Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Just Screwing Around Because I Don't Want to Work ...


Or, maybe ...


or ...



I dunno what's going to happen with these books, but if I have any say-so in the cover designs next time around, I want something simple and clean and along somewhat stark lines. And I'm favoring the last of the three–the print shows up best at postage-stamp size.

10 comments:

Bobbe Edmonds said...

You got the spetsdod lines wrong. It looks like it has a wide-aperture setting.

...And we all know how you feel about THAT.

Steve Perry said...

Pah. I know what a spetsdod barrel looks like. It looks just like a tactical combat pen attached to the back of your hand with duct tape ...

A Meatgoat said...

I might like to see a slightly more epic, bad ass, legend inspiring font. I like the stark black and white part though.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

That dude looks familiar.

Bobbe Edmonds said...

Dan said "That dude looks familiar."

Thusly causing me to go back and examine the "illustration", wondering what I had missed.

And now I find myself unable to keep my retinas from detaching themselves autonomously.

Steve Perry said...

"And now I find myself unable to keep my retinas from detaching themselves autonomously."

That's opposed to intentionally detaching them?

Beside, I dunno what you and Dan are talking about.
That's Emile Khadaji in the illo. Really.

Mark said...

Awesome.

Steve Perry said...

I like the first font better. I think it conveys a strangeness against the shadowy figure that I like; if this was done as a traditional print-cover, I think it would be fine. But when you shrink it down to the size of the default images on Amazon.com or Smashwords or even my blog, thin and spidery letters become unreadable. Since that is the first view a potential reader sees, that small image, then it has to work at that size. And in grayscale, since color readers aren't universal.

If you look at book covers on the racks in the stores now, you will see a shift in this direction -- the ebook market is already altering the thinking of graphic designers. What matters is the title and the author's name; everything else is apt to be lost in the shrinkage.

The first covers I designed, the type is smaller and more traditional. Still readable at postage-stamp size, but on the edge.

It's an interesting evolution.

Bobbe Edmonds said...

"Shrinkage"

Just...STOP.

Steve Perry said...

Um, it is a perfectly good word, Kid.

As in, "His brain has undergone a lot of shrinkage for a man in his early forties, which is apparently the reason he's forgotten how to use a dictionary ..."