Text design advice

veinglory

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The picture is pretty much set, although I can crop in or out (shown moderately cropped). But I would really appreciate advice about how to design the text--font, size, placement etc? Here is my go at it.

 
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Southpaw

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The title goes too far to the edges (especially the e in Muse), squeeze it just a little.

Your name doesn't pop enough. Try another drop show on top of what you have but tighter, offset 1 and 1, blur nor more than 3 with a dark, almost black gray. That might be enough.
 

BryanFischer

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The title is too wide, like Southpaw said. I would bring it in. Also, consider adding emphasis on it with a slight gradient in either a white or an orange.

As for your name, consider justifying right to help it stand out more.
 

kevinwaynewilliams

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Might take a bit of expertise to pull it off, but I'd try to match the text to the skin tone of the model and add some internal rounding that matches the shadowing on the model's muscles.
 

gtbun

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I would ditch that text completely. The font just doesn't sit well, and you want to avoid text effects as much as possible. Obviously, I don't know your skillset well enough, but I would blow the image up until all you have on the cover is the muscle definition of the model's back. At the very least until that is the only element on the page, the top half of the image is redundant. That way you have a more interesting canvas to work on, with greater definition of colour, i.e. not a mess of different colours, and then won't need to use drop shadows etc to make the text stand out.

From there, I would use a thick, heavy, sans-serif in white and place it centrally on the page. This should stand distinct from the image, and any areas that don't will be incremental and not matter so much. Your name can then be placed wherever you like horizontally - top or bottom - in the same typeface, though you can use a different weight with little issue. That way you create a more defined separation of image and text than what you have and make the title - in this case the most interesting bit - the centre piece of the cover.