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Post by ronmiller on Jul 16, 2020 13:49:45 GMT
Just ran across this today and was impressed by it. Not a DIY job, but a good object lesson nevertheless! Not 100% crazy about the typography or layout but the graphic image is pretty nice.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2020 18:13:39 GMT
Just ran across this today and was impressed by it. Not a DIY job, but a good object lesson nevertheless! Not 100% crazy about the typography or layout but the graphic image is pretty nice. I'm not zooming in yet, just so I can guess the theme.
It's a Hallowe'en book?
I don't like the design or the font. The hand is interesting if it has tattoos close up. Waiting before I go that close to find out if I was right about the subject matter.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2020 18:15:19 GMT
Just ran across this today and was impressed by it. Not a DIY job, but a good object lesson nevertheless! Not 100% crazy about the typography or layout but the graphic image is pretty nice. Ohhh I see the people now.  Yes, very cool art. |
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Post by ronmiller on Jul 16, 2020 18:38:10 GMT
Just ran across this today and was impressed by it. Not a DIY job, but a good object lesson nevertheless! Not 100% crazy about the typography or layout but the graphic image is pretty nice. Ohhh I see the people now. Yes, very cool art. Yup! I would have made the hand larger on the cover and not wrapped the type the way it was done...but the concept of the shadows/skeleton hand was just too brilliant to pass up! |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2020 16:33:54 GMT
Ohhh I see the people now. Yes, very cool art. Yup! I would have made the hand larger on the cover and not wrapped the type the way it was done...but the concept of the shadows/skeleton hand was just brilliant to pass up! Yes, there's something too symmetrical and centered about it. It's needs to be shaken up. |
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Post by ronmiller on Jul 17, 2020 17:47:48 GMT
The art does pretty much everything a cover illustration should do: it attracts the eye and it conveys in a glance an idea of the book's theme or idea...and is a memorable image.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2020 12:02:20 GMT
The art does pretty much everything a cover illustration should do: it attracts the eye and it conveys in a glance an idea of the book's theme or idea...and is a memorable image. Ron, I've been thinking about your comment since, and here the student and the teacher have to disagree, probably because I believe like there is another layer to human beings, there is also another layer that needs to be affected for a successful cover. That unexplainable thing that moves your soul.
For example, Liane Moriarty's books don't really show what the book is about. They just have an effect. That is their intention. To engage, to keep, to make you want and love it. I think the rules have changed.
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Post by ronmiller on Jul 18, 2020 12:56:23 GMT
The art does pretty much everything a cover illustration should do: it attracts the eye and it conveys in a glance an idea of the book's theme or idea...and is a memorable image. Ron, I've been thinking about your comment since, and here the student and the teacher have to disagree, probably because I believe like there is another layer to human beings, there is also another layer that needs to be affected for a successful cover. That unexplainable thing that moves your soul.
For example, Liane Moriarty's books don't really show what the book is about. They just have an effect. That is their intention. To engage, to keep, to make you want and love it. I think the rules have changed.
I don't really see where these particularly violate anything I have said. For instance, if the cover for "The Husband's Secret" was just an image of a flower I would think it too unengaging, uninformative and even misleading...but a flower that appears to be crushed (even broken into small pieces as though it had been brittle) does give an impression of the book's theme. In fact, "shattering" is used at least twice in descriptions of the story. Besides, they seem to be part of a kind of branding with several other covers being done similarly (while other novels, such as "The Last Anniversary," are more illustrative). I might also suggest that she may be benefiting from some name recognition as well (after all, she is popular enough to have an HBO series based on her work). If the purpose of her covers is to make you want to "engage, keep and want" the book, then they are doing exactly what a cover ought to do. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2020 19:11:56 GMT
Ron, I've been thinking about your comment since, and here the student and the teacher have to disagree, probably because I believe like there is another layer to human beings, there is also another layer that needs to be affected for a successful cover. That unexplainable thing that moves your soul.
For example, Liane Moriarty's books don't really show what the book is about. They just have an effect. That is their intention. To engage, to keep, to make you want and love it. I think the rules have changed.
