Elegant Book Cover Design Needed

  • Status: Pending
  • Prize: £115
  • Entries Received: 1099
  • Winner: jamy98

Contest Brief

Book Cover Design Brief
Hospitality: It's A Profession, Not an Industry
Stefan Wissenbach · with John Mitchinson

PROJECT OVERVIEW
We are looking for an experienced book cover designer to create a jacket design for a forthcoming hardback title: Hospitality: It's A Profession, Not an Industry by Stefan Wissenbach with John Mitchinson.
This is a serious, inspiring book written for everyone in the hospitality profession — from business owners and general managers to kitchen porters and trainee baristas. It makes the case that hospitality is entering a golden era, and gives readers the mindset and tools to build a fulfilling career within it.
The book is published at 134 x 178mm, 192 pages, jacketed hardback. Pre-order launched 1 March 2026. The book ships Summer 2026.

WHAT WE NEED
We require two deliverables:

Front cover — final, print-ready design
Full jacket — front cover, spine, and back cover (placeholder copy provided below for spine and back — final copy to be confirmed, but layout and design must be complete)

Deadline: Thursday 12 March 2026 (3 days from briefing)

VISUAL STYLE & POSITIONING
This book should feel like an elegant, authoritative object — as at home on a coffee table as on a business desk. We want to differentiate it clearly from the crowded business manual market.
Key design principles:

Authority — think book of wisdom, philosophical collection, prayerbook. Not a management manual.
Simplicity — spacious, clean, confident. The interior uses generous serif text panels; the cover should match that sensibility.
Text-led — the title must pop and be fully legible at thumbnail size (e.g. as displayed on Amazon or in an email)
Dominated by a single strong colour — we are open to the designer's suggestion on colour, but the reference we admire most is the iconic yellow of Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara: a single colour that creates instant recognition and shelf presence
Illustrative element (optional but encouraged) — if the designer wishes to include an image, it should be a single, simple, central symbol that stands for the profession. We admire the approach taken by Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide (a clean seal/logo mark) and Setting the Table by Danny Meyer (a single object). We do not want anything literal, cluttered or generic. The word INDUSTRY may be struck through as a typographic device, as seen in the existing design — but this is optional, not required.


REFERENCE COVERS (MOODSHEET)
The following covers represent the visual territory we are aiming for. Please study these carefully:
Covers we admire most:

Unreasonable Hospitality — Will Guidara (bold single colour, large typographic treatment)
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide — Will Guidara (clean seal/logo mark, notebook aesthetic)
Setting the Table — Danny Meyer (single central object, confident typography)
Leaders Eat Last — Simon Sinek (bold, simple, strong typographic hierarchy)
The Prophet — Kahlil Gibran (elegant, timeless, literary)
The Creative Act — (minimal, single geometric element, dominated by one colour)
Courage Is Calling — Ryan Holiday (authoritative, bold serif, single illustrative element)
Outrage — Ian Nairn (strong single colour, text-led, clean)


EXISTING DESIGN — WHAT TO AVOID
An existing cover concept has been produced (attached). This is not the direction we wish to pursue. Key issues with the existing design:

Too corporate and generic — lacks elegance and authority
White background feels underpowered and does not create shelf presence
Mixed font styles (gradient teal/green, serif/script combination) feels inconsistent
Does not meet the coffee-table book ambition of the brief

Please treat the existing design as a reference for what not to do, while noting the title treatment and the struck-through INDUSTRY device, which may be retained if the designer finds a more elegant application for it.

MANDATORY COVER TEXT
Front cover:

Title: HOSPITALITY
Subtitle: It's A Profession, Not an Industry
Author: Stefan Wissenbach
Credit line: with John Mitchinson

Spine (placeholder):

HOSPITALITY · Stefan Wissenbach

Back cover (placeholder copy — layout required, final copy TBC):

"Without a great employee experience, there is no great guest experience."

