Need help choosing a new cover

Image-wise: The one on the right communicates more to me. It *looks like a mystery* could be contained within it. (Though the historical inaccuracy of the clothes probably would bug me.)
Design-wise: They both need improvement.
Typography-wise: Neither pleases me. (The typography tutorial covers a lot of the basic reasons why)

I can clarify further, but I'm not sure if you are up for critique versus just wanting to know which to the viewer is better. So I'll leave off here. If you want further explanation, let me know.

So I vote right.

I always think that a human element connects better with readers. With the typography, I agree. You have to consider legibility from smaller sizes. The script font doesn't read well from a distance.

I am fond of legible non-standard fonts.

I like the image in the left one better, but the right one makes a better cover as is.

It would be interesting to see the girl in foreground of the left landscape. You would need to adjust colors and shading a lot to get that blended.

To be honest, neither grab me. I would suggest something like the left one but with everything bigger, blighter, clearer and more harmoniously positioned. Big face with suspense expression, clear architecture giving a sense of place etc.

The right-hand cover definitely seems more appealing to me, though I agree that the handwriting font used for your name is a little difficult to read.

I prefer the one on the left, hands down.
Aesthetically, I feel the right one isn't balanced. The woman above doesn't match the scene below- they're in different styles, separated by a thick bar of text. Though they're nice independently, It forces you to look at the top part or the bottom part. The left image is solid, unified, nice colour, good focal point, it draws your eye to the center of the image.
Aside from that, I always prefer to imagine what the characters look like so I tend to be less inclined towards human images.

It's interesting that there is so much back and forth in this tread. Beauty in the eye and all that jazz.

Good luck

I'll do both and then break down why I think so, which may make this run long, but at least others can comment to agree or disagree and you will get a balanced opinion and ability to see why.

Cover on the Left:

Overall, it just needs tweaking if you do choose it.

Color-wise it's not bad, though I can kinda see the mask, which bothers me.

It is monochromatic to analogous, which can be tough to do on a cover well. Gradients aren't my favorite thing in the world...

You can improve it color-wise by thinking about the trick of values. That is lights, midtones and darks Try to consciously think about that and saturation.

The title blends in too much, but I'll cover that when I get down to typography

Composition: I think you can benefit a little from the rule of thirds and minding the rule of don't split your composition in half. These is a graphic design term. This is because the horizonline on your church comes a bit too close to comfort to the half of the cover. This seriously bugs me because I don't know where to look, compositionally.

Typography:
- Mind your margins. The Dee Garretson is too close to the edge as well as the title. It might be the print training I have but I can't quite let it go. (I think about the bleed...)
- The steeple of the church is running too close to the curve of the S in Seine for comfort creating a tangency and an odd breakage of negative space that's distracting from the ability to read it.
- Also the title blends in too much for comfort for me in terms of color. It looks the same as the Church, which is supposed to be background, which isn't good in marketing terms.
- The size of the title is about the same size as the church as well. (Rank size) It looks like you tried to make the title as large as possible, but sometimes more negative space can add to readability. (Typography professor beat this into me.)
- The different fonts. It bugs me. You can get away with one, but you chose to go with two. The size and color difference should communicate the difference on its own. KISS the fonts--go with one. Typography rules say that bold and font changes should be a last resort. Your first choices should be color, caps (If the font allows it without making typographers irrate), size, underline (in that order, roughly). and then a bunch I can't remember anymore. Last is font change and then bold. Personally, I'd go with the serif font because it kinda fits the imagry and feel of the times. I also associate it with roman and bygone eras...

Concept-wise: I didn't nominate it because it doesn't automatically communicate to me the genre and tell me, "Please pick me up." It looks like it could be a text book on churches, a book about life in France--it doesn't do the functional part of what a cover should do. (Chip Kidd has a good thing on this: http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_kidd_designing_books_is_no_laughing_matter_ok_it_is.html)
Also, it doesn't say "Art student" to me, it says, "Churches" "religion" but I might be a bit biased since I was in France. I would think the Louvre, which was open at that time, would be a better nomination, if you want something recognizable.

