Best Christian Book Covers of 2014

These are not my Best of 2014 cover choices. They are just the covers for my 2015 Writing Goals

Recently several author groups shared around a post called “Worst Christian Book Covers of 2014”. I’m not going to link to it, because, frankly, I don’t want to give it one single more view. Many sites are set up to include a “worst of” whatever so that people can make clever but snarky and often cruel comments and feel superior. Instead, please share your “Best of” covers. If you can’t come up with just one, that’s okay too.

But I’d like to set some ground rules so we are not just posting one for our best friend or to promo our cover designer, or other criteria than what really IS the best. I also want to encourage people to offer brief but positive and helpful critiques explaining what makes the cover an excellent one.

Part One: Christian and Independent

I’d like to encourage people to chime in and post the best Independently-published Christian book cover you’ve seen this year. When I say independently-published, I mean not with a big, well-known, famous traditional publisher, but with a small press, or a cover made or purchased or fully-approved for that book by the author him/herself.I am not excluding books where the author purchased a premade cover by saying this. I am excluding books that were made in-house by an employee of a publishing house.

Part Two: Fonts

1. Title Fonts: Are they attractive, contrasting, readable, appropriate for the genre, and well-formed and colored?

2. Subtitle/tagline fonts: Are they compatible with the title, the right size and sort to complement and support the title and genre?

3. Author Fonts: Is the author name readable, strong, but not distracting from the title?

Part Three: Image(s)

Does it use images of good clarity, quality, and that evidence care in the choosing? Are they appropriate to the subject? Are they attention-getting without being simply beautiful or startling or attractive without having any relationship to the book’s title or subject? Are they right for the genre, setting, time period, or otherwise truly “right” for the book?

(Let’s make a separate category for covers with handmade art. Some people just irrationally hate to see anything that looks hand-drawn or colored or painted on a cover, but I think there’s a place for it.)

Part Four: Overall Composition/Design

1. Is the effect clean, organized, and drawing the eyes around to the important elements?

2. Are the colors, shadows, lights, textures pleasing, harmonious, and right for that book? Or, if the purpose is to create suspense, terror, or other emotional responses appropriate to the subject or genre, is it effective in doing that? Do things fit together and seem all to belong in the same composition?

I am hoping many people will participate in this, and make it a celebration of the best in cover design, as well as a learning experience for those who want both to learn to make better covers, and to stop being superior and cruel in our critiques.

Please comment or email us at findleymjmc@gmail.com with covers you’d like to see included. Hopefully by the end of the year we can present a Top 100 Independent Christian Book covers list.