Feedback request for my cover: Blood and Amber

[Ned Marcus]

My first thought was that it's a children's story about a giant who's a soldier.

 

[Foxkeyes]

Just for the record, if a designer was to say, 'Hey, I have a really great idea for this', I am open. In part, though, I would want to believe it is beneficial and not detrimental to the marketing tool aspect of it. A lot of books with some awful covers make it, but I am not sure the covers helped. LOTR, I always thought had some terrible book covers and art work. I don't think they really helped it. Conan had some beautiful and iconic covers. They get ripped off a lot.

If you have a spare 150 Euro, this may be for you: TASCHEN Books: The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta

 

[Finchbearer]

TASCHEN books are always beautiful

 

[Prince of Spires]

But, in the world, stuff can be rough. Ideally would be to take submissions, pick the best of, and the others are out of luck. I would find it hard to do that, but I have been in the business world. Sites like Fiver are geared towards this.

99 designs (which is a design website where you can get everything done from covers to business cards) has such a feature as well. You can create a contest, where you write the brief of what you want, and what you'll pay for it. Designers can submit drafts of their ideas and then you pick a winner with who you work to get the cover to the result you want.

Works nicely. Only downside is that everyone who hasn't won will have put in time with nothing to show for it.

 

[John M]

For me a good cover is one that draws my attention and evokes intrigue and emotion. This can be done in so many ways and styles. I think your idea is a good one. A flying child dressed in a soldiers uniform with blood splattered across their face is certainly an image that would grip my attention. How did a child end up in such a situation? Where does his powers of flying come from? These are questions that would make me pick up the book and read the blurb. Also there is something about children in war settings that is emotionally gripping.

Some points of improvement: To me the character does not come across as a child. I dont know the plot of your story but I saw another comment saying its about a soldier waking up in a child's body, at first glance I though it was a guy in his late teens. Another thing is the style of drawing. There is something cartoonish about it that makes me think comedy, light reading, comic strip. Again I dont know the plot but if this is a dark war story I think it needs to be drawn in a different style thats reads more serious and gritty (you mentioned you would consider drawing it in classical style which could work well). Lastly I am also wanting more drama to the scene. At the moment the character is floating in the air above a landscape mostly empty. Could there perhaps be soldiers fighting, bombs going off, explosions? Something to provide more drama and action.

 

[Marscaleb]

99 designs (which is a design website where you can get everything done from covers to business cards) has such a feature as well. You can create a contest, where you write the brief of what you want, and what you'll pay for it. Designers can submit drafts of their ideas and then you pick a winner with who you work to get the cover to the result you want.

Works nicely. Only downside is that everyone who hasn't won will have put in time with nothing to show for it.

Right away what comes to my mind is you'll mostly get submissions from amateurs, beginners, students, etc. Anyone who is working professionally doesn't really have time to spend on a project that doesn't pay. I'm not saying you couldn't get good designs, but if you have money to offer as a prize for a contest, you could just pay for a professional to begin with.

Plus, someone like myself who is an unknown author trying to print their first title, someone like that offering a "contest" sounds really shady to me. But, I don't know that site, so maybe it wouldn't look as bad as I'm imagining.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Right away what comes to my mind is you'll mostly get submissions from amateurs, beginners, students, etc. Anyone who is working professionally doesn't really have time to spend on a project that doesn't pay. I'm not saying you couldn't get good designs, but if you have money to offer as a prize for a contest, you could just pay for a professional to begin with.

You definitely could go with a designer instead. Cost is about the same, depending on the level of designer you go with. The difference is that if you go with 1 designer, then you get 1 cover (or maybe 2) and that's it. You get some tweaking, but you're basically stuck with that 1 design. With the contest, you get 50 - 75 different submissions based on what you've asked. You can then chose the few you like best and ask for small changes to eventually come to a winner. It's a very different process.

Now, you won't find any big agencies submitting. Damonza doesn't need to join contests to get clients. However, for smaller designers who don't have a high google ranking it can be a great way to acquire new clients. Getting new clients takes time and money, and this is one way of doing so. Of course there will be amateurs and beginners. But there are also just designers who like the services the site offers and use it to get new clients. And everyone has to start somewhere.

Plus, someone like myself who is an unknown author trying to print their first title, someone like that offering a "contest" sounds really shady to me. But, I don't know that site, so maybe it wouldn't look as bad as I'm imagining.

