# New cover design



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 5, 2018)

So this is my first foray into outsourcing my covers, but there is just not a lot of clip art of the Queen Mary floating over Long Beach Harbor. I checked.
I was looking for retro, like golden age of sci-fi, with a touch of 70's disaster genre.
What'dya think?


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 5, 2018)

Does the author font look okay, or should it be something more serious?


----------



## bdcharles (Oct 5, 2018)

Hmm. Conceptually it's fine but stylistically I would say it needs work (not sure if it's a final version or a prototype). What's the genre? Within that, is it slightly comedic or more pulpy?


----------



## Theglasshouse (Oct 5, 2018)

It looks okay but could be better if she had a camera instead of a cellphone. I like how it looks like a painting, it is very well drawn and colored. That's my opinion anyhow, it looks better than covers I have seen. I doubt you'd replace the cellphone with the camera. This is just my opinion.


----------



## moderan (Oct 5, 2018)

It looks cartoony, caricaturish. If that's what you were after, then it works. The fonts are fine in-context. The original art wasn't done in enough pixels and the expansion looks underexposed. Love the scene, just not the execution.


----------



## Kyle R (Oct 5, 2018)

I like the artwork.

I'm not a huge fan of the font, though. Seems a bit ... goofy? I know you're going for that old-school feel, but it looks more amateurish than retro (to me).

The drop shadow adds to the amateurish feel (even though it fits, thematically, with the anti-gravity concept). Have you tried putting a drop shadow under "Irrelevant" only, just to see how that looks?

I say find a font that's a bit more on the serious end, and you're in business. :encouragement:


----------



## sigmadog (Oct 5, 2018)

I'm not seeing any artwork, so I guess my comment is "not enough contrast."

UPDATE: Okay, I had to look at the forum in Windows to see it (it's not visible in Firefox for Mac).

Anyway, I have several points to make:

1. Competing art styles. It seems there are a couple different image styles working at odds here. On the one hand you have the ship and helo which are realistically rendered, and then you have the spectators in the foreground which are much less realistically rendered. This is odd and makes the image seem unfinished and, I'm afraid, amateurish in my view.

2. Size relationships. The dominant and most interesting part of the composition should be the ship. In my view it should be the biggest object in the frame. But it's not. The biggest object is the blob of poorly rendered spectators. This weakens the composition considerably.

3. The blond spectator at least makes sense. We can see that she is taking a photo of the ship. But what the heck is that other blob doing? It looks to me like she/he is not really a person, but merely a platform to support the blond's boobies. Rule #1 in cover design: if it isn't needed, don't include it.

4. Font. The font choice is okay, I'm not crazy about it but it may suggest a sort of madcap tone that is present in the writing. I don't know if that is the case or not, so I'll defer to the artist's choice here. However, I suggest inserting a bit of spacing between the letters to aid legibility. Also, the holes in the "A" become very tiny and tend to make it less recognizable as an "A".

5. Question: Are you a well known author? If yes, then ignore this comment. But if no, then why is your name the biggest text on the page? If you aren't well known enough in this genre, then greater emphasis is better placed on the title.

Apologies if these criticisms seem harsh. They are meant to be brutally honest.


----------



## Jack of all trades (Oct 6, 2018)

With the title where it is, it kind of looks like maybe the ship is being lowered by a crane that's outside the picture.

With the calm water and dry ship, it looks like it's being placed into the water and not pulled up out of the water.

I agree with the other points sigmadog made.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 8, 2018)

moderan said:


> It looks cartoony, caricaturish. If that's what you were after, then it works. The fonts are fine in-context. The original art wasn't done in enough pixels and the expansion looks underexposed. Love the scene, just not the execution.




I am aiming at almost a 60ish sci-fi magazine look.  So it is supposed to look a look a little cartoonish.  

Underexposed? I do not understand Master Yoda?


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 8, 2018)

sigmadog said:


> 3. The blond spectator at least makes sense. We can see that she is taking a photo of the ship. But what the heck is that other blob doing? It looks to me like she/he is not really a person, but merely a platform to support the blond's boobies. Rule #1 in cover design: if it isn't needed, don't include it.
> 
> 4. Font. The font choice is okay, I'm not crazy about it but it may suggest a sort of madcap tone that is present in the writing. I don't know if that is the case or not, so I'll defer to the artist's choice here. However, I suggest inserting a bit of spacing between the letters to aid legibility. Also, the holes in the "A" become very tiny and tend to make it less recognizable as an "A".
> 
> ...




*I think #3 and #5 above are the same issue.* I made the author name so big that it ruined the artwork.  Because I block out the 2nd spectator, the cover tells a different story.  I'm gonna change that to line the bottom of the page.

