Cover Artist Series: Danielle Fine, By Definition

Welcome to this month’s Cover Artist Feature! Today we’re talking with cover designer and editor, Danielle Fine.

Welcome, Danielle!

Thanks so much for having me, Ivana! I’m really glad to be here. ☺

We’ve featured your art on our site before in reviews for both Pippa Jay and Lincoln Farish. I particularly want to talk to you about animated book covers and promo images. They are so cool!! What can you tell us about them?

Thank you! I’m always keeping an eye on what other people are doing, and I saw a couple of animated covers on JA Konrath’s blog and thought, how cool! I love to challenge myself, so I decided to try my hand at it, and ended up making the animated cover for Lincoln Farish’s Soulless Monk, which he really liked. I’ve made a couple of others since, but most of the animation I do at the moment is for animated quote art for marketing purposes.

 

So, how do you make them? Are you using a special software?  Are they animated .gifs?

No special software. 🙂 I make them using Photoshop. They’re frame-by-frame animations saved as gifs.

Do you think animated book covers are the new trend?

The last I heard, most ereaders don’t support animated covers—my authors use them for promotion on social media, mostly—but I imagine they will soon, and then yes, I think there’s a good chance covers will go this way. Anything that can grab a reader’s attention is a plus, and there’s a lot of room for beautiful, interesting art to be made.

 

How did you get started designing book covers, Danielle?

I’m self-taught, actually, and it’s all grown quite organically. ☺ I started off editing, and then an author I was working with needed a book trailer, so I decided to see if I could help her out. That went well, and I really enjoyed doing something more visually creative, so I pushed myself to learn about designing book covers.

What can you tell us about your artistic style?

Personally, I veer toward the dark and twisty side of art. I love striking, powerful imagery and enjoy creating more fantastical covers, which is why I’ve recently gone into doing premade covers as well. When I work with an author, I try to make their vision come to life and collaborate very closely with them to get the image they’re looking for (sometimes going up to around 30 versions of a cover :P), so when I do premades, I really get to play and push my skills and create whatever image comes to me.

 

You also do editing for authors. What is your background in both art and language?

I don’t have formal training in either area. What I do have is a passion for the written language, a lifetime of voracious reading (I still read around 4 books a week), and a dedication to making a work the best it can be (not to mention my anal, grammar-Nazi tendencies :P). I’ve been freelancing for about 5 years now, and I try to keep learning, and growing, and getting better.

What is your favorite part about working with indy authors, either in cover design or editing?

I adore working with indy authors, both in design and editing. When doing a cover, it’s very fulfilling to make an author’s vision come to life, and to give them something they really love. In terms of editing, I generally have very close relationships with my authors, who know that I might push them to the brink to get their work shining, but that I’m in their corner, one hundred percent. My favorite thing is to be able to take an author through the whole process, from editing, to cover design, to formatting, to marketing. It’s a great experience. And authors, for the most part, are the most wonderful people to work with. ☺

 

How would an author contact you about your services?

The best way to contact me is probably through my website www.daniellefine.com, which has a contact form, or via Twitter @DanielleFine1. I love hearing from new clients, and I’m always happy to do a free sample edit or answer questions.

 

Daniel does editing and proofreading in addition to creating book trailer videos and both regular and animated book covers and promotional images. Our thanks to Danielle for talking with One Book Two about her work.