I'm not sure what is shady about it. In this case, it's a big site. You set up the contest, and you pay for it. Then it runs, and once you've decided on the winner, the winner gets paid. You can even specify if you guarantee the payout or not. As in, you have the option to say you might not pick a winner at all (and get your money back). But then you'll likely get fewer submissions. It's all pretty transparent and clear. Nothing shady at all.

 

[Finchbearer]

My thoughts on the competition format are mixed. On the one hand, they can be good for gaining experience of working on a client brief - so yes, students are more likely to enter. If you have designers / artists who are entering in the hopes that they will get paid, then maybe a couple of hours out of any average week might not seem that much time wasted if they don’t ‘win’, but rack up those hours by entering multiple ‘competitions’ and you’re definitely wasting your time, especially if lots of people enter, then your chances of ‘winning’ are severely lowered. That can also be bad for confidence building as a designer, and it can therefore become exploitative. To add - if you don’t ‘win’ then your design is now public domain and unused, anyone can steal it.

 

[pmmg]

My thoughts on the competition format are mixed. On the one hand, they can be good for gaining experience of working on a client brief - so yes, students are more likely to enter. If you have designers / artists who are entering in the hopes that they will get paid, then maybe a couple of hours out of any average week might not seem that much time wasted if they don’t ‘win’, but rack up those hours by entering multiple ‘competitions’ and you’re definitely wasting your time, especially if lots of people enter, then your chances of ‘winning’ are severely lowered. That can also be bad for confidence building as a designer, and it can therefore become exploitative. To add - if you don’t ‘win’ then your design is now public domain and unused, anyone can steal it.

This sound much like my experience might be, posting my story on Amazon Might get nothing, and hurt my confidence.

I would not do this. I feel, if they are doing work for me, I should compensate for the effort. I would feel bad telling so many, they did not get anything.

 

[Prince of Spires]

My thoughts on the competition format are mixed. On the one hand, they can be good for gaining experience of working on a client brief - so yes, students are more likely to enter. If you have designers / artists who are entering in the hopes that they will get paid, then maybe a couple of hours out of any average week might not seem that much time wasted if they don’t ‘win’, but rack up those hours by entering multiple ‘competitions’ and you’re definitely wasting your time, especially if lots of people enter, then your chances of ‘winning’ are severely lowered. That can also be bad for confidence building as a designer, and it can therefore become exploitative. To add - if you don’t ‘win’ then your design is now public domain and unused, anyone can steal it.

How would the competition be exploitative? I've seen it mentioned before and in earlier conversations and I really don't get it. No one is forcing these designers to enter. There are no rules or obligations that force them to enter. The rules are also very clear at the outset. They know exactly what they are getting when they enter, they know how many designers enter similar competitions on average, so they know what they are up against. They know what the reward is. They know that they are more likely than not to not win (since they know they'll likely face 50 other designers) Where then is the exploitation? I just don't see it.

Yes, entering a competition takes time. That's on the designer to judge how much they value that. Like I said, you have to do acquisition somehow if you're a freelance designer. And that takes time and it doesn't always pay off. That's just the nature of the game. Setting up a website also takes time, and getting it to show up high enough to actually get traffic even more. The competition at least comes with feedback built in. The one creating the competition can offer feedback on the designs entered, which teaches the designer about what works and doesn't. And you can see the competition, which lets you compare yourself to others.

As for the last point, this is simply false. The entered designs don't become public domain in any way, shape or form. They remain the IP of the designer, with only the winning design going to the creator of the contest. The other designs remain with the designers and they can even remove them from the competition (so they don't show up anywhere anymore), and could easily reuse them somewhere else.

I would not do this. I feel, if they are doing work for me, I should compensate for the effort. I would feel bad telling so many, they did not get anything.

This is a sentiment I understand and I can get behind. If you want to make sure that someone who does work for you, even if it's just a sample, always gets paid, then don't do this.

 

[Finchbearer]

Once a design is online and unused in a project, it’s public domain. Once a bunch of people see it, then it’s free game. Anyone can screenshot it or copy it in some way and use it for their own gain, knowing full well no one is currently using it. Even designs that are being used get copied. It’s a problem.

As for asking why I think it can be exploitative, it’s not that I think competitions are always exploitative, they can be good for students or beginners to enter in order to gain some experience of doing a live brief, but more than that, the premise of it being set up as a ‘competition’ can become exploitative.

There is nothing wrong with shopping around as a client looking for creative work, BUT, expect people to work for free and you are getting into a problematic area. You wouldn’t ask a lawyer or a doctor or even a writer to work for free, so why other industries like art and design? The answer is because it’s not valued as much as other industries. And the competition format curtails the issue of value.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Once a design is online and unused in a project, it’s public domain. Once a bunch of people see it, then it’s free game. Anyone can screenshot it or copy it in some way and use it for their own gain, knowing full well no one is currently using it. Even designs that are being used get copied. It’s a problem.