*#4: *I was aiming for sixties sci-fi Radio-Shack kinda flavor. Does it need to be more serious? Should the title font be different from the author font?


But you are right, I need to add a tiny bit of spacing to the title, and increase the notch in the letter A. Tweaking it now.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 8, 2018)

How does this do?


----------



## moderan (Oct 8, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I am aiming at almost a 60ish sci-fi magazine look.  So it is supposed to look a look a little cartoonish.
> 
> Underexposed? I do not understand Master Yoda?



The shadowing looks like underexposed film. The whole thing is way busy for my tastes. Just imo.


----------



## Jack of all trades (Oct 8, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> How does this do?



Not liking the white background on the spine and back. The front cover still has some of the same issues it had before. The author name seems a bit better, though.


----------



## sigmadog (Oct 8, 2018)

This is a rough sketch showing the direction I would take on this cover.

I would emphasize the word "GRAVITY" because that relates to the image better than anything else. The visual emphasis of the whole design is centered on GRAVITY and the floating ship, creating a visual one-two punch that demands attention. The people below are in muted colors so as not to distract from the main emphasis.

If I were doing this cover, I would create the whole illustration at once using the same style for every element so that it remained an integrated composition. Doing this would avoid the problem I mentioned earlier about different styles slapped together.

The font is more action-oriented and "sci-fi" in my view, but fonts can be pretty subjective, and this is simply my preference.

It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good start and resolves many of the issues I pointed out earlier.



Also, I eliminated the helicopter just because I was in a hurry, but it could be layered in front of the ship to give it a sense of scale. I'd also play around with the size of the spectators to see if they can be smaller, which could make the scale seem even bigger.

As I look at it, I'm beginning to think the people in the scene are irrelevant (just like gravity! ha!) and the image would be more powerful and visually arresting without any other distractions. 

Just my thoughts. That's the point of roughs: to see and consider options.


----------



## JustRob (Oct 9, 2018)

I agree with much that has already been written about the artwork but feel that the weakness actually lies in the title. I appreciate that it reflects titles from the 1950's and 60's, especially _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ to my mind, but it does present problems in the artwork as has already been mentioned. I think the key issue may be with the words "became irrelevant", which are long but not particularly strong. If you look at the assorted artwork for _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ you'll see that the title was usually written with all the words in the same font size and the fact that they were all roughly the same length aided the layout. In some cases prominence was given to the words "Earth Stood Still" because they embodied the main plotline.

I suggest reviewing your title. Given that you mention potential killing in your plot blurb perhaps you should consider bringing this motif into the title, making it "The Day Gravity Was Killed". Gravity was still relevant after all but could now be killed off selectively, just as the process's originators could be. This means that the words "Gravity Was Killed" can be emphasised in the artwork to provide the main theme and add a sense of threat not present in the words "became irrelevant". Also the words are shorter, giving more scope in the layout. Choose something like that anyway.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 10, 2018)

moderan said:


> The shadowing looks like underexposed film. The whole thing is way busy for my tastes. Just imo.




You think I should lighten it? It is kinda dark, especially when it thumbnails.
I'll brighten it a tad.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Oct 10, 2018)

sigmadog said:


> I would emphasize the word "GRAVITY" because that relates to the image better than anything else. The visual emphasis of the whole design is centered on GRAVITY and the floating ship, creating a visual one-two punch that demands attention.
> 
> View attachment 22815




I like how you created the banner along the top.  It does stand out, and the color screams 1960s dime magazine.


----------



## Sir-KP (Oct 10, 2018)

IMO the painting needs to be in hyper realistic, that's first and the hardest part. The focus needs to be at, in this case, the floating cruise ship and a sea.

Secondly, a couple of humans posing and having facial expression of despair. LOL. That's basically what I see from 70's disaster movie posters.

Remove that blurry drop shadow. If you still needs it later on, make it solid and closer to the text.


----------



## Horsey (Nov 27, 2018)

This is obviously my personal opinion, I think the cover is way too busy and colorful... something just feels off about it. But I have no suggestions so you may want to disregard my opinion. I do love the idea behind the book, based on the title though.

If the cover is an event that happened in the book, have you thought about something more small scale that doesn't relate to the story...maybe a close up of a ball floating out of the hands of a child?  That might be a far worse idea, but I think I like the minimalist approach better...

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk


----------



## escorial (Nov 27, 2018)

Has that self published look


----------



## Horsey (Nov 27, 2018)

escorial said:


> Has that self published look


That's exactly what I thought as well

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk


----------

