Cover Redesign: 'The Five Year Marriage'

This month, Michelle Argyle at Melissa Williams Design reimagines the cover of The Five Year Marriage by indie author Annmarie Kelly. To submit a book for a free cover redesign, email us at booklifeeditor@booklife.com.

Design Note #1: The author felt the original cover was outdated. To create a more contemporary-looking cover, I decided to use an illustration, which is popular right now in publishing.

Design Note #2: Showing the characters’ faces helps make this cover feel more personal and relatable.

Design Note #3: It was fun to pull the purples into this new cover so it still feels cohesive with the old cover—often a good idea when a book has already been published for a long time, as this one has.

Design Note #4: Using a script font for the title eliminates the stiffness of the old cover, as does using a new subtitle to give a better idea of what the book contains.