I'm not sure this is the best place to put this, but I'm sure a Mod will shift it if needed. I've been taking a lot of stock pics of late, and experimenting with covers. One thing that really stands out to me when looking at an amateurish cover is the text. I didn't do graphic design at school, so I've been asking around and a friend just sent me a link. Thought it might interest some folks here. It deals with striking combinations. My friend produces some really incredible designs, so if he deems this useful, I'm inclined to believe him. 10 Dazzling Web Font Combinations.
A general rule to follow (and break when you know enough) is to never mix serif and sans serif fonts on the same page.
Experiment with a few different covers. My original design was going to be a dressing table with objects that depicted major things from the book. Sounded great in my head until I started putting it together. Looked horrendous! In the end I went for something simple but enough for it to stand out and make a potential reader pick it up and read the blurb. (I'm also a big fan of pointing my readers in one direction and then totally sending them on the opposite one). At the end of the day, it's your cover. But take a bit of time to look at other covers in the genre that you are writing and ask yourself, which ones appeal to you.
I come from an art background, but I specialised in textile design, so the font aspect in particular is what I really need to wrap my head around. Rather than worrying about my own cover, (my novel is way off being completed) I've been using my downtime to learn a bit about graphic design and taking stock pics of... well, just about every conceivable subject matter, so I'm not running into issues of copyright or having to pay to use someone else's images. I've already been asked by a couple of people to design for them and I really want to do a top notch job. Luckily time isn't pressing and hopefully the experience of doing it will help me settle on how I'd ideally like my own to look. And as for looking into other covers in the same genre. Anybody that knows me will tell you, that's not how I operate. I actually shy away from covers that look same old, same old, simply because as soon as I see that lack of originality, it makes me leary of the contents. That said, I don't go out of my way to be different for the sake of it either, I'd just rather let the work itself guide me rather than the genre.
I didn't mean for you to follow them, I meant as a general idea for what works and what doesn't work. Taking all the pics is a great idea. I take a lot of my own too but where graphic design is concerned, I am a total novice. Photoshop is a swearword in my dictionary. In fact, I learn new swearwords every time I try to use the damn thing! I guess the thing to do is experiment. Out of 25 photos you take, one (and usually only one in my case) will absolutely fit the bill! Good luck with your covers! x
I've been guilty of a few font felonies in my day. This is the cover I made a bajillion years ago to a story that sadly stalled out. Spoiler: cover
Thanks, man. Besides the questionable art and font-work shown on that website provided by @cutecat22 , I'm surprised at the number of novels shown there that also have multi-tiered titles: AWESOMENESS: The Coming of the Gods A Deity Approaching Novel Book One: The First God Nears A Fantasy by Inn Decision How common is this?
Long way off some of the efforts I've been looking at of late, @Wreybies. I think, aside from poor graphics and dodgy text, many covers fall down because it's obvious the designer is working way beyond their skill-set. Cheapens the thing. I think in such cases, it's much better to go for a more simplistic, minimalistic approach, rather than attempt to tell the story on the cover, which can be counterproductive in many respects. I'm not a big fan of clutter when it comes to covers. I wouldn't write you off over that one. And yeah... I've noticed the multi-tiered thing too. I can understand letting the reader know it's part of a series, but like that?
I just noted the search tags at the bottoms of each of the covers in that site. "Seizure risk" and "Om nom nom de plume" are leaving me in stitches!
Yeah, well.... It was a post apocalyptic (I know, groan, sorry) magic realism story about the last people in existence, one of whom finds a TV, makes it work initially just as a light source, and then one day a Spanish telenovela starts to air out of nowhere (civilization is gone) and the characters slowly start living out the lives of the telenovela characters, thus enacting the very last drama to ever happen.
@Wreybies And you shelved it? As a premise, I like it, although the telenovela aspect would have me in wrinkles, whether intended or not. As you are no doubt aware, comedy shows over here really take the mick in regard to them.
Good grief. @Wreybies. I saw that link, didn't bother clicking it because I knew what you meant by magic realism. I'm not sure why in the end I clicked it but it's just as well I did or I would have missed the excerpt. And I didn't giggle once. Enjoyed that... ta.
I agree. Keep it simple and work with what you know (cover wise) or else you run the risk of creating, as they say, refrigerator art!
There are a number of fonts that I recognize on sight, like Courier, Arial, Verdana, Calibri, etc. I've seen them so often that I've come to associate them with documents that have been run up quickly using Microsoft Word. If I see them on a book cover, it makes the book cover look amateurish to me. If you're looking for some slightly more esoteric fonts, you can find a wide selection of free ones here.
