Publishing has always had its visual moments. Certain eras produced certain looks — the pulpy paperback covers of the 60s, the embossed gold-lettered spines of the 80s, the photographic realism that dominated early 2000s fiction covers. Design in books moves slower than in, say, social media — but it does move.
Right now, there are some clear trends shaping what readers expect when they pick up a book, and what makes a cover stop someone mid-scroll on Amazon. If you're designing a book in 2025, these are the directions worth paying attention to.
Bold, Typographic Covers Are Everywhere
For a while, covers relied heavily on imagery — a lone figure in a landscape, a close-up photograph, a dramatic scene. That's still around, but there's been a strong shift toward covers where the typography itself is the design.
You've probably seen it: big, confident lettering that takes up most of the cover, sometimes overlapping, sometimes playing with scale, sometimes using only two or three colors. It's a look that works especially well for literary fiction, essays, memoirs, and non-fiction. It feels editorial — like something you'd see in a magazine spread — and it reads clearly at thumbnail size because there's nothing competing with the text.
This trend is partly a response to how books are discovered now. On a phone screen, intricate illustrated covers can turn into visual noise. A bold typographic cover cuts through it.
Illustration Is Making a Serious Comeback
On the other end of the spectrum, hand-drawn and illustrated covers have come back in a big way — particularly in literary fiction, young adult, and fantasy. There's a warmth and distinctiveness to illustration that stock photography simply can't replicate, and readers have started noticing.
The style varies widely. Some illustrated covers go detailed and painterly, almost like fine art. Others use flat, graphic shapes with a more modern sensibility. What they share is a sense of craft — a feeling that someone made a deliberate creative choice for this specific book, rather than picking the best image from a licensing library.
For indie authors, this trend is actually good news. Commissioning an illustrator for a cover used to feel out of reach budget-wise. The market has opened up significantly, and a distinctive illustrated cover can make a self-published book stand out in ways that generic stock-photo covers never could.
Minimalism in Book Interiors Is the New Standard
Inside the book, the trend has moved firmly toward clean and uncluttered. Readers have less patience than ever for dense, airless pages — and the success of clean, well-spaced interiors in literary and non-fiction publishing has set a new standard that readers now expect.
That means generous margins, comfortable line spacing, and restrained use of decorative elements. Chapter openers are simpler than they were a decade ago — a clean chapter number, maybe a subtle ornament, nothing that feels overdone. The focus is entirely on readability. If a design element isn't making the text easier to engage with, it gets cut.
This isn't boring — it's disciplined. The best interiors feel effortless to read, and that effortlessness is the result of a lot of careful decisions working quietly in the background.
Color Has Gotten Bolder and More Unexpected
Pastel covers dominated indie publishing for a stretch — soft pinks, dusty blues, muted greens. That era isn't completely over, but there's been a clear push toward more saturated, unexpected color choices. Deep terracotta. Acid yellow. Burnt orange paired with black. Colors that feel confident rather than safe.
This shift is showing up in both fiction and non-fiction, and it's being driven by the same logic as the typographic trend — standing out in a grid of thumbnails. When every other book on the page is soft and muted, a cover with a strong, unusual color choice commands attention without even trying.
The key is that the color still has to make sense for the book. Bold for the sake of bold doesn't work. But when the color choice connects to the subject or tone of the book, it can be incredibly effective.
Texture and Tactile Finishes for Print Editions
This one is specific to physical books, but it's worth mentioning because it's changing how readers experience the object itself. Spot UV coating, soft-touch matte lamination, foil stamping, embossing — publishers and designers are investing more in how a book feels in your hands, not just how it looks.
For indie authors printing through services like IngramSpark, some of these finishes are accessible. A soft-touch matte cover, for example, makes a self-published book feel premium in a way that a standard gloss finish doesn't. It's a small detail that readers notice immediately when they pick it up.
Staying Current Without Chasing Trends
One thing worth saying: trends are useful to know, but chasing them blindly can make your book feel generic in a different way. The best-designed books take what's working in the market and filter it through the specific identity of the book itself. Genre, tone, audience — all of that shapes which trends apply and which ones don't.
At Literary Lab, we pay close attention to what's happening in book design because it directly affects how we approach each project. We're not here to put your book in a template — we're here to design something that fits your book and connects with your readers.
If you want a cover or interior that feels current without feeling derivative, get in touch with us. We'd love to talk through what your book needs.
Trends come and go, but good design is always about the same thing: making your book impossible to ignore and easy to love.
Literary Lab is a book design and formatting studio for independent authors.