Design Your Own Journal Cover: Colours, Patterns and Foil Accents

Why a cover matters more than it sounds like it should

A physical journal is a personal object before you've even written a word in it. The colour you picked, the texture of the cover, the way it feels to open, all of that shapes whether you actually want to pick it up again tomorrow. Most digital journal apps skip this entirely and hand you a plain text box. PlanJour doesn't.

Colour, pattern and foil, your choice

When you first open PlanJour's journal, you design its cover. Pick a base colour, choose a decorative pattern from a growing library (dots, chevron, botanical sprigs, constellations, waves and plenty more), add a foil-style accent in gold, silver or rose for the title and spiral binding, then name your journal whatever you like. It's a small ritual, but it's the same ritual that makes a paper notebook feel like yours from the first page.

A pattern pack for every mood

Cover patterns range from quiet and elegant (fine fern, deco arches, moon phases) to genuinely playful. The newer Playful pack adds confetti, hearts, smiley doodles, rainbows and balloons in real, saturated colour for anyone who wants their journal to feel more like a celebration than a study session.

Free to start, more to unlock

Free accounts get two starter cover themes, enough to make the journal feel like yours right away. PlanJour Plus unlocks every pattern, every foil accent, and the full colour range, so your cover can change as often as your mood does.

It's still a real notebook underneath

The cover isn't just decoration bolted onto a generic app. It's the front door to a full daily journal with mood and weather tracking, gratitude, habits, and wins pulled straight from your calendar. The cover sets the tone, the pages underneath do the actual work.

Design your first cover and open your first page for free: start your notebook.