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Cover for my book... help me graphic design better

QuothQuoth the RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
edited February 2012 in Artist's Corner
Hello awesome people. I come to you very humbly from other parts of this site for guidance in a thing that is not my usual forte. I've put together a cover for an ebook of my short stories and want to know how to make it look... not amateurish, at least. Any comments are extremely appreciated.

adastracover131.png

I am using Gimp and have basic familiarity with it. Like, uh, layers! And kerning! So I can probably fix whatever you suggest but I may respond with "duuuh what?" And then you can make fun of me while I frantically google whatever you said. Like anti-aliasing... I know what that is now! Oh god I'm so sorry, please help.

Quoth on

Posts

  • MagicToasterMagicToaster JapanRegistered User regular
    What is this book about?

  • Arden CaneloArden Canelo Registered User regular
    I zoomed in close on the image and saw some yellow spots/things that were really too light to be put against a white(ish) background? Maybe make those more visible if you want to include whatever it is they are.

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    It is a collection of my short short fiction. Various genres, but slanted towards speculative fiction. The title is one of the stories.

  • squidbunnysquidbunny Registered User regular
    Go ahead and post the image in your OP, I think, Quoth.

    Speaking of anti-aliasing.... those circles could use some smoothing. They're sort of jagged right now.

    This is looking way better. :^: I think the texture should extend to the bee, though, if in a toned-down form. He's kind of conspicuous in his flat-filliness relative to the circles.

    header_image_sm.jpg
  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Okay, I'll fix that bee texture. Is the background too light/subtle? It was originally just white but that was too, uh, white. I can darken it and make the texture more visible if that would be better?

  • squidbunnysquidbunny Registered User regular
    I don't really think the BG's too light/subtle, no.

    MT or Kronus or some of the other design types are better at critting this kind of thing, though.

    header_image_sm.jpg
  • LafflesLaffles Registered User regular
    You really need to Kern your text better.

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Is that a joke? If not, does the spacing need to be wider or narrower? Thanks!

  • NibCromNibCrom Registered User regular
    This may not be incredibly helpful, but... when I read the title I thought it was placeholder text. Is that the actual title?

    I would resize that image for posting, it doesn't need to be so large. Also, if you're going to use rasterized text, I would aim for 1200 dpi.

  • MaydayMayday Cutting edge goblin tech Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Quoth wrote:
    Is that a joke? If not, does the spacing need to be wider or narrower? Thanks!

    I'm absolutely no expert, but "a-d" and "p-e" need to be narrower IMHO.

    Mayday on
  • squidbunnysquidbunny Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Yeah, Mayday's right. And now that I've been staring at it super long give a little more breathing room between "r-i" in "apiarium" to match the airy spacing of all those rounded letters.

    (Sorry to nitpick kerning so hard but this cover design is totally reliant on typography so it's virtually all we can see, I think)

    squidbunny on
    header_image_sm.jpg
  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    That is the actual title, yes. Is it that bad? D:

    Do I need it to be 1200 dpi for an ebook? I don't anticipate this ever going to print. If it were, I'd probably beg my sister in law to make me something with InDesign... And is there a way for text not to be rasterized in Gimp?

    Please, nitpick away! I know I'm not likely to impress real designers but like I said, I don't want this to be embarrassing. If I CAN fix something, I WANT to fix it.

    Thanks so much you guys!

  • Spectre-xSpectre-x Rating: AWESOME YESRegistered User regular
    Quoth wrote:
    That is the actual title, yes. Is it that bad? D:

    I think people are just confused because anything resembling latin makes them think of lorem ipsum etc. The title's fine.

  • NibCromNibCrom Registered User regular
    1200 dpi would be unnecessary for an e-book. I don't know much about e-readers, but computer screen resolution is 72 dpi.

  • MaydayMayday Cutting edge goblin tech Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Though if it's referencing the latin sentence, I believe the order was reversed in that one (per aspera ad astra).
    For an ebook you certainly do not need 1200dpi. Even 600 sounds like overkill (since that's the print resolution AFAIK).

    EDIT @nib: nuh-uh, mine is 90!

    Mayday on
  • NibCromNibCrom Registered User regular
    90? You using some sort of crazy PAL computer? :P

    Quoth – You'll probably need to do some e-book research and find out what out what the final resolution for the cover needs to be, i.e. 900px x 1200px (those aren't the actual numbers you need, I just made them up).

    The dpi doesn't technically matter for screens, it's the pixel dimension. For example, a 12.5" x 16.667" document at 72 dpi has the same amount of pixels as a 3" x 4" document at 300 dpi. They both have a pixel dimensions of 900px x 1200px.

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