No. Just no. That is not how public domain works. For a work to enter public domain, one of 2 things needs to happen, either the creator needs to be dead long enough, or the creator needs to make something explicitly public domain. Just making something available online does not make something public domain. You can already easily see this by all the stock photo sites that exist. All their content is available online. If that would be public domain they would simply not have a business model. Same with all cover designers that have pre-made covers available online for customers to browse.

Of course, content can get stolen. That can happen everywhere. But screenshotting or copying a png file of a cover is not going to enable someone to use it to create their own cover. Already just replacing the title and author name and getting the quality high enough is so much work that you're better off just creating the thing from scratch. No one is going to steal a screenshot of a low quality online image of a cover entered to a specific author in a contest to use it professionally.

There is nothing wrong with shopping around as a client looking for creative work, BUT, expect people to work for free and you are getting into a problematic area. You wouldn’t ask a lawyer or a doctor or even a writer to work for free, so why other industries like art and design? The answer is because it’s not valued as much as other industries. And the competition format curtails the issue of value.

But it's not. There is a very clear value proposition here. The winner gets paid, which is how contests work. The contest isn't free work. And it's not comparable to a doctor or a lawyer, since they run a very different business model. Though even the lawyer spends time and money creating a website that doesn't immediately result in him getting paid. However, for writers you can find a free sample online for pretty much all of them. Go to Amazon, and click on the look inside button and you get free content. So do editors for that matter when they offer a sample edit on a few hundred words. Or brands that give out free samples in supermarkets to get people to know about their products. Or consultants who do a free analysis of your business in the hopes of getting a deal to fix it. Or any of the other million of free things companies and self-employed people give out to attract customers.

The designer doesn't loose anything, other than the time put in when joining the competition, which is a form of customer acquisition. And it offers a lot more value in terms of money to the winner than some of the cheap covers you see out there. The cover isn't free.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m not going to contest your opinion here. I think you are still wrong on a few points, and I’m speaking as a designer who has worked in the industry, done a degree, knows other designers etc who all feel the same, so not sure you can contest my opinion on such a subject, but that is by the by. Many many designers work gets ripped off by other designers. Yes it’s a problem, as soon as you put your work out there, is only a question of time as to when someone rips it off.

Many industries are exploitative. The army can be exploitative of the poor working classes, big pharma can be exploitative of the hopeful and the sick, the sex industry can be exploitative of young naive women, I could go on…just because something is an exchange of agreement, doesn’t mean it’s not exploitative.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I’m not going to contest your opinion here. I think you are still wrong on a few points, and I’m speaking as a designer who has worked in the industry, done a degree, knows other designers etc who all feel the same, so not sure you can contest my opinion on such a subject, but that is by the by.

The law isn't really an opinion. It's just the law, drawn up to actually leave as little room for opinions as possible. The Berne Convention is pretty clear that you get copyright protection the moment you created the work in a fixed form (such as when posting it online). And something doesn't automatically become public domain, except when it either can't be protected (which applies to things like formulas or recipes) or the creator has died long enough ago (currently 70 years in most cases). People treating stuff online as public domain doesn't make it public domain.

Being ripped off by other designers is an interesting discussion. When is something actually ripped off, and when it's simply a similar idea with a different execution. Yes, designs get ripped off or stolen all the time. I'm not denying that at all. That's not really a consequence of a design contest though. And while original ideas can get ripped off or stolen, that's not what we're talking about here. To make it concrete, my design brief in this case gave 2 possible ideas for designers. Either a weapon in front of some symbology, or two characters looking at a city in the distance. Both well established cover design ideas for an epic fantasy tale. There isn't anything there that you can or must rip off. It's not a ground breaking million dollar commercial.

Designers delivered what was asked for. Most used stock images to come to a design, in combination with a few personal touches and the typography. I don't see what is there to rip off. You're not going to get exotic or out of this world designs. And no one is going to bother stealing them, since as mentioned, you would get a low-quality png or jpg image, with stock photos stuck together behind letters. To take that image apart to create something new with it, even if it's only replacing the name and title will take way more time and effort than simply getting the same stock images and creating your own cover with it. And then why would you do that instead of simply creating something your customer asked for, since you're using stock images anyway?

Many industries are exploitative. The army can be exploitative of the poor working classes, big pharma can be exploitative of the hopeful and the sick, the sex industry can be exploitative of young naive women, I could go on…just because something is an exchange of agreement, doesn’t mean it’s not exploitative.