I don't really see where these particularly violate anything I have said. For instance, if the cover for "The Husband's Secret" was just an image of a flower I would think it too unengaging, uninformative and even misleading...but a flower that appears to be crushed (even broken into small pieces as though it had been brittle) does give an impression of the book's theme. In fact, "shattering" is used at least twice in descriptions of the story. Besides, they seem to be part of a kind of branding with several other covers being done similarly (while other novels, such as "The Last Anniversary," are more illustrative). I might also suggest that she may be benefiting from some name recognition as well (after all, she is popular enough to have an HBO series based on her work). If the purpose of her covers is to make you want to "engage, keep and want" the book, then they are doing exactly what a cover ought to do. Ron, she has many covers and has had them from way before she was famous. This is her style and this is the style of many new authors. Effect over content. Lasting impression over logic and rules. Many many covers now have nothing to do with the content. Truly Madly Guilty has water one it. 
You believe it should reflect the content and be engaging. I believe the content of the cover should draw people in and can be anything from inside the book, not necessarily portray what the book is about. One Dragonfly was on the cover of Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. The book was not about dragonflies. It was just a metaphor, a slight one out of hundreds.
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Post by ronmiller on Jul 18, 2020 22:35:15 GMT
I don't really see where these particularly violate anything I have said. For instance, if the cover for "The Husband's Secret" was just an image of a flower I would think it too unengaging, uninformative and even misleading...but a flower that appears to be crushed (even broken into small pieces as though it had been brittle) does give an impression of the book's theme. In fact, "shattering" is used at least twice in descriptions of the story. Besides, they seem to be part of a kind of branding with several other covers being done similarly (while other novels, such as "The Last Anniversary," are more illustrative). I might also suggest that she may be benefiting from some name recognition as well (after all, she is popular enough to have an HBO series based on her work). If the purpose of her covers is to make you want to "engage, keep and want" the book, then they are doing exactly what a cover ought to do. Ron, she has many covers and has had them from way before she was famous. This is her style and this is the style of many new authors. Effect over content. Lasting impression over logic and rules. Many many covers now have nothing to do with the content. Truly Madly Guilty has water one it.
You believe it should reflect the content and be engaging. I believe the content of the cover should draw people in and can be anything from inside the book, not necessarily portray what the book is about. One Dragonfly was on the cover of Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. The book was not about dragonflies. It was just a metaphor, a slight one out of hundreds.
Well, again, Gabaldon is hardly an unknown writer. Besides, there are numerous covers for Dragonfly in Amber. The first edition featured only a chalice...a device that seems to have been prominent in several other different covers for the same book. I think that by the time the dragonfly cover appeared, the book was a familiar one. And while Moriarty does have many books, I really don't see a consistent theme in her cover style, except in her most recent titles. Frankly, I think that the philosophy of "draw the people in regardless of whether or not the art has anything to do with the book" is potentially dishonest...a kind of visual bait and switch. But if you at least select something from the book, whatever it might be, you are playing fair to that extent. For instance, I see no reason why a cover cannot be both engaging and informative and at the same time draw a reader in with a lasting impression. By coincidence, this very subject came up a few days ago with the latest posting to CoverCritics covercritics.com/?p=2937 The cover art is beautiful, the cover design is professional-looking, even the title is interesting...and absolutely not one of those has a single thing remotely to do with the book. |
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Post by ronmiller on Jul 19, 2020 12:02:54 GMT
" I believe the content of the cover should draw people in and can be anything from inside the book, not necessarily portray what the book is about." This theory of cover design might result in things like these...which might seem extreme but follow those rules---
A lurid, hard-boiled private eye story of the Mickey Spillane school, filled with sex, blood and sadism. At one point, the villain sends the detective's secretary flowers after he murders her best friend. So the cover is a bouquet of roses.
A YA novel is all about the relationships of several close high school friends, and the romance that springs up between two of them. At one point, Fluffy, the beloved school mascot is hit by a car. The cover features an illustration of a dead dog, crushed into the pavement.
