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Need opinions on cover fonts

Trick

Auror
I haven't decided on a font for my future cover (I'm doing it because I enjoy it, the book isn't ready yet)

What are your thoughts on these fonts and their combinations? I'm not happy with them so I'm hoping for lots of suggestions!

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Thanks!
 
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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
What program are we looking at?

There's quite a factors when it comes to picking the right font for a book cover, like the size and position on the page, the colors and busyness of the cover, and the font effects that you have available.

Of these, I like the bottom one, but with all caps and a higher kerning (kerning is a semi-buried font option that measures the tiny space between letters).
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I don't like either of the fonts used underneath the larger heading. They're too hard to read. Of the font for the "Darkling Sun" part, I like the first one better. Much more interesting.
 

Trick

Auror
What program are we looking at?

There's quite a factors when it comes to picking the right font for a book cover, like the size and position on the page, the colors and busyness of the cover, and the font effects that you have available.

Of these, I like the bottom one, but with all caps and a higher kerning (kerning is a semi-buried font option that measures the tiny space between letters).

I'm using PDN right now, unfortunately no access to Photoshop. I'll look into the kerning setting, I don't know if I can edit that in PDN or not. If I can in Word though, I can easily transfer it and I'd hate to do it manually.

EDIT: It turns out that the font you thought should be in a ll caps with more kerning is very hard to read in all caps. I'll have to keep looking.


I don't like either of the fonts used underneath the larger heading. They're too hard to read. Of the font for the "Darkling Sun" part, I like the first one better. Much more interesting.

Thank you, that helps. I agree the lower fonts are difficult to read. I'm trying to find a font that looks tribal/tattooish and those are all I've found so far (for free anyway).

Here are a few more combos I'm looking at:

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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I don't know about pdn, but kerning should be on one of the font tabs in word.
 

Trick

Auror
I don't know about pdn, but kerning should be on one of the font tabs in word.

No kerning in PDN :( But, here it is manually adjusted (the font that needed the kerning is in "caps" in lower case and the actual uppercase looks like gibberish as you can see in the first one)

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Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
No kerning in PDN :( But, here it is manually adjusted (the font that needed the kerning is in "caps" in lower case and the actual uppercase looks like gibberish as you can see in the first one)

In the first option here, it looks like the distance between M and A in mark, is that same as the distance between A and T in a thief. I'd really rather advice against this font. It's too "messy".
With a font like this, you'd rather want to design each letter individually, or use it in a case where each letter doesn't occur more than once. Having the same letter show up more than once highlights how they're identical, taking away something of the uniqueness and instead making it seem a bit cheap.
 

Trick

Auror
In the first option here, it looks like the distance between M and A in mark, is that same as the distance between A and T in a thief. I'd really rather advice against this font. It's too "messy".
With a font like this, you'd rather want to design each letter individually, or use it in a case where each letter doesn't occur more than once. Having the same letter show up more than once highlights how they're identical, taking away something of the uniqueness and instead making it seem a bit cheap.

Agreed. That option was more to show how messy that font is in all caps. The option below is actually the same font in all lowercase with the spacing done manually.
 

Trick

Auror
Here I've played with the positives of the hard-to-read font and I think I like this:

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EDIT: This is better actually:

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Mythopoet

Auror
For cover design, common wisdom is that the bigger the title, the fancier you can go. The smaller it is, the less fancy it should be. So I think you should do the cool font with the "Darkling Sun" part and something more readable with "The Mark of a Thief" part. The other option would be to switch them if you really want the thief part to be fancy.
 

Trick

Auror
For cover design, common wisdom is that the bigger the title, the fancier you can go. The smaller it is, the less fancy it should be. So I think you should do the cool font with the "Darkling Sun" part and something more readable with "The Mark of a Thief" part. The other option would be to switch them if you really want the thief part to be fancy.

I do want the the thief part to be fancy/tattooish and I like the order they're in now. I see your point though... I'll continue thinking on it. The text will be rather large on the cover and I'll post it up once it's ready for other eyes. That should help with perspective.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I do want the the thief part to be fancy/tattooish and I like the order they're in now. I see your point though... I'll continue thinking on it. The text will be rather large on the cover and I'll post it up once it's ready for other eyes. That should help with perspective.

In this digital age, you need to think about what it will look like at thumbnail size.
 

K.S. Crooks

Maester
I like number 8 and the bottom one of your most recent selection. I don't know the type of story you are writing to make a complete choice or what you envision for the cover.
 

Trick

Auror
I like number 8 and the bottom one of your most recent selection. I don't know the type of story you are writing to make a complete choice or what you envision for the cover.

Thanks. It's a dark science fantasy and my concept cover is actually in another thread here in the cover art section.
 

Addison

Auror
Just curious, did you try flipping the fonts you used for each part of the title? Like the above example, did you try used the font used in "Darkling Sun" for "Mark of the Thief" and vice-versa? Or maybe mess around and make the capital D and S in "Darkling Sun" more ornate like the fancier fonts and the rest easier to read?

I do like your choice in post 11, I just know all the tricks people can use in fonts (my favorite part of Microsoft Word, a past time for me sort of) so I just want to make sure you've looked at all the options before you say "This is it, final choice".
 
Hi,

Are you wedded to those fonts? To me they look messy, especially the smaller titles, and you want things to look clean and sharp.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Trick

Auror
I'm not wedded to them. I'm just messing with options while my WIP is still in unfinished status. I enjoy this kind of thing and want to get better at it. I'll be doing a few more cover attempts and the fonts will change as needed.
 
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