Design is an important topic that few people in the publishing industry have formal training in. Just as everyone thinks they can write the great American novel, many also think they understand design. But ignorance of a profession’s complexities is no substitute for mastering them.
Before we discuss good and bad design, we need to address something more fundamental: the difference between art and design.
It’s important to understand this distinction so you can recognize good design when you see it, because good art and good design are not the same.
What is the difference between art and design?
The purpose of art is to make people think, ask questions, and feel emotions such as joy, wonder, curiosity, or grief. Art makes the world better in intangible ways and is fundamentally subjective. Even its purpose is a matter of debate. Philosophers have argued about the purpose of art for millennia, going back to the ancient Greeks.
I debated the purpose of art passionately in high school and college honors classes, though it was ultimately futile, because there is no universal authority defining good art. What one person finds beautiful, another may find ugly. One person might love the colors of impressionistic paintings, while another might think they look like the work of blind artists who can’t see clearly. That’s art in a nutshell: people love to debate it, and you’ll likely find some doing just that in the comments of this episode.
What Makes Design Different
Design, on the other hand, serves a function. Its purpose is to solve problems and help people take specific actions. It makes the world better in tangible ways. At its core, design is objective.
You can use data and the scientific method to determine which of two designs is more effective. You can say, with the authority of evidence, that one design is bad and demonstrate exactly how it fails.
As the designer Otl Aicher once said, “Good art inspires. Good design motivates.” The key to good design is motivating people to take action.
A simple example is a door. The art of a door is about making it attractive by its color, orientation, and aesthetic appeal. The design of a door is about making it easy and intuitive to use.
If the door falls off the wall, it’s poorly designed. If it requires a sign explaining how to operate it, it’s poorly designed. A good door communicates how to use it through its form: a flat metal plate tells you to push, while a handle tells you to pull. If you reverse them or put handles on both sides, people get confused, hesitate, and clog the doorway. That’s bad design, objectively.
This classic example from the design community illustrates that good design eliminates confusion and functions seamlessly.
How does design affect authors?
Design goes beyond book covers; it also impacts websites and even book titles.
Why is good design so important? Because everyone judges a book by its cover. Everyone. Despite the saying, librarians, editors, readers, and journalists all form opinions based on a book’s design. They also judge an author’s website the same way.
Your website’s design answers a critical question: “Does this author have good taste?” Journalists, event coordinators, and influencers often decide whether to feature or work with an author based on that impression.
In some cases, the cover design matters even more than the author’s reputation. A memorable example comes from fantasy and science fiction author Brandon Sanderson.
For years, I read all of his books except the Mistborn trilogy because the covers looked terrible. They didn’t match his other works or even the genre. They looked like literary fiction, not fantasy. I had no interest.
Years later, I finally listened to Mistborn on audiobook and loved it. Sanderson himself has since acknowledged that those covers were bad and has replaced them in newer editions. The new designs are far better and fit the genre.
A good cover motivates readers to buy the book. A bad one does not. And since readers haven’t yet read the story, the cover is often the only thing they have to judge.
The cover also establishes your book’s microgenre. Sanderson’s original covers signaled the wrong one, attracting readers who weren’t the right audience and likely disappointing them. This mismatch may have hurt early sales and reviews.
What are the dangers of “Design by Committee?”
Design by committee happens when a group of people weigh in on a design where every voice is treated equally. It usually stems from fear. Individuals or organizations fear making the wrong decision, so they seek safety in a multitude of opinions.
There’s nothing wrong with getting feedback, but there is a right and wrong way to do it. Ultimately, good design requires boldness, clear decision-making, and a firm understanding of who you’re trying to reach and what you want them to do.
Something that everyone likes is often something no one loves. When you design for everyone, you design for no one in particular.
Good design targets a specific audience.
Compromise, on the other hand, often leads to mediocrity. A classic saying illustrates this: a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Another way to picture it is through a recipe analogy. If a cook tries to please everyone in the room by combining all their favorite foods, the result might be ketchup and peanut butter on ice cream—a monstrosity. That’s what happens when too many voices dilute a design.
Design monstrosities are usually the result of no single person being responsible. Committees often create bland or incoherent designs because every distinctive element gets watered down.
How can you gather valuable feedback while avoiding mediocrity?
You can have safety in a multitude of counselors, but the first thing to realize is that not everyone’s opinion is useful. In fact, some opinions can be harmful. The Book of Proverbs warns against taking advice from fools, and some people are foolish when it comes to design.
Seek Design Experts
Be careful whom you ask for feedback. Seek out design experts and people with formal training or extensive real-world experience who understand the scientific method of measuring design effectiveness.
