You want a professional PhD cover design. For that, you turned to proefschriftmaken and found me! In order to make this process go smoothly, let me lay out the steps we will take to make your fixed-price PhD thesis cover.
By the way, if you want a rather complex design and would like to keep the majority of the creative control over it, including unlimited rounds of feedback, the fixed-price option may limit you too much. There is an option to pay hourly; proefschriftmaken asks 55 Euros per hour.
Step 1: Choose your elements
You can pick up to four design elements to include on your thesis cover. Ideally, you’ll want to pick elements that have something to do with your research. I will design those elements for you and put them together in an aesthetically pleasing way on your cover. Here are a few examples of covers to explain what I mean by “design elements”, and how complex each element can be:
thesis design with two elements: mycelium and fruit body
As you can see, even a small amount of elements can be used to great effect!
If you already have a concrete cover design in mind, you can send a sketch or mockup done by hand or with your software of choice. (If you’ve sent your ideas to proefschriftmaken, they’ll forward them to me). You can also send me links to images that have the style you want. Finally, you can tell me the colours you want on your cover, ideally as CMYK values (HTML or RGB is also okay, but please be aware that the final printed colours may look slightly different from the colours you sent me).
If you don’t have an idea yet, you can send me the summary of your thesis and I’ll help you come up with a design that reflects your scientific story. (PLEASE NOTE: This option is only available for theses in the Life Sciences!) We can also brainstorm together on a Zoom call.
Also, I will need the following information from you:
- Title of your thesis, typed out in an e-mail so I can copy and paste it to avoid mistakes
- shortened title for the spine, if applicable
- your full name, typed out
- shortened name for the spine, if applicable
- spine thickness (once you know the number of pages in your finished layout and the paper type you want to use, proefschriftmaken can tell you the thickness of your book’s spine)
Step 2: Pick your Font
For the title of your thesis and your name, you can pick from these fonts:
If you have different font in mind, just let me know. Please note that you may have to send me the font files if I don’t have them installed on my system.
Step 2.1: Send me the Images You Want to Use (if any)
If you want to use images on your cover (i.e. from the microscope), please send them like this:
- At least as large as they will be on the printed cover (example: You want to use a background image for the entire front cover. The cover is 17 cm x 24 cm, plus bleed. Hence, you need to send me an image that is at least 17.6 cm x 24.3 cm)
- At least 300 dpi in resolution.
Please note: You are entirely responsible for sending the images at the right size and resolution. This article explains everything about image size and resolution, specifically how to find out what size and resolution any given image has.
If you want to use a stock image, proefschriftmaken will charge extra for that. Please inquire with them.
Step 3: The First Draft
I will describe the design I’m planning to do for your PhD thesis cover in an e-mail to you, using a very simple mockup where necessary. Once you agree to this idea, I will start your cover design!
Then, I’ll send you the first draft (usually I send two or three different versions.) The drafts will have the style that the end result of the cover will have. They will also have all the elements that the final cover will have.
After that, it’s your turn to give feedback. This is the major feedback round. You can ask me to add or remove an element, change colours and/or positions of elements and change the font and/or position of the title and your name.
Step 4: The Final Draft
I will implement the changes you asked for and send you the final draft of your cover. Now, you can adjust some last details in the second, minor feedback round. For example, slightly changing the position of elements or changing the background colour.
Step 5: Finished!
Congratulations, your PhD thesis cover is finished! Once you give your final O.K., I will upload everything to proefschriftmaken for you and you’ll get your proof book from them. After you received the proof book, I will fix typos if there are any, and the spine width, in case it’s incorrect.
If you also need an invitation – which is included with the fixed-price standard cover – go to step 6. Otherwise, you’re done reading, yay!
If you send me an e-mail saying that you have read and understood this website, we can begin the process of making your cover 🙂
Step 6: The Invitation
You send me the text of your invitation (if you’ve sent it to proefschriftmaken at the beginning, please let me know and I’ll ask them to forward it to me).
For your invitation, I will use an area of your cover. If you have a specific area in mind, please let me know. Otherwise, I will send you two different drafts that you can choose from. The type font will be the same as for your title and name on the cover.
You can then give one round of feedback on the invitation and I will adjust it. After that, the whole process is done!
Do You Want More Creative Control?
As you may have gleaned from the steps above, for the standard fixed-price cover, you need to give a lot of the creative control to me. Also, the number of design elements and their complexity is restricted.
If you don’t feel comfortable with that and would like a detailed, complex cover design with many different elements, or if you want to retain most of the creative control, you should go for the option to pay hourly instead. It gives you the freedom to keep adjusting your cover until it’s exactly as you want it. Once I have an idea what your cover will look like, I can give you a rough estimate of the time it will take me. Proefschriftmaken asks 55 Euros per hour.
Let’s go make your PhD thesis cover!