Which cover is better?

[pegasi&prefects]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Looks like I mistook the 'J' for a 'T'.

Oh, me too!

I actually like both covers quite a lot. I think they are very attractive. I agree with everything said about cold and bleak vs warm and hopeful, so it depends on the feel you are trying to project.

BUT, I think that J is a problem. I think the font looks great onscreen, but... I really did think the book was called The Test.

[Gregg Bell]

Thanks!

[magicmonster]

First looks like it could be a murder mystery. Second a fluff, romance or chicken lit.

[magicmonster]

Chick lit.... darn auto correct

[meeera]

Now I want to read some chicken lit.

[burnafterreading]

Originally Posted by meeera

Now I want to read some chicken lit.

ask and ye shall receive. of course, the first 8-9 results from google are chick lit, but if you persists, you get...


http://chickenlitlibrarian.blogspot.ca/

[dwig]

I may be a little late to the party with this but ...

After many many many... years of doing design work there is an issue with the title text that, small as it is, shouts "cheap DIY cover art" to my sensitive eyes. I also agree with the consensus here that the "T" need fixing.

The irritant for me is the straight-out-of-the-box text usage that shows the small flaws that are always present in script fonts. In natural handwriting the out bound stroke of one character flows perfectly into the inbound stroke on the next. When using computer fonts these don't always align since the font designer can't make the flow perfect for all letter combinations. This is seen in the cover in the connection between the "e" and the "s" and again in the connection between the "s" and the "t". Similar "fixes" may be desirable on the small "the" also, I can't really tell in the low resolution original.

What should be done is that the text should be set in a vector drawing program (e.g. Adobe Illustrator, Corel DRAW, ...) and converted to outlines/paths and those vector paths should then be edited to produce the proper flow. This "used to be text but is now vector art" object can then be positioned in the final program used to composite the complete cover (e.g. Photoshop, ...). While editing the vector paths, the "T" can be trimmed of its excessive loop.

I've attached two JPEGs, the left with the "flaws" are highlighted in green and the right with my suggested fixes. (This was a quick-and-dirty Photoshop edit rather than a proper reconstruction)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by dwig

I may be a little late to the party with this but ...

After many many many... years of doing design work there is an issue with the title text that, small as it is, shouts "cheap DIY cover art" to my sensitive eyes. I also agree with the consensus here that the "T" need fixing.

The irritant for me is the straight-out-of-the-box text usage that shows the small flaws that are always present in script fonts. In natural handwriting the out bound stroke of one character flows perfectly into the inbound stroke on the next. When using computer fonts these don't always align since the font designer can't make the flow perfect for all letter combinations. This is seen in the cover in the connection between the "e" and the "s" and again in the connection between the "s" and the "t". Similar "fixes" may be desirable on the small "the" also, I can't really tell in the low resolution original.

What should be done is that the text should be set in a vector drawing program (e.g. Adobe Illustrator, Corel DRAW, ...) and converted to outlines/paths and those vector paths should then be edited to produce the proper flow. This "used to be text but is now vector art" object can then be positioned in the final program used to composite the complete cover (e.g. Photoshop, ...). While editing the vector paths, the "T" can be trimmed of its excessive loop.

I've attached two JPEGs, the left with the "flaws" are highlighted in green and the right with my suggested fixes. (This was a quick-and-dirty Photoshop edit rather than a proper reconstruction)

Insightful comment. Your "T" does look better and never noticed the consonant-to-consonant burrs. Appreciate it.