Held each year on April 15 – the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci – World Art Day provides an opportunity to affirm the role of the visual arts in our world. The theme in 2024 is “A Garden of Expression: Cultivating Community through Art.”

My community is y’all who read this blog (thank you!) and my friends on Bookstagram. One of those friends encouraged us to celebrate World Art Day by acknowledging our cover artists.

I don’t know if y’all know this but I design my own covers.

I’m particularly proud of Holland’s cover as it was my first and she sets the tone for all the rest.

I had a very fun conversation with someone I met on Bookstagram (if it was you, please remind me! I cannot recall who I had this talk with!) about the colors of my books.

Holland is pink

Holland, My Heart is pink because my first romance novel had to be pink. (Actually, it’s magenta but that’s a geeky story for another day.) I designed the cover to have the title HUGE like some of my favorite books at the time were showing (think Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston and Book Lovers by Emily Henry).

The speech bubble art came after my alpha reader and dear friend Beth told me she couldn’t tell the difference between when Holland was speaking and when Kai was the POV. Well. We had to change that! I added the speech bubbles to the chapter headings. From there, I started playing with the bubbles on the cover and even my logo. Thanks, Beth!

Ivy is green

When Ivy Met Adam is green because the story is loosely based on the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden. I really needed the book to be green but I also needed to start building a brand color palette. I couldn’t just choose colors at random.

Holland was magenta with cyan accents (a hat-tip to my years and years of working in publishing). Ivy had to be green. So then I added yellow and a rich purple.

Day 8 of @nicolefrailedits #aprilauthorchallenge ❓QOTD: What's your current favorite book cover?