[Donna Mixon]

Greetings,

This is my first swing at putting the font on my husband's novel. I would appreciate constructive comments and tips or hints on how to make it look better/more marketable. I am just learning how to manipulate fonts so your assistance is greatly welcomed.

Only the font and text effects can be altered. Our artist is on holiday for a few months so the artwork cannot be changed.

The genre of the book is Erotic Romance.

I used a Lobster font because I wanted something that would be readable in a reduced size and still have a fantasy/romance feel. Most of the flourished caligraphy or script fonts I have found seemed to be too narrow and even with the "faux bold" option, they just didn't seem to work well.

I have another few fonts that I am looking at for now, including Amazone, Black Rose, Shrewsbury, and Whitewater.

As I said, I am winging this and am in need of tutorials to help me make this work. Up until now, my exposure to PhotoShop was merely to import photos and change their size.

Thank you in advance!
Donna Mixon

 

[Ryne Billings]

The artwork looks pretty good, but I'm not too sure about the author name and the tagline.

If I was in your shoes, I'd consider increasing the size of the author name, though that might not be a great idea, now that I think about it. The Kindle that shows up in the cover art of the pictures on Amazon will cover the space between the name and the right edge, so increasing the font size might actually make it impossible to see the "n" in Mixon.

The tagline needs to be changed though. It takes effort to read it in the big picture, despite the fact that it is quite large. The cursive style font might look nice, but small text is difficult to read with it. Naturally, the tagline is unreadable in thumbnail size. Taglines are never readable in thumbnail size though.

 

[momilp]

I like the cover. Probably you need to enlarge the name, and lose the tagline, unless you feel strongly about it. Anyway, it looks great

 

[A.D. Bloom]

It looks good, but I think the author's name could be a little bigger.

 

[Alex Owens]

Overall, I like it. I'm not a fan of the blue to white gradient though. Two different colors just bugs me I'd have less of an issue if it was going from a lighter blue to a darker one, but I'm weird like that.

And if you keep the tagline, I would consider changing it to a more basic (non-cursive font) to set it apart and increase legibility. Otherwise, great job. I love the cover art too!

 

[A_Writer_]

I love the artwork!  I'm not too crazy about the gradient in the lettering.

I agree that the tagline is too small.  Maybe you need to lose it.


Angelina

 

[Mel Comley]

I love, love the image and font in the large pic but in the thumbnail the font needs tweaking. I def wouldn't change that image though, awesome. 

 

[Christopher Bunn]

My vote would be for changing the font for your name and the tagline. Experiment a bit. Also, with the current font, I read "divine" in the tagline as "Vivian" first go-round. Maybe I need glasses. Actually, I think I do need glasses.

 

[Ryne Billings]

My vote would be for changing the font for your name and the tagline. Experiment a bit. Also, with the current font, I read "divine" in the tagline as "Vivian" first go-round. Maybe I need glasses. Actually, I think I do need glasses.

Classes or not, it doesn't easily read as "Divine"

I had the same problem with a medieval-esque font that I really wanted to use. It made "S" look like "G", which was counter productive at the time. Ironically, I no longer have a title with an "S" that plays a major role, but I went to a different font anyways.

 

[Tiphanie Thomas]

Hi Donna,

I like the gradient effect, artwork, and title! My tiny nits would be that the first two letters of your name looks weird to me. I think that the "L" could be farther spaced from the "y" because they look connected to me.

Also, your tagline maybe could just be white or blue, and the cursive there is a little hard to read.

Hope that helps!
Tiph

 

[EliRey]

I agree with everyone else. Love the artwork. But it will be in thumbnail so much I'd consider a clearer bigger font for the title and author name. Good luck!   

 

[skyrunner]

I think it's 95% there and doesn't need a lot at all -
but if I was tweaking and playing with it - i'd see if the cursive script is clearer to read if it was straight up and down rather than sloping to the right ( only if your software allows you to do this easily, otherwise don't bother )

and i'd consider loosing the tagline as another poster suggested -
it's just as intriguing, or possibly more so, without it.

 

[Donna Mixon]

I did all this work strictly in PhotoShop using layers. One problem I kept running into was after rasterizing, there was odd pixelation around the letters.

After talking with a few people since, I now know I need to import the background photo into InDesign and save it as its own item. Then open a copy of it and use it as a template to place new layers with the text. After finalizing the way I want it to look, then save it and condense it down. Rasterization won't affect the text and make it look funky.

If I had known that before, I could have saved a couple of weeks.... 

I appreciate everyone's comments and welcome more.  I think I will try to blog my "successful" methods so those newbies with no experience in this process can at least benefit from my trials and errors.

I will post a few new covers for this book hopefully by the end of the week.  I welcome ideas, instruction, constructive criticism, etc.  While I am aware that opens me up to the carnage, I believe it will help me be better at this... and hopefully help others with thier processes.

THANKS!
Donna     

 

[tawnytaylor]

If this was my book, I'd zoom in closer to the couple, crop out most of the background and work the type around their image. I'd also ditch the gradient and use a different font for the author name. This book is erotic. You want the cover to say that loud and clear.

But as it is now it's better than many I've seen.

 

[R. H. Watson]

My vote would be for changing the font for your name and the tagline. Experiment a bit. Also, with the current font, I read "divine" in the tagline as "Vivian" first go-round. Maybe I need glasses. Actually, I think I do need glasses.

Making the "d" in "Divine" lowercase should fix this. Otherwise, I like the cover.

 

[Tina Folsom]

I agree with Tawny: zoom the couple closer so that they are bigger. They are the attraction.
Otherwise, love the colors.

 

[skyrunner]

Yes, make the couple bigger.

 

[India Drummond]

I think it's gorgeous.

The only thing I would change is perhaps make the font on the author name a small cap (or all cap) font so it's more readable, and use something plainer on the tagline so it's easy to read.

Beautiful work.

 

[indie.ebooks]

I would be very proud of my work if I could get any where near what you have already created. I love the colours/image/font

OK my 2 cents worth as a reader.

Swap the title to the bottom and the name to the top.
The authors name should be bigger than the title.

So swap the sizes over as well is what I am trying to say.

I also think the tag line should go.

Wish I had your creative talent

Best of luck.
Nadine

 

[Donna Mixon]

Thanks, but I am far from the most talented person around.

We commissioned the artwork by Elena Dudina.  She is currently on holiday and we could not fit the font work into her rushed pre-trip schedule. So it landed in my lap to complete.

Now I am learning at the feet of the masters - at least in comparison to me.  I will certainly list my thanks once I figure out how InDesign fits into this picture.

That would be the one thing that has changed "the game" for me... Don't insert your fontwork inside PhotoShop.  Use InDesign.

Great. With regard to ease of learning (for me), PhotoShop is the community college of design while InDesign is Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Oxford of design. And while I have advanced college degrees, none of them required me to use PhotoShop or anything like it (other than PowerPoint).

I plan to keep a journal of how I make things happen and will post them to our website once I figure this out.

Again, thanks for the kudos! They certainly help me know I am moving in the right direction.