Often when designing we, including myself, start by looking at a variety of online web galleries, and while there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, it could lead to a stale, similar (in comparison to others) looking portfolio over time. Our brains remember elements and it becomes natural for us to design something “unique” while making it look similar to what you have already seen on the web even if we are not directly inspiring from a particular site.

Sometimes all it takes to get inspired is looking at a beautiful typeface used throughout a book or a unique color palette used on the cover. I included some photographs I took on my journey for inspiration below.

For more inspiration check out the awesome online book cover design archive for more inspiration.