steps to making a good book cover

http://www.publishingtalk.eu/self-publishing/four-steps-to-create-a-great-book-cover/ Above is the website that helped me a lot when creating my book cover. On this website it gives you the basic steps to follow to create a good book cover.I found it very help full for many reasons,for example I work a lot better when I do things in steps especially work that needs to be sent off for a competition,I believe everyone else does too with the odd exception. Step one on this website tells you to create a mood board even though it might sound a bit pretentious to some. It all so says that mood boards are great as it helps you put all of your ideas into one place so that when you start putting the cover design together you don’t start with a blank canvas,I totally agree with this but I all so think it helps a lot as it gives you a lot of inspiration.Step two was to look at other book covers that are in the similar area but as people have created tons of book covers for the heart of darkness as it is a very well known book I merged step one and two together. Step three was to be honest not that help full to me because it says you should use other software as a substitute to photoshop if you are not so good with the software. Step four talks about how you need to take your spine of the cover into deep consideration when creating your book cover as it needs to link in with your front and back cover. I am glad i read this ,it made me think a lot more about the spine of my book cover.I might have forgot about it and then i would of had to go back to the drawing board after creating a cover.