Book Cover Art

bsjezz

I'll talk you through the process and then maybe you guys can help me with this :biggrin:

- I wrote a novella. It's about a first fleet convict - probably the first person to brew beer in Australia - and his relationship with the new land and an indigenous man
- it got shortlisted for a good award but it didn't win and I never got it published
- many years later I have met an independent publisher to take it on
- edits and internals are looking complete. Cover V1 is a no-go on copyright
- we're trying to keep costs down so I'm sure if I can get something professional together we will go ahead with it.
- brainstorming for V2, I was very much inspired by the art of the Scott Sisters: I love the surreal quality of the scientific illustrations overlayed on the colonial landscapes
- I found this illustration of hops (the acquisition of which is a key plot point) and this painting of the Port Jackson heads (key setting), both public domain, which seem great to emulate that style. Sadly the latter image isn't a great resolution
- for type, I quite liked the look of this old blood meridian cover

Here's my first mock-up:

I'm quite happy with it but I want to be sure. The positioning of the elements was not painstaking, I just went on my gut. The colours took some tweaking. Should I try stretching out the top half of the landscape so the hops interfere less with the right headland? Is that sacrelige? Should I just mute the colours / contrast of the background a bit? Do I need more breathing space around the edges of the botanical illustration? Have I committed any cardinal sins? Is there just a straight-up better way to compose these elements?

Sorry for the barrage of questions! Any thoughts are helpful.

Doodmann

Here is my shoot from the gut art direction. Extend the vine off the page, remove the cross sectional pieces of the illustration, extend the sky to the top of the book. Or if you're going to cut it off so it looks like an old publication, extend it a bit higher.

bsjezz

Doodmann wrote: »

Here is my shoot from the gut art direction. Extend the vine off the page, remove the cross sectional pieces of the illustration, extend the sky to the top of the book. Or if you're going to cut it off so it looks like an old publication, extend it a bit higher.

Thanks! Good suggestions. Here are a few plays on the current iteration:

gallery

The first one is a colleague's favourite. I like the mess of the second one - it gives it a sense of depth - but i think ultimately my favourite is the third. It's the cleanest by far. Does the title need to come down a bit? I don't mind the encroaching leaf. For some reason I always want a bit of tension between elements.

Is the composition of the visual elements OK or could I rethink this? I am guilty a bit of arranging it in such a way that I don't need to bother extending the vines past their original illustration.

Doodmann

I also like the first on a lot but I think the 4th one is probably the best. Also clean up that little vine that doesn't go anywhere on the top left.

Laziness is the essence of design.

BlindPsychic

that bg image isn't large enough to print, its already pretty loss heavy at its original scale. I did a reverse google image search and there doesn't seem to be anything much larger. The kerning of the title will probably have to be tightened up a bit, JEREMY is really tight and on the surname the O and the A are floating away from the other lettters.
I dropped in a quick gradient mask to adjust the colors some. I'm not 100% sure if this is the look you're going for, but its an easy adjustment you could play around with in photoshop realtively easily