I chose to use Wix for my website because I was already familiar with Wordpress having created a blog for another class with it earlier in the semester. I wanted to have the creative freedom to design a site without being restricted by templates and Wix offers that. I started first with a website based on one of the templates that Wix provides, but then I decided that I wanted to create something that was more of my own imagination. I then switched to a blank template where I could start from scratch and make a cleaner more basic site. I first created the logo in the upper right hand corner in Photoshop and then imported it into Wix as an image. After that I based my color scheme and look of the site based on that. I wanted it to be simple, but still have all of the basics people would need to get started with book cover designing.

As far as the content of the site and the resources I used I found them all on google. I typed in things like “how to become a book cover designer”, “book cover designers”, and “book cover designer interviews”. These led me to some very useful sites where book cover designers were answering all the questions I would have asked about how to become one and what they suggest young designers should know. I pulled many bits of information from different sites but I tried to include them all in the form of links on the information itself or on the resources page that I added. The same goes for the images. They all link back to their sources or I have a site listed where I got them from on the resources page. I wanted a clear resource page because all of the sites I used contain a lot of information that I did not put onto my site because if I added it all it would no longer be a basic clean site, but cluttered with information.

I identified a solid career plan to use for my website by first thinking about what I wanted to do. That was a difficult question for me to answer because right now I do not know what I want to do. One of the reasons that I love the DTC major so much is because there are so many things you can do with it. You can go into graphic design, web design, publishing and editing, information technology, etc. All of these things interest me and I have considered them possible career paths at one point or another so I am excited that this major offers all of them as options. Instead of looking solely to the future for a career I looked to my past as well. Last summer I began to create book covers for people on a site called Wattpad. It is just for young people looking for a place to publish their stories (some serious and some not), but it was a good place for me to try out creating covers for “clients”. I found that I really loved creating these small tableaus that capture the essence of a person’s story. They can be a powerful deciding factor for people when deciding whether or not they want to read a book. I got a lot of enjoyment out of creating covers especially when people loved what I had created and proudly set it as the art for their cover on Wattpad. Doing it for fun made me curious about professionals and how they create covers and make money doing it. This is what inspired my idea for the site.

I just hope that others find it a good jumping off point to find more about book cover designing if they are still interested after visiting my site.