At one point in a Christian romance one character makes a passing reference about how evil witchcraft is so the cover features a pentagram and a black cat.
For a brief moment during the endless battles between starships taking place in an exciting science fiction space opera, two characters enjoy a few hours' leave on a rural, unindustrialized planet. So the cover depicts a picnic on the grass next to a mountain lake under a sunny blue sky.
Lousy Book Covers refers to this sort of thing as "false flagging," where the cover suggests one thing and the book is something entirely different.
But...almost all of the examples you mentioned don't go nearly that far. It is easy in most cases to at least tell what the broad genre of the book is. That is, you don't see many skulls, bloody knives or dismembered corpses on the covers of Moriarty's novels. If nothing else, you can at least get a handle on what her books are not from the covers. The same can be said of many other books. But just identifying a broad genre isn't, I think, really sufficient.
If a book is a romance and the cover is a picture of a rose, at least the reader is informed about the general genre even if they learn nothing else about the book at all. But here is the question: what, exactly, is gained by stopping there? If the book is about a romance that includes a vicious murder as part of the plot, why not suggest that on the cover as well? If the romance is a comedy, than why not get that across? It would not only be informative it would set the book apart from the 10,000 covers that just have a rose on the cover.
I realize that there are a large number of DIY authors who are going for simple, generic images. (And so are a few well-known authors...but I tend to discount those since their names alone have recognition value.) But I am not so sure that this lends validity to the idea at all. I am inclined to think that they are really just taking an easy way out and justifying it after the fact.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2020 18:32:10 GMT
" I believe the content of the cover should draw people in and can be anything from inside the book, not necessarily portray what the book is about." This theory of cover design might result in things like these...which might seem extreme but follow those rules--- A lurid, hard-boiled private eye story of the Mickey Spillane school, filled with sex, blood and sadism. At one point, the villain sends the detective's secretary flowers after he murders her best friend. So the cover is a bouquet of roses. A YA novel is all about the relationships of several close high school friends, and the romance that springs up between two of them. At one point, Fluffy, the beloved school mascot is hit by a car. The cover features an illustration of a dead dog, crushed into the pavement. At one point in a Christian romance one character makes a passing reference about how evil witchcraft is so the cover features a pentagram and a black cat. For a brief moment during the endless battles between starships taking place in an exciting science fiction space opera, two characters enjoy a few hours' leave on a rural, unindustrialized planet. So the cover depicts a picnic on the grass next to a mountain lake under a sunny blue sky. Lousy Book Covers refers to this sort of thing as "false flagging," where the cover suggests one thing and the book is something entirely different. But...almost all of the examples you mentioned don't go nearly that far. It is easy in most cases to at least tell what the broad genre of the book is. That is, you don't see many skulls, bloody knives or dismembered corpses on the covers of Moriarty's novels. If nothing else, you can at least get a handle on what her books are not from the covers. The same can be said of many other books. But just identifying a broad genre isn't, I think, really sufficient. If a book is a romance and the cover is a picture of a rose, at least the reader is informed about the general genre even if they learn nothing else about the book at all. But here is the question: what, exactly, is gained by stopping there? If the book is about a romance that includes a vicious murder as part of the plot, why not suggest that on the cover as well? If the romance is a comedy, than why not get that across? It would not only be informative it would set the book apart from the 10,000 covers that just have a rose on the cover. I realize that there are a large number of DIY authors who are going for simple, generic images. (And so are a few well-known authors...but I tend to discount those since their names alone have recognition value.) But I am not so sure that this lends validity to the idea at all. I am inclined to think that they are really just taking an easy way out and justifying it after the fact. I actually spent last evening and this morning thinking about your stance. I still don't agree. Times have changed. Effect is everything. Standard covers are boring. To Kill a Mockingbird is not really about a tree or a bird. It's about humans and racism and childhood and growing up and life in a small town way back when. The Mockingbird is symbolic of many characters and the tree is one side event. There isno trial on the cover. With all due respect, the standard rules are boring. |
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Yes, very cool art. 
