I was procrastinating the other day, and came up with this: Spoiler: Cover Does it look too cheesy? Is the cropping noticeably bad? Also, is the missing giraffe head a turnoff?
Haha. The random giraffe made me laugh for some reason. Why is it there? I like the clock though. The only cheesy things are the title and the tag line.
I agree with TW concerning the tag line in the middle of the clock. Lose that bit. Also, the title is too squished into the upper space. The spacing all round the title needs to be redressed. It's too close to the clock when compared to the space above the words, and the second line (Love's Hands) is almost right-justified, but not quite, so it looks more sloppy than purposeful. The giraffe is bizarre. It's headlessness doesn't turn me off but it's randomness is... random. I'm assuming the rectangle behind your first name is where your surname would go, yes?
I like the giraffe as long as it relates to the story somehow. Otherwise the readers might feel cheated. The composition is OK, maybe needs a little more space on the margins. What doesn't work for me is having two subtitles: Love's Hands & Tommy Tocker is Out of Time.
All of the text is way too close to the margins. In the picture the outside rectangle is the action safe. No major part of the picture should be outside it. The second rectangle is the title safe. No lettering should ever be outside it, even a little bit. More stuff: The text size between Clock Face and Love's Hands is way too big. At the very most there should be a difference of 2 pts between the fonts. There should be no size difference between A and Novel, and the huge space between Novel and By is baffling. And there's no reason to change the font color for Novel. Yes. The giraffe is a problem. Why are it's hooves red? If you really want to keep the giraffe put another one one the right, but there's no reason to cut it's head off. Tommy Tocker... would be just fine if you move it down and biggerize it a tad and it will be fine. You want to avoid putting any text in the center of the page Otherwise it looks good. EDIT: I might be being to harsh. Get every thing but the title inside that 20%
First of all, I really like it. Looking at the big picture, it is all laid out very effectively, and it has some serious aesthetic appeal. The text, the clock, and yes, the giraffe. However, the way the clock is warped does not quite look right. I feel like I recognize the tool you used, from what little dabbling I have done in Photoshop and GIMP. I recommend warping it with a tool that does not blur it so much. Take inspiration from The Persistence of Memory: Also, close the space between "novel" and "by".
My wife looks over my shoulder and points out, "The background is too white." You might want to give it a little tweak to some eggshell. When you look at the cover on a white background the whole thing bleeds.
Thank you all for the feedback! I never even considered the margins. @Wreybies: yes that rectangle is for my surname. I'll try to properly justify that text. @daemon: you're right, the work on the clock looks kind of lazy if I stare at it long enough. I'm just not very photoshoppe skilled. I will try the warping tool, though. And that is a beautiful image, BTW. @Jack Asher: Excellent points. I agree with most of that, but I really want to keep the single giraffe there. Regarding the red hooves, I wanted it to look like the giraffe was wearing red socks. @GingerCoffee & @thirdwind: The giraffe is a (plot integral) monster named Tranch. I can't show its head because it is so peculiar in the story, and I want to leave it to the readers' imagination anyway. It's actually also supposed to be wearing black fishnet stockings along with its red socks, but I don't know how to draw those. I'm going to make the clock smaller and try editing it differently, along with going inside the margins. I'm also going to remove the second tag line for now; I like its cheesiness so much that I'll just stick it in the synopsis. And I'll try an off-white eggshell-ish for the background (thanks again, Jack!) If I have margins, I'm wondering how I can get away with not showing the giraffe's head. It's a puzzlement. Again, thank you all. These are things I'd have never thought down.
I should be shot for shamelessly using the smudge tool in photoshoppe. I'm horrible at manipulating images though, and this is the effect I was looking for. I think the bottom left is a problem, balance-wise, but I'm not too sure. It's also kind of pink now. Too much of a deep yellow background makes the clock disappear, and anything too bluish seems to clash with the gold of the clock and make it stand out too much. Spoiler: draft02 Better? Worse? Bworse? @Jack Asher that's the most hilarious sentence I've read all year (when it's taken out of context, of course). I will definitely keep that offer in mind if there's a practical way to pay.
This actually looks really good, my only problem is that the clock hands are smudged out. I hink they'd look really good if you could have them clearly pointing to the phrase "Love's Hands". This would also help us discern the center of the clock, which will be important for readability. I won't go too much into what readability actually is, suffice to say anyone looking at it will be instantly able to say, "that's a clock," instead of, "...oh! that's a clock!" Also: I accept cash, checks, paypal, wire transfer, sincere promises, insincere promises, and bits of hard candy.
Thank you all again for the help. There's just no room for the giraffe; I focused on the clock instead (for that precious readability.) It's much more 'there' now, and, considering the title, it probably should be. The clock is rotated now, not sure if it's better at that angle or not. I will go back and appropriately shade the new 'times,' as well as put more work into the smudging at the top. Later. When I'm not sick of photoshoppe. Spoiler: draft03