Art and design are not the same, and someone who excels at one may not understand the other. You can take a world-class artist and give them a design project, and they may fail because design requires a different mindset. It’s like asking a South American football player to play American football. Some skills overlap, but the rules and strategies differ enough that you can’t expect success without training.
Listen to Your Target Market
You can also ask for feedback from people in your target market. If you’re writing for teenage boys, it doesn’t matter what teenage girls think of the cover. Similarly, if you’re writing for adult women, you don’t need to consider the opinions of teenage boys. Trying to please people outside your target audience will make your design worse.
These may sound like extreme examples, but they illustrate the point: only heed advice from people within your target market. Otherwise, you risk creating that metaphorical “ketchup on ice cream” design.
Communicate Clearly with Designers
When consulting design experts, clearly explain who your target audience is and what goal you want to achieve. Whether you’re working on a book cover, title, or website, the designer needs to know what success looks like.
Many people without formal design training forget that the purpose of design is to achieve a goal. If that goal isn’t defined, the designer has to guess; if they guess wrong, you can end up with a terrible design entirely by accident.
Observe Reader Behavior and Words
When gathering feedback from regular readers, it’s important to observe behavior rather than relying solely on what people say. Surveys and interviews often produce misleading answers because people don’t always understand their own preferences deeply.
A classic example is the iPad. When Apple launched it, the internet mocked the name for weeks, comparing it to a feminine hygiene product. Yet today, no one makes that joke. The name “iPad” proved to be short, memorable, and effective. Apple succeeded because it trusted user behavior over public opinion.
The same principle applies to logo redesigns. When Google updated its logo to a friendlier, more childlike design, people complained for a week and then stopped noticing. The new look fit Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and better supported their branding goals. Today, most people prefer it without realizing why. That’s the power of good design.
Ask “Why?”
After someone gives their opinion, ask them why. You may need to ask several times, channeling your inner toddler to reach the deeper reason behind their response.
This approach brings the conversation back to goals, objectives, and target audiences, which are the foundation of design. If you don’t know the goal or audience, and your feedback provider doesn’t either, their input won’t help.
Ask for Problems
Instead of asking for solutions, ask for problems. When I ran a web design agency, we worked with authors and businesses who didn’t understand design. They’d often tell us what to do without explaining why. Behind each instruction was a problem they were trying to fix, but we had to uncover it by asking “why” multiple times.
For example, a client might say, “Make the text bolder.” We’d ask, “Why?” They might reply, “Because it’s hard to read as a thumbnail.” Once we identified the real issue (low text contrast), we could explore better solutions. Maybe the background was too busy or the colors clashed and made the text blend in. The fix might involve simplifying the background, adjusting the font size, or moving the text rather than simply making it bolder.
Designers have a whole toolbox of solutions, and the best one is rarely the most obvious. That’s why it’s important for clients to describe problems and let designers find the best solutions.
Trusting the Experts
You hire a professional designer for a reason. You understand your target audience and your book better than they do, but they understand design better than you do. The best results come when you describe the problem and let the designer craft the solution.
Think of it like visiting a mechanic. You might say, “My car squeaks when I stop, so I think I need an oil change.” A good mechanic won’t just follow your instructions. They’ll diagnose the real issue of worn-out brakes and fix the actual problem. Similarly, a designer’s expertise lies in finding the most effective solution once they understand the underlying issue.
Filtering Advice and Evaluating Emotion
Don’t Take All Advice
Don’t incorporate everyone’s advice. Some feedback is worse than none at all, especially if it comes from people outside your target audience. Your book is not for everyone, and that’s okay. You want a passionate audience that loves your work enough to tell others about it, not a watered-down design that pleases no one.
Ask About Feelings
When asking for feedback, you can also ask, “What emotions does this design make you feel?” This helps you distinguish between art language and design language. Art is about beauty and emotion, while design is about effectiveness.
Don’t Discount “Ugly”
Sometimes, making something uglier can make it more effective. For example, Amazon discovered that a bright, almost garish orange “Add to Cart” button received more clicks than any other color. It wasn’t the prettiest option, but it worked best. That’s the essence of good design: prioritizing results over aesthetics.
On Amazon, you’ll notice that the “Buy” button is a rather unattractive shade of orange. That’s intentional. Amazon used data and experimentation to determine that this color generated the most clicks. While the button may look ugly, it stands out from the rest of the page, and that visual contrast increases conversions. If the button were prettier and blended in, fewer people would notice or click it, and Amazon would make less money.
