“Untold story”, a historical fiction book cover designed with restored WWII imagery and vintage ship
Your book deserves a cover that tells its story before the first page is even opened.
I design custom book covers for authors who want to stand out—whether you’re publishing your first book or building a series. Every cover is created to capture attention, reflect your story, and connect with the right audience.
A great book cover isn’t just beautiful—it’s strategic.
It needs to communicate genre, mood, and quality in seconds. It should work just as well as a small thumbnail online as it does in print.
Print ready book cover
Untold Story – A Legacy Designed
✍️ By Brenda Johnson – book author
📚 Historical Fiction
A powerful tale of courage and reinvention, “Untold Story” follows a WWII veteran and mother as she boards the “Ranchi” for a voyage that would change her life forever. Arriving in Australia with her husband, she begins a new life – haunted by war, yet determined to build a future.
This cover was designed to evoke a sense of timeless elegance, dignity, and deep personal connection. Blending archival textures, handwritten documents, and subtle vintage tones, the design reflects memory, resilience, and journey.
The layout was intentionally kept clean to allow the restored portrait and ship illustration to take center stage.
Every book cover begins with understanding the story, audience, and positioning in the market. The design process combines branding strategy, typography, and visual hierarchy to create covers that are not only visually appealing but also effective in driving engagement and sales.
The ship featured on the cover, Ranchi, was not easily found. Sourcing a historically accurate image required deep research, but uncovering this rare sketch added a crucial layer of authenticity to the final design.
I need to find a particular that ship as main character came to Australia on that particular vesel.
The final ship sketch was retouched to suit print clarity and thematic tone.
This sketch was made by one of the Ranchi’s crew member! Can you believe it!
The central portrait of the veteran was colourized and restored from a faded photocopy. I had only a photocopy to work with. Here you can see image “before” olready corrected with colour contrast, saturation etc.
This delicate process involved removing damage, image contrast correction and recoloring using historical references from 1940s army uniforms.
I tried to use free online restoration services but I wasn’t happy with outcome so I have to do it myself.
This was a deeply moving project to work on, connecting history, personal legacy, and storytelling through design.
Every cover starts with understanding your story.
I look at:
From there, I build a design that feels intentional—not generic.
Typography, imagery, and layout all work together to guide the viewer’s eye and create a strong first impression.
This isn’t about placing a title on an image.
It’s about creating a visual identity for your book.
A strong cover:
I approach each project with both creativity and strategy—so your cover not only looks good, but works.