Hospitality is entering its golden era. As technology reshapes every other profession, the demand for genuine human connection — for the feeling that someone truly cares — is growing, not shrinking. This is the profession built for what comes next.
Written for everyone who works in hospitality — from owners and general managers to kitchen porters and trainee baristas — this book gives you the language, the mindset and the tools to see your work in an entirely new light, and to build a career you are proud of.
Stefan Wissenbach has spent three decades as an entrepreneur, coach and strategist, working across 70 sectors and 17 countries with over 500 businesses, including some of the world's leading hospitality brands and membership organisations. He is the founder and leader of the Empowered group of companies, — empowering organisations and individuals to fulfil their potential. The research behind this book draws on more than 24,000 culture assessments and over 2 million employee comments.
John Mitchinson is one of the most accomplished figures in British publishing, having served as Marketing Director of Waterstones and led major book publishing companies. He is also an accomplished author in his own right — a writer who understands instinctively what makes a book compelling to read, and who brings that rare combination of editorial judgement and genuine craft to everything he works on. His role was to take Stefan's three decades of insight, research and lived experience and shape it into the book you now hold.
[Testimonial placeholder — e.g. "[Quote]" — Duncan Palmer, Managing Director, The Beaumont Hotel]
[Testimonial placeholder — e.g. "[Quote]" — Jonathan Raggett]
[Barcode placeholder] | empowered.co

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Trim size: 134 x 178mm
Format: Jacketed hardback
Extent: 192 pages
File format required: Print-ready PDF and layered source file (Adobe InDesign or Illustrator preferred; Photoshop accepted)
Colour: CMYK
Bleed: 3mm all round
Spine width: To be confirmed by printer — designer to build with adjustable spine or provide at standard spine width for 192pp on 80gsm Munken paper (approx. 13–14mm — please confirm and adjust)


BUDGET, TIMELINE & CONTEST TERMS

Budget: £100 GBP — awarded to the winning design
Deadline: Thursday 12 March 2026
Contest format: This is a design contest. One winning entry will be selected and awarded the full £100 prize. By submitting an entry, designers agree that the winning design and all associated files become the property of the client upon award of the prize.


HOW TO ENTER
Please submit:

Your cover design as a JPEG or PDF mockup (front cover as a minimum; full jacket preferred)
A brief note on your creative thinking — colour choice, any illustrative element, typographic approach
Confirmation that you can supply print-ready files and layered source files upon winning

We are looking for a designer who reads the brief carefully and brings genuine creative thinking to it — not a template approach. The best cover will be the one that makes someone stop scrolling.

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Public Clarification Board

  • jbdesign1
    jbdesign1
    • 1 week ago

    Dear Contest Holder,
    Please be aware that some entries contain AI-generated images. You can verify images using this tool:
    https://sightengine.com/detect-ai-generated-images

    • 1 week ago
  • diptopathang
    diptopathang
    • 1 month ago

    Please check it my entry #536 #540

    • 1 month ago
  • risek7
    risek7
    • 1 month ago

    Dear Contest Holder,

    I have submitted my design entries to your contest. Please take a moment to review them. I truly hope the designs match your requirements 100% and meet your expectations.

    All designs will be delivered in fully editable vector format, so you can easily modify any element in the future. The files will be print-ready and can be resized to any size without losing quality.

    You will receive high-resolution files in the following formats:
    AI, EPS, SVG, PDF, PNG, JPEG, and PSD.

    I also offer unlimited revisions to ensure you are completely satisfied. Please feel free to let me know if you need any changes.

    Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

    • 1 month ago
  • risek7
    risek7
    • 1 month ago

    Dear Contest Holder,

    I have submitted my design entries to your contest. Please take a moment to review them. I truly hope the designs match your requirements 100% and meet your expectations.

    All designs will be delivered in fully editable vector format, so you can easily modify any element in the future. The files will be print-ready and can be resized to any size without losing quality.

    You will receive high-resolution files in the following formats:
    AI, EPS, SVG, PDF, PNG, JPEG, and PSD.

    I also offer unlimited revisions to ensure you are completely satisfied. Please feel free to let me know if you need any changes.

    Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

    • 1 month ago
  • siddik97
    siddik97
    • 1 month ago

    Dear Boss place check my entry #442

    • 1 month ago
  • siddik97
    siddik97
    • 1 month ago

    Please check #377

    • 1 month ago
  • Mdansaraligd
    Mdansaraligd
    • 1 month ago

    Hello Sir, please see my Entrie #309 #310 and give your valuable feedback.

    • 1 month ago
  • Mukty43
    Mukty43
    • 1 month ago

    #256 #258 #259 #260 #261

    • 1 month ago
  • sufia777
    sufia777
    • 1 month ago

    Please check my all entries !!

    • 1 month ago

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