I think there is a pretty big difference between on the one hand having no prospect so you're lured into a long term contract, being preyed on by large pharma companies who give you no choice in where to get your life saving medication, or being sex-trafficked, and on the other hand signing up for a medium-sized website that, among its many services offers you the option to join design contests where you can try to get your name out there and find new customers. That's a pretty start difference in my book.

Like I said, no one is forcing these designers to use the service. If they don't like it they can go to a million other similar services. That already doesn't make it exploitative. They aren't even forced to participate in design contests if they want to use this particular website. They can simply only create a profile on the site and hope people find them and use their service, or reach out to people who are offering work to see if they are a match. It's just one option, with no coercion in there.

 

[Finchbearer]

Erm…okay, now you’re going down the path of telling me I’m outright wrong in feeling the way I feel, and what I’ve experienced first hand is invalid. All I shall say to that end is it ain’t just me…

Logo Design Competitions: A Near-Perfect Value Proposition

This shows both pros and cons, but is one of many articles talking about the exploitative nature of art / design comps.

All of what you’ve said in the above reply just continues to prove that people don’t really see the value in art and design, and if that’s the case, why don’t people just make the book covers themselves if it’s so damn easy.

Sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread.

 

[pmmg]

Feels exploitive to me.

A sentiment or 'if you don't like it', don't do it' is insufficient for trying to make a better world. While I don't think I am going to put a lot of energy into 99designs contests, that is not a mantra I will accept.

I can see both sides of this.

If I was entering a contest, I would know already my effort is mostly wasted, and in some instances, exposing things I might not like public. But, I don't know that I would completely hate it. It is a way to get noticed, if nothing else. And if I was on the wanting end, I might feel the contest was clear, and everyone knew what they were getting in for, and I get a lot of people to present a good solution for me, so....win for me.

But...I am still taking advantage of people in a vulnerable place, having them do work I have no intention to reward them for, and reaping a benefit larger than their effort. Kind of the exploitation side.

I think I am going to leave this on the, 'there are probably bigger problems in the world' category. People should pay their artists. Artists do work too.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Erm…okay, now you’re going down the path of telling me I’m outright wrong in feeling the way I feel,

No. Read back what I wrote. The only issue I pointed out is when something becomes public domain. Which is not a matter of feeling or opinion. If a factual statement is incorrect then it deserves to be called out. For the rest I only stated my opinion on why I feel a specific way and gave my experience.

I think the article you linked gives a pretty fair and complete overview of design competitions. As for people seeing or not seeing the value of design, that's a tough subject. It's similar to people giving away novels for free, or the kdp-select subscriptions. It makes some people feel books should be free. And it diminishes the over perception of the value of a book. I'm not a fan. Doesn't mean it's exploitative. It just means different people make different business decisions.

 

[Finchbearer]

If you read back what I wrote I’ve always pointed out that there are both pros and cons to it. I did comps when I was a student because ‘everything is a learning experience’ when you’re a student. Would I do them now? It really depends, but not likely to.

I think at least with writing, that is a stand alone thing, you can still put that out into the world, whereas a custom book cover is unlikely to be used for another project, so those that don’t win a project are unlikely to reuse that design, so it’s a loss in that sense.

 

[Marscaleb]

Okay so I made a few quick tweaks; nothing major but I'm interested in knowing if this helps. Particularly I'm curious if this helps get rid of the perception that she's a giant as some people have said, but I'm also curious about other changes in general.

I'm ditching the whole "half the world is beautiful" thing but I don't have the time to completely re-draw it so it's just got a color filter on it for now. Yes I know it's ugly. It will be replaced with more battlefield.

Some of the other changes I've made:

Spoiler: hidden by default so they don't mess with your initial impressions

-I lowered the "world" background a bit
-There's stronger color effects on the background than the character to make her stand out.
-I added a bit of a glow around her and a glow coming out from her jet pack to make it look a little more like she's magically flying.

Please let me know which of these effects seem to be working to break the "she's a giant" perception.

Oh yeah, and here are some alternate placements for the title that I was working on. If that's something you go for I'd like to hear your thoughts on these.

Spoiler: Titles

 

[pmmg]

Well...I think she does look more like she's flying. I had not idea that was a jet pack, I thought it was just a military ruck, or a parachute pack on her back. I think you need a back of the book blurb to go with it. I have some confusion as to the story. It looks WW1, but the girl, the flying and the jetpack dont go with that. So, I am wondering why it looks so out of place.