I love seeing the creative process in work… You know, all the steps that got someone to the final product (or idea) that finally got shared with the world?

So I thought it would be fun to share part of my own creative process with you… like how I got to the final book cover that we landed on.

So here it is!

Here was the first cover design. Note: This was before we finalized the title of the book…

Something about the water just didn’t work, and I think seeing this cover caused me to start to wonder about the title. It just wasn’t sticky enough… So back to the drawing board.

Here were some of the other title ideas:

  • SALT + Gobstoppers: Using Your Creative Gifts for Maximum Impact in the World.
  • Potential: Using Your God-Given Gifts for Maximum Impact.
  • Finding Your Creative Calling: And Maximizing Your Divine Potential
  • Maximum Potential: How Your God-Given Gifts can Change the World.
  • Becoming SALT: 4 Dimensions of Creative Divine Potential.
  • The Proverbial Gobstoppers: Maximizing Your Divine Potential in God’s Kingdom.
  • Purpose and Potential: Seeing your Creative Gifts in perspective of Eternity.
  • Harnessing Your Potential: Kingdom Knowledge in Creative Context.
  • Moving Pixels Moving People: Becoming a Life Changing Gobstopper

Exactly… None of them were the one.

Until I landed on the final title, which came MONTHS later:

Creative Potential:
Principles for Unleashing Your God-Given Calling

(p.s. click here to learn more about the book)

Okay, back to the cover…

Now that we had a title, this is what we came up with.
(because my only request was “HAVE LOTS OF ORANGE“)

Umm.. nope. Not there.

First, The font.
I’m sorry, but it was just cheesy. However, I did like the minimalism, and of course there was a lot of orange.

So we fixed the font.

Much better! But it now seemed too simple.. and the “gobstoppers” in the bottom… well they looked like marbles to me.

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So we went to plan B…
Adding textures.
And I saw this… and this… and this…

  

It still wasn’t there.

It just didn’t feel “creative enough” to me.
Wasn’t that Apple or Crate & Barrel design that had lots of breathing room, space and modern style.

So I said… lets just strip it all back.

And this is where we landed:

Hmm… Now that’s not bad.
But it was too simple.
And as odd as it was, I felt like it was too much orange. But I wasn’t ready to admit that.

Instead, I told our designer to start from scratch. Lets not do a single thing I cared about.

Try a design without orange.
Without a gobstopper…
And maybe change every other aspect.

And then I got this…

And that’s the first design I saw that I genuinely liked!
This is why I loved Jacob.
He’s got a gift in just creating great stuff and seeing a vision.

The problem, as I looked at it over and over..
was that it felt more like a mystery fiction novel than a book that would spark creativity within those who read it.

So, I called Nick and Sarah Rivero.
(the ones who shape most of the creativity at SALT Conferences…)

and this is what they suggested…

I remember Nick saying:
 “Luke, if your book is about creativity, then you need the cover to be… well… creative” 

And I actually really liked this concept!

Like… REALLY LIKED IT!

Nick had just unlocked the right direction! We worked through probably 20 different designs…  I loved the circles, the simplicity…. and of course, THE ORANGE!

Here were some of the variations as we talked out the meaning, the details, the circles, the colors, symmetry, hierarchy, etc.

 

and then I took the concept back to Jacob.
Where he put the final touches on it, and polished up the concept.

He simplified the cover just a tad.

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And here it is

Are you ready?

For the final cover?

(Sorry for all this scrolling… it’s more dramatic this way haha)

And there it is! What do you think? I mean… It’s near perfect to me.

The circles seem to have this kinetic potential energy as they bounce around within one another.
They’re also have a somewhat random nature to them, which shows the uniqueness that each of our own potential has.
And then there’s the four orange circles… representing the for core layers of the “Gobstopper” I use throughout the book.

(The last ring is almost off the page, since that’s the layer that touches the world.)

And it’s got white space.

Breathing room.

The title, Subtitle and everything else, are just perfect!

AHH! I can’t wait for you to see this beauty.  There you have it.. the final cover to Creative Potential! And the journey that got us there.

– Luke

P.S. Other exciting news… if you are ready to pre-order one (or 100)… you can right here! It’s officially on Amazon!