Book cover: Developing Teen Leadership

Developing Teen Leadership: A practical guide for youth group advisors, teachers and parents

We're looking for a cover for a new mass-market paperback book that helps adults to teach teenagers leadership skills.

Full title: Developing Teen Leadership: A practical guide for youth group advisors, teachers and parents

We're a new micro-publishing company founded by a best-selling author and publisher. Each book will have its own style and approach, so don't worry about corporate culture or style in your design.

In addition to payment, you will be credited with creating the cover artwork and will receive a copy of the book on publication. If you wish, We will include a URL to your website with the credit.

The book is written for adults, in particular:
• Youth group advisors, counselors, scoutmasters, etc.
• High school/middle school Teachers
• Parents of teens

This is a mass-market paperback, not an academic book. It is an easy read. A dry, serious and boring cover won’t do. A flippant goofy cover won’t do either. Think “friendly” and “respectful” as the overall tone of the book that I’d like to see reflected on the cover.

If your design uses images/graphics of people on the cover that can be identified by gender, you’ll need at least two – one male one female. If using multiple people on the cover that clearly imply a race, they must be multi-racial.

I'm primarily interested in the front book cover, but will ultimately want a simple compatible spine/back cover as well. Front cover should include the title, subtitle, and space for the author name.
The ideas that I’m looking to convey are growth and leadership – the idea of a teen growing from a 13 year old “child” to a confident 18 year old leader. Ideally, someone looking at the cover should grasp these concepts from the graphic element alone (though that may be a tall order). I’m looking to go beyond a common approach where the graphic element just illustrates the title. Think instead of the book title reinforcing the message in the graphic (or the two complimenting/balancing each other) .
The design needs to communicate this idea of growth and leadership even when reduced to an 88x135 pixel thumbnail (as on Amazon.com). This means the main title needs to be large and readable (the subtitle and author will be lost at that size, which is fine), and the graphic has to be simple – in the sense of not relying on a lot of detail to convey the idea.
At the same time, the cover should, at full size, look professional and appealing.

Front/back trim size is 6x9" (6.125 x 9.25 with bleed, 0.25" safe zone). Spine is 0.52". See attached template