Choosing your background, colors and fonts for a cover

An informational cover, an emotional one, and a promo cover want completely different looks. Informational covers need clarity and dense information; emotional ones need whitespace so one line can breathe; commercial ones need the product and price visible at a glance.

Decide the intent first and every later choice has a reason. Skip it and you'll bounce between colors and fonts forever, because there's no standard to judge against.

If the text must be read perfectly (tips, tutorials, prices), prefer a solid or low-contrast background — a beautiful photo still fights with text laid over it.

If the cover wins on mood (lifestyle, emotion), a photo background conveys the scene instantly — just darken the text area with a semi-transparent mask for legibility. Poster Cat's cover tools let you drop in a background and auto-dim the text zone for exactly this.

The most common beginner mistake is too many colors. A reliable opener: one main color over the surface, one accent color for the single most important word or button, and let black/white/grey do the rest.

The accent only 'pops' if it contrasts with the main color. Unsure? Build hierarchy from light-and-dark shades of one hue, then add a single saturated contrast color as the accent — it almost never goes wrong.

On a phone a cover is often thumbnail-sized. Use sans-serif for body and small text so it survives shrinking; a heavier or more characterful face is fine for the headline, but never let style cost legibility.

Two fonts max per cover: one for the headline, one for the body. More than that and it falls apart. Poster Cat's cover presets already set the type hierarchy for you — type and it's done.