Cover Generator
A cover-creation tool for self-publishing authors on Litres. Most aren't designers and can't hire one, so it had to make a good cover almost impossible to get wrong.
YEAR
2022
ROLE
Concept and design
SERVICES
Concept, product design, UX/UI
About the project
Simple on purpose
The tool is deliberately limited: pick a template, an image, a light or dark font, and one of three layouts. That's it. Our users are self-publishing authors, mostly not designers and often without the budget to hire one, so the goal was a tool that produces a decent cover for anyone and is hard to mess up. Authors could also upload a finished cover, or just a background, which turned out to be surprisingly common.
Built to grow
I structured the editor from the start so we could add settings, templates, and options later without breaking it. The stock backgrounds were already Midjourney-generated, and I designed the layout anticipating an AI background-generation feature down the line.
Ship the core first
The hard part wasn't the engine that generated covers, it was the editor interface, which was new to our design system and would take time. So we shipped a stripped-down first version: a single button that generated a random cover, plus background upload. Nothing else.
The result
That tiny version was a hit. It sped up publishing dramatically, by the next week, around 30% of covers reaching our moderators had been made with the random-cover button. Once it proved itself, we built out the full editor.
Cover Generator
OVERVIEW
A cover-creation tool for self-publishing authors on Litres. Most aren't designers and can't hire one, so it had to make a good cover almost impossible to get wrong.
YEAR
2022
ROLE
Concept and design
SERVICES
Concept, product design, UX/UI
About the project
Simple on purpose
The tool is deliberately limited: pick a template, an image, a light or dark font, and one of three layouts. That's it. Our users are self-publishing authors, mostly not designers and often without the budget to hire one, so the goal was a tool that produces a decent cover for anyone and is hard to mess up. Authors could also upload a finished cover, or just a background, which turned out to be surprisingly common.
Built to grow
I structured the editor from the start so we could add settings, templates, and options later without breaking it. The stock backgrounds were already Midjourney-generated, and I designed the layout anticipating an AI background-generation feature down the line.
Ship the core first
The hard part wasn't the engine that generated covers, it was the editor interface, which was new to our design system and would take time. So we shipped a stripped-down first version: a single button that generated a random cover, plus background upload. Nothing else.
The result
That tiny version was a hit. It sped up publishing dramatically, by the next week, around 30% of covers reaching our moderators had been made with the random-cover button. Once it proved itself, we built out the full editor.
Cover Generator
OVERVIEW
A cover-creation tool for self-publishing authors on Litres. Most aren't designers and can't hire one, so it had to make a good cover almost impossible to get wrong.
YEAR
2022
ROLE
Concept and design
SERVICES
Concept, product design, UX/UI
About the project
Simple on purpose
The tool is deliberately limited: pick a template, an image, a light or dark font, and one of three layouts. That's it. Our users are self-publishing authors, mostly not designers and often without the budget to hire one, so the goal was a tool that produces a decent cover for anyone and is hard to mess up. Authors could also upload a finished cover, or just a background, which turned out to be surprisingly common.
Built to grow
I structured the editor from the start so we could add settings, templates, and options later without breaking it. The stock backgrounds were already Midjourney-generated, and I designed the layout anticipating an AI background-generation feature down the line.
Ship the core first
The hard part wasn't the engine that generated covers, it was the editor interface, which was new to our design system and would take time. So we shipped a stripped-down first version: a single button that generated a random cover, plus background upload. Nothing else.
The result
That tiny version was a hit. It sped up publishing dramatically, by the next week, around 30% of covers reaching our moderators had been made with the random-cover button. Once it proved itself, we built out the full editor.