Open any photobook on a shelf and you judge it in half a second — before a single page turns. The cover carries that weight. Here’s how to get it right.
What should go on a race book cover?
A race name and a year is enough. Resist the urge to fit everything on the cover; the restraint is what makes it feel considered. Skoma’s default cover does exactly this. The race name is set large in a condensed display face, with the year in small monospaced type beneath it, on a near-black ground.
The details are tuned more than they look. A race name longer than ten characters is set a size smaller, so a long name doesn’t crowd the edges, and it can break onto two lines. Portrait covers get the title about 15% larger, because there is more height to fill. The title block also sits slightly above the true centre of the page. That small amount of headroom is what makes it read as a cover rather than a dead-centred poster.
Leave off the finish time, the distance and the splits. They belong inside, where the race-day time page and the stats page already give them room. A cover that carries the time turns into a results sheet. A cover that carries only the name and the year still makes sense in twenty years.
Shorten the name while you’re at it. Many big races carry a sponsor in their official title, and that title changes when the sponsor does. “Berlin Marathon” reads better on a shelf than the full sponsored version, and it will still be the right name in ten years.
Should the year go on the cover?
Yes: the year is what tells two books for the same race apart. Runners who go back to a race they love end up with more than one book for it, and two Berlin books look identical on a shelf without it. The default cover sets the year in small type under the name, where it informs without competing.
Let the type carry the mood
Every Skoma theme pairs a display face for page titles with a quiet body face, and sets its own cover and page colours. Switching themes re-sets the palette and the page typography across the whole book in one move, so try a few:
- Default — near-black cover, warm cream pages, a rust-red accent and a serif for page titles.
- Boston — deep navy cover with a bright yellow title, cream pages and a classic Garamond serif.
- Mono — black cover, white pages, pure monochrome. The photos do all the talking.
- Vault — black cover and near-black pages with pale type. The darkest of the set.
- Inverse — white cover with near-black type, then dark pages inside. Vault turned inside out.
- Paper — white cover and white pages, with a serif for page titles. The quietest of the six.
How do you keep the cover title readable?
Keep light type on a dark cover and dark type on a light one. It sounds obvious, but it’s the single most common thing that makes a cover feel off. Each Skoma theme sets its own cover-title colour to suit its cover. If you swap in a photo or change the background yourself, check the title still reads.
Web accessibility rules give a usable yardstick. WCAG 2.1 asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. A cover title is large text, so 3:1 is the floor. White on the Default theme’s near-black works out at about 19:1, close to the 21:1 maximum. Boston’s yellow on navy is about 10:1. Both clear the bar with room to spare.
Photos are where covers fail. A finish-line photo often has a bright sky in one corner and a dark crowd in another, so no single title colour works everywhere on it. Put the title over the calmest part of the image. Or keep the photo for the first page inside and leave the cover to type.
Match the cover to the shape
Books come in landscape, portrait or square, and the cover follows the shape you pick. Landscape gives a long line of room, which suits a one- or two-word race name. Portrait gives height, which is why the title grows there. Square sits in between; a photo with a centred subject usually survives a square crop. Landscape and portrait books print as A4 hardcovers, so a landscape cover ends up 297 mm wide and 210 mm tall in your hands.
A good cover doesn’t shout. It just looks like it knows exactly what it is.
Open the editor, hit Preview, and flip to the cover. If it makes you want to keep turning, you’re done. If it doesn’t, change one thing at a time: the theme first, then the photo, then the words.