It's a (fake) P.I. mystery set in Glasgow. The cover is self-made. Is it good enough? Sorry for the size. I don't know any other way to do it.
The dark on dark font is hard to read. And I'd probably move the title closer to the top where the trees are kind of blacked out, maling the eerie lights in the middle more prominent.
Its okay but the typography doesnt seem quite there... also be aware that at thumbnail size on amazon it could look like a black blur
I like the composition and the colors (even the black text, though it seems to be throwing others off). Kerning and alignment are both wonky on the title.
I wouldn't give it a second glance if I saw it on a shelf: static colors and composition efficiently reflect "dead square" but it also suggests "deadly dull."
Better. I think I would move the author's name down just a hair -- and possibly make it just a bit smaller. I see the title is supposed to be in a shadowed font, but the shadows really don't show up well -- and not at all when reduced to a thumbnail view. Have you played with that at all? Perhaps a 3-D font? Maybe an open-face font?
The "AD" in "DEAD" should also be on a light background. Otherwise, it would disappear on a thumbnail of the cover.
It would like this. I aleady have the tile under my name on Amazon. But I don't know if the image suits it.
Hmm. Thanks. I like the black letters in the big version, but they get lost in the small thumbnail. There is just something about the white letters that feels a little too stark. What if you used color for the letters? Scarlet or dark rust, maybe. But- never mind me. I'm not much of a graphic artist.
Of the last two, I think I prefer the one with white letters outlined in black, but it could go either way. I think the placement of the title in the exact center of the cover is a bit of a problem. It's too static -- which equates to boring. In art -- generally, not just graphic arts -- there is something called the "rule of thirds." You can google it. In essence, it says that the main subject should not be placed dead center (no pun intended). The "canvas" should be considered to be divided both vertically and horizontally by imaginary grid lines along the third points of the area. In fact, the camera on my cell phone has an option to show grid lines on the thirds as an aid in composing photos. The idea is that major elements should be placed either at intersections of these grid lines, or within the top or bottom third or the left or right third. If that can be overlaid with a diagonal element of some sort to help draw the eye into the image, that's even better. I was going to suggest that the vast majority of book covers in the crime / mystery genre more or less adhere to the rule of thirds. However, I just looked at a bunch of books on Amazon, and I see that many of them do NOT follow this rule. BUT ... how many of those covers that don't follow the rule really work? And how many were designed by professional designers, vs. how many were designed by Amazon's cover design robot? Look at the covers of published authors in the genre. I haven't read anything in that genre for probably 50 years, but Jonathan Kellerman is an author whose books I see on the shelves in the book department of the local supermarket. So I pulled up his Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Kellerman/e/B00MB9JKC2/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1 The covers don't all follow the rule of thirds ... but many of them do. Either the author or the title is in the top third, and the other is in the bottom third. You can't move the title into the bottom third without obscuring the two figures, but you could put the title in the upper third, and the author's name in the bottom third. It's in narrow enough type that I don't think it would obscure or overpower the two figures. And the image has a nice diagonal, running from the lower left corner upward toward the right. Moving the title up out of the center would allow that diagonal to "work" for you more effectively. Just some random musings ...
By the way ... please figure out how to post smaller versions of your covers for comment. The only way I could really get a sense of how this cover works was to copy the image, past it into Windows Paint, and then zoom out a couple or three levels.
I like the color much better than either black of white. You might do some fiddling to see if something works better, maybe a blue further into green. My two cents worth is: you're getting there.
I hope you don't mind that I played with this a bit. I used a different font, but your font is great. I was thinking that the title should be much bigger (which also leaves out black for a title color). I tried red for fun, but other colors might also work. Also, if you change the sizes on a few of the letters, it draws the skimmer's attention. I used a black drop shadow behind the red at 13% angle and 100% opacity. I would have written all of that, but sometimes it's easier to see the possibilities and then play some more on your own... Just realized in thumbnail that my D & E on Dead are too close together. Needs to be moved just a sliver...
To answer your question, although I'm not the target audience, thrillers often use the guy walking away with huge bold fonts. If that's your audience, I think you're in the ballpark.
No. It's sinister and I have a strong intuition that the contents would make me feel bad. Design-wise, it's OK, though. The dark-on-dark title doesn't bother me at all, but the white letter "T" is slightly difficult to read because its background is so much darker than the rest.
Humingbird, that's an improvement, thanks. Thanks for replying everybody. I`ve finally got a cover designer to do it.
Is that the final cover? It gives a totally different vibe. Either way, I think the woman may be too large for the cover. Maybe if she were sort of transparent/out of focus or just looking the other way?
