Cover comments please?

[BeccaPrice]

for a fairy tale about gargoyles. The Heart of Rock is the magic amulet that gives the gargoyles life; it's a small red sandstone rock. Keith Draws is doing the cover for me.

Mostly I like it; I'm not sure about my name being in stark white though.

[cromag]

I like the contrasting colors and the backdrop of scales. I don't see anything obviously wrong.

Good luck with it!

[avantman42]

There's a stark contrast between the very fancily formatted title and the very plain author name. I'm not entirely sure whether or not it's a bad thing, though it does look a little like the author name was added as an afterthought.

All that said, I'm not really familiar with fantasy covers, which I suspect is where you'd be most likely to see this sort of thing. If the convention is to format the title and leave the author name plain, then there's something to be said for following the convention.

[pynch]

I like the title illustration, but I think that its impact is diminished by the background, which looks to “clean” to me, as if it was done with a computer. And of course it was done with a computer, but it shouldn’t look like it. I would go with a dirtier green and less highlights, or perhaps even with a black background to strengthen the title.

And the position of the author’s name looks a little unmotivated to me, too. I assume the full-width size of it was used to be readable in the small cover pictures that online shops use, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I would propose to make it much smaller (sorry, Becca!) und put it above the “eart” of “Heart”.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by pynch

I assume the full-width size of it was used to be readable in the small cover pictures that online shops use, but I don’t think that’s necessary.

Conventional wisdom seems to say that the title and author should be readable at thumbnail size. I've seen people argue that it's not necessary because when browsing, the title & author name are listed, but that's not universally true - the Kindle Android app, for example, displays a list of book covers at the bottom of the home page.

[pynch]

Of course there are stores where you only get the thumbnail, and I don’t doubt that it can make sense to have both title and author name big enough (I think a high name recognition would justify it). But still, these rules tend to limit the possibilities of the design too much for my taste, and can lead to uniform covers that look kind of cheap and scream “Buy me!”, instead of being nice to look at.

Perhaps I’m the wrong person to comment here, as I prefer to not submit to these commercial “necessities” when doing my covers. And certainly, this is just my general view that doesn’t necessarily apply to your cover, Becca.

[James_Wilde]

For the record, I like it. And I don't think there's anything wrong with the size or colour of the author's name.

[BeccaPrice]

new version - the green is slightly toned down, and so is the white.

[avantman42]

I prefer the new version.

[gmw]

For a children's book I probably would have expected something a little brighter - and with a picture on it. But from a "what do I personally think" perspective, I quite like it.

I do like the new version best. I find the title is a bit easier to read in the thumbnail, and the author name seems to fit in better (only really noticeable on the large size).

[BeccaPrice]

Thanks, all!

[VydorScope]

Yea, I like the second version better.

[BeccaPrice]

two more possibilities.

I think I like the stone background better than the green scales - should I return the lettering back to a bolder red? I was going after red sandstone look, but it may be too dull.

[gmw]

I think I like the earlier (green scales cover better), these ones may come up okay if you brighten the fonts - they look quite washed out as they are now.

[Dr. Drib]

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