I think you're worried a bit too much about being "on the nose" by showing the Seine, but your blurb has more about the character... I want to know the people more since that connects me to the story.

Don't know if you know these terms so I'll list them for you and others.
Tangency: Same as the math term--where two elements create a hairline space that draws attention to itself. For graphic designers it's the obsession with negative space and using it well. *Some* tangencies can be good, but most are usually unintentional, thus bad. (Typographers obsess incessantly about tangencies.)
Rule of thirds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
Golden Mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean
Monochromatic:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochromatic_color

Cover on the Right:

I like the human connection and the hat kinda tells me it's a mystery. Needs tweaking more on composition and typography.

Color-wise: The type shows up first, which is good. Still, though it's analogous, more than monochromatic...

Composition: Push the girl so she's in the position of Golden Mean. Don't worry about the back of her hat or the negative space. In this case running off the hat off the page will show that the picture continues outside of the margin. Also it will be stronger compositionally as we will connect to the face first and eliminate the tangency.

The compositional problems with the typography I'll cover again.

The bottom part of the page gets lost, though there is a better sense of ranking when you do that it doesn't say "France" right away for me. Again, this is a sizing issue. Make sure that you pay attention to the size. If you make the bottom part like a painting... that might be a nice effect...

As I said, it would bug me that the girl at the top isn't in a proper to-period dress. =P You could probably hire a digital painter to paint on one for fairly cheap.

Typography:
- Mind your margins, again. (Make the type smaller)
- No script fonts--they bug me. Choose the same font as the title.
- The type box is the same size at the girl's box. I would choose one to be more important and run with that.
- I think the name also can benefit from being a tad smaller and centered underneath the "in the Seine" by negative space.

Concept: The concept is stronger. (IMO) though there is, as one person pointed out, less unification of elements. Again, I kind of want to image of France to say "Historical Mystery in France" rather than "Look! It's the Seine" But it's closer to a marketing tool in this case.

Probably the difference here, is that Graphic design tends towards more functional as a way to communicate... so I hope the critique gave you tools to learn how to communicate more effectively. (Rules in graphic design and typography get broken because of that core concept. If breaking the rule will communicate the message more effectively, that's when it's done.)

If I forgot to cover a term or wasn't clear, let me know...

I have indeed seen the new JK Rowling cover! Personally, I hate it. To my eyes, it's not memorable or interesting.

From what I've seen, there's a lot of mixed opinions on it. But credit where credit's due: it's getting people talking.

Amarie said:

Thanks again, Rachel and everyone else. my head is spinning a bit from several things to consider.

Click to expand...

My experience in these places is to take advice and opinions only for what they're worth. But don't let them get in the way of being productive.

I can understand some of the choices on the JK Rowling cover... (though I agree it's not my favorite, it does challenge the viewer)

The hot colors are supposed to say, "A town at war"

While the script font is supposed to say "Lazy town"

The border (which I'm against in most cases) probably is trying to communicate "self-contained" as in the self contained lazy town.

The x is supposed to represent the war.

Which makes it a symbolic cover, but for me, I think going too far into symbolism short changes the book.

The publisher wanted the cover to feel controversial... (from their statements about the contents itself) so they broke several of the rules that graphic designers adhere to:
1. Borders
2. Tangencies
3. Color Harmony
4. Script fonts
5. Different fonts for the title and the author name.
6. Using an inappropriate font for the author name. (Vaguely looks art deco.)

Which goes to show that the first order of business for a cover is to communicate with the viewer what the contents of the book are in a purposeful fashion... which they tried to do.

However, I still don't like it. I think there probably would have been more subtle ways to communicate the *symbols* just like reading a blunt story makes one feel like a baseball bat is whopping you over the head, "Do you get it yet?" And most laymen wouldn't get the inherent symbolism either at first glance.

Anyway, back to subject... As Gale said, opinions are opinions and mine is often wrong (from others POV). =P So sort and take from it what you can.