Needless to say I was beyond excited when a best-selling author, philanthropist, and world-traveling speaker reached out to design the cover of his latest book at the time, Marching Off the Map: Inspire Students to Navigate a Brand New World.

We approached the MOTM book cover knowing that visibility was arguably our biggest challenge, so I had to keep this in mind during the entire creative process. Market research also revealed other points of interest for us:

• The intended audience has a plethora of options for books on education, teaching, and mentorship.

• Several of the other book options in the same area of study came with highly distinguished cover designs that were impactful and conveyed a strong message.

• The user journey toward the discovery, exploration, and purchase MOTM at online and in-store major retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble is subject to distractions and veer-offs toward other options.

• Online book reviews showed that contrary to what our elders taught, many people judge a book by its cover (including me).

• Customer feedback revealed that people are more interested in buying books on self-help, education, teaching, and/or mentorship when the book cover directly speaks to (or shows) what the book is about.

With this information, it was clear that our goal was not to design a cover that was simply more engaging than everyone else’s book. Instead of thinking of this as a purely artistic endeavor, I needed to approach this as a branding project. The goal was to develop a creative solution that would effectively 1.) Apply the appropriate brand identity to represent the book content and its authors, 2.) Convey the message clearly on the cover design, 3.) Visually entice browsers and passerbys to pick up/click on the book and engage further to discover more.

One of my favorite things to do is to brainstorm keywords. For me, they provide a clear sense of purpose and direction, and it’s just plain fun to post sticky notes all over the walls. To brand the MOTM content we decided on the following words: Simple, bold, practical, trustworthy, education, students. We felt that chasing after these words in the design process would rightfully lead us to visual messaging that was direct and clear.

With this in mind, I went into brainstorming ideas and sketching out concepts. The strategy here was to explore my creative ideas as free and wide, then once I have exhausted all of my crazy ideas, the team and I could review and filter what we wanted to keep. We would repeat the cycle for multiple rounds, constantly asking ourselves “If I were an educator or leader of students, would I think that this book is for me?” This way, we were making refinements consistently, and we continued to strengthen our definition of what the visual identity of the book should be.

After a highly iterative process, we developed a solution that we believe clearly conveys “If you are an educator, mentor, parent, or leader of this new generation of students, then this is the book for you.”