Novel cover critique...for a beginner

elindsen

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Hey AW!

This is a dark paranormal erotic romance
Okay, so these are the covers for my new novel. I am in love with the picture, but the font and colors just aren't perfect to me. I'm new at cover design, so please use simpler words in your crit :) If you don't like either font, could you suggest something that may work? As you can see, one is more complicated, but this novel is dark so I thought it may go with it. What about the placement of my name? I'm open to tons of ideas.


v1
TyransLustcover3.jpg


v2
TyransLustcover1-1.jpg
 

Aurelee

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Can you try a sample with the V2- Name and V1- Title font?
The font color doesn't really fit with the picture for me, but maybe it will look better with the two swapped around.
 

LBlankenship

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Is the original photo horizontally squashed, or did you do that in the composition? It's really... distracting. Personal peeve.

You're going to need something behind the type -- a screen, a fade-out, something -- because I can barely read it for all the interference from the photo.
 

elindsen

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Is the original photo horizontally squashed, or did you do that in the composition? It's really... distracting. Personal peeve.

You're going to need something behind the type -- a screen, a fade-out, something -- because I can barely read it for all the interference from the photo.

The original picture was squared and when I cropped the extra stuff it condensed it. This is as good as I can make it without it looking too bad.

How would I do a fade out? I don't have photoshop, only publisher's what I've been using.
 

WeaselFire

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This is as good as I can make it without it looking too bad.
Then you really want to pay (or beg, threaten, cajole, trick or blackmail...) someone else to do it. Really.

Publisher is not a tool for graphic design. Technically, it's not even a tool for publishing. Or really useful for anything.

Jeff
 

elindsen

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Okay, what do you guys think of this? Now, I know it's not perfect. I have to center a bit and get rid of the border around the veil. But what do you think of the veil? I tried to pick one that had an air of transparency, mostly because I don't like blocky banners.

My mom said you can read this one a lot better.

tlc1.jpg
 

retlaw

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Congrats on trying to tackle book covers! Some questions below -

Are you absolutely sold on red for the font?

In the photo, I think there's too much body. Can you pull the ppl down & maybe put the title up top & your name at the bottom?

I like the corona effect of the light, but do you like the contrasting backgrounds? Have you tried a solid?

Can you zoom out on the couple? I wonder what more background & less ppl would look like.
 

Rachel Udin

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Also pixlr.com online is photoshop-like as well. Just don't close the window while you're working on it...

And the picture does look squished. There are composition issues with the type because it looks like it was thought about last rather than *with* the entire cover. If you had free reign, where would you put the type?

Personally, I'd prefer the type to have a natural place in the composition. I also like covers that aren't too easy... that bloom with reading the story. (Perks of Being a Wallflower while not high on technical ability has high graphic design ability to it)

I also agree that version 2 Author name in the first post is better and that version 1's title of the book font is better.