How to Give Useful Design Feedback
Whether you’re an indie author managing your own team or a traditionally published author collaborating with a publisher, you’ll likely be asked to provide design feedback. Indie authors call the shots because they’re paying the bills, while traditional authors provide input even though the publisher ultimately makes the final decision. Either way, the goal is to make your feedback useful to the designer.
Consolidate Your Feedback
Combine all your thoughts into a single document, usually an email. When I ran a design agency, we preferred to have a phone call to discuss the reasoning behind design choices and understand the author’s thinking. Afterward, we’d follow up with an email summarizing everything in one place.
Sending feedback piecemeal is harmful. Each new email can change the design direction and confuse the process. It’s like cooking: if you hand the chef new ingredients halfway through the meal, the result won’t turn out well. It’s much better to provide all the “ingredients” upfront so the designer can create the best possible outcome.
Sleep On It
Authors often have strong emotional reactions to their book covers or website designs. You’ve spent years working on your book, so your investment is personal and deep. If you don’t have training in design, you might lack the vocabulary to explain why something feels wrong, which can heighten those emotions.
I see this with my daughter, who only knows a few words. When she can’t communicate what she feels, she gets frustrated and cries. Once she learned to point, her communication improved, but pointing only goes so far. You can’t point to “hot” or “cold.” Similarly, emotional reactions without clear language can frustrate both you and your designer.
That’s why I recommend sleeping on your feedback. Let your emotions cool before responding. A calm, thoughtful conversation leads to better collaboration and better design outcomes.
Ask Questions Instead of Giving Orders
Remember, the designer is the professional. Their expertise is what you’re paying for, so don’t waste that investment by trying to take control of the project. Your job is to describe the problems, not dictate the solutions. Let the designer use their skills to solve those problems.
Be willing to defer to their expertise. One author I spoke with realized her covers always got worse after she provided feedback. She was a talented writer but not a designer. Once she started trusting the professionals, her covers improved dramatically.
Avoid being the kind of boss who demands changes just to feel involved. Everyone has worked for someone like that, and it rarely ends well. Contribute meaningfully, but don’t insert yourself unnecessarily.
However, this doesn’t mean you should stay silent if the design targets the wrong audience—a common issue in publishing. Stand up for your readers and clarify who the design should appeal to.
Use Data to Make Decisions
When possible, let data guide your design choices.
Don’t rely on polls or surveys where readers study your covers in isolation. That’s not how people shop for books. In real life, readers browse among hundreds of competing covers, whether online or in a bookstore, and make quick decisions. Poll participants, by contrast, give your cover far more attention than it will ever get in the wild.
Instead, use split testing. For example, run two Facebook ads: Ad A with Cover A, and Ad B with Cover B. Measure which one gets more clicks. Design, unlike art, can be evaluated with data. If Cover B generates 15% more clicks, it’s objectively the better design.
Timothy Ferriss famously used this technique to choose the title for The 4-Hour Workweek. He ran Google Ads with different title options, tracked which one drew the most clicks, and went with the winner. That book went on to become a bestseller and launch his career, all because of data-driven decisions.
If you want to incorporate testing, discuss it before hiring your designer. Bringing it up afterward can make them uncomfortable and limit your negotiating power.
Final Tips for Better Design
Work With an Experienced Professional
If you’ve worked as a creative director or have formal design experience, you can guide less-experienced designers effectively. Exceptional creative directors can turn beginner designers into top performers by clearly defining goals and target audiences.
But if that’s not your background, hire a professional who already has the necessary expertise. You want to work with a “doctor,” not a “nurse.” The designer should be the expert solving your problem, not simply following your directions.
Identify a Specific Target Reader
It’s essential to identify one representative reader for your design. I used to suggest creating a fictional avatar, but over time, I realized that authors tend to create vague, generic profiles.
Instead, pick a real person, a single reader who represents your ideal audience. I call this person your “Timothy” based on how the apostle Paul wrote the book of Timothy to one person. It was addressed to one person, but countless readers have benefited from it since. Writing to one person focuses your message and makes it personal and compelling.
Describe this representative reader in detail:
“This is Barbara. She’s 55 years old, has three children, works at a small business, and attends this church.”
Ideally, Barbara should be a real person you know. If you can thrill her, you’ll likely delight everyone else in your audience.
Clarify the Goals
Finally, define the purpose of the design. What is it meant to accomplish? How will you measure success or failure?
Design is objective. The clearer you are about your goals and your target reader, the more equipped your designer will be to create something extraordinary. That clarity allows them to craft a design that not only looks good but also works. It will achieve your purpose without falling victim to design by committee.
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