Which one looks most book coverish?
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@Braden-Hallett C looks like a giant hand is making a rude gesture.
A or B work fine but I think you could lighten your values on your characters and keep the rest dark. I am doing a bunch of covers for a client in the vein of old Hardy Boys book covers and after looking at all those covers, the main characters had light on them even in night scenes.
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@Braden-Hallett "design sins"
I like them all with C as my favorite, but they all seem a little wide to me. If a book cover is wider it seems more like a picture book when I would have expected these to be narrower like a graphic novel.
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A is nice but C really makes me want to know more about the story. I think as a cover design C would make more people want to pick it up and read it.
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@Braden-Hallett i like C! Also I don't mind dark covers, actually they really suit my taste! Also, side note if you actually go with C, something feels off on the structures behind..
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@chrisaakins said in Which one looks most book coverish?:
C looks like a giant hand is making a rude gesture.
The rude gesture is integral to the story. Many rude gestures are gestured.
lol, it really does look like it, doesn't it?
I'll see what I can do about lightening the values up a bit. Thanks!
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@carolinebautista said in Which one looks most book coverish?:
I like them all with C as my favorite, but they all seem a little wide to me. If a book cover is wider it seems more like a picture book when I would have expected these to be narrower like a graphic novel.
iiiiinteresting! I'll have to re-research the normal dimensions of a middlegrade book. Thanks!
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The 'swoosh' in A pulls your eye through the cover and is dynamic. You want someone to look through and 'read' your design - not get stuck. B and C both lack this movement and dynamism.
If C was pushed a little more to have some more dynamics to the robot (?) it could work.
But A defines your hero characters better, they have a lot more agency in this setting.
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thanks everyone for the feedback! It looks like A and C (my most and least favourite) are neck and neck so I may flesh out both of them a bit more!
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A is the first one my eyes gravitate towards. I also like b but it is a little too dark.
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I voted A. Just doing a quick glance, A was the only one that instantly shot my eye to the focal point. C to me at least feels like when I look at it my attention falls out of the image.
At least you can eliminate B as an option
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C is my fave, I feel kinda like I’m right in there!
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Gotta be A for me! The scull really captures my morbid curiosity (even if this is for a children's book. My 10 year old self would vote for A too). I like that it's from a perspective of looking up at the characters/ scene too. Gives a real sense of scale, depth and gravity. I enjoy the colours a lot! Sure, there's a lot of black but that's no problem if you utilise light as well as you have. Best of luck with it all!
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From all three as is without context, A is the more interesting one since it picks curiosity and investigating the unknown while the others are more about hanging out.
I think they are overall good composition roughs but each has a very different purpose or target so in my opinion it would highly depend on the story.
•A feels more like its about a close encounter mystery/intrigue to the unknown.
•B feels more like slow paced friendly story for younger kids (far from exciting). It could work better if both kids had a sort of perspective that matches the alien creature and a more secure pose, maybe one of them even pointing forward or something. Or if you turn the kids to face the creature in horror/fear could also work as first encounter mystery but it depends on the story.
•C feels more like a wild outgoing exploring adventure (it gives out the good nature of the creature though... what I mean is if the story is mostly about the kids avoiding/fearing the creature for a while and then revealing it as being good then you wouldn't want to reveal that in the cover, something like the orange "eye" in cover A, there seems like it's going to be conflict around it but you can't tell if the entity is good or bad). -
The colors on C work a lot better than A. Blue/black just don’t jump out as much and orange/black. If I were to see these thumbnails in a gallery, I think C would stand out the most.
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Def A. I think that one raises the biggest question as well as invites to find out what the story is about.
Skimming the reactions I might have overlooked it; but what age bracket is your target audience? And is it the cover of a book, book with illustrations (picture book I guess?) or a strip/graphic novel?
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C has my vote!
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@glenfx Very true! This is all very context dependant! Thanks for the feedback
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@Niels said in Which one looks most book coverish?:
Skimming the reactions I might have overlooked it; but what age bracket is your target audience? And is it the cover of a book, book with illustrations (picture book I guess?) or a strip/graphic novel?
Good point! It'd be a middle grade novel (so, a few interior illustrations)
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Thanks again for the rest of the follow-up. I think A wins
