The text designer (the fantastic Mr. Ron Eddy) just sent over four directions for the new Hawk cover. I’m in an agony of indecision. Mix and match? Yes? No? Curses. I’m foiled at the crossroads of Doubt and Decision. If you have any opinions, drop me a line quickly.
You’re missing an R in your name in the first one. (D? Why are they ordered backwards?) I was leaning that way just because the letters in your name don’t seem as tightly bunched as in the last, then I realized one was missing. 🙂 I’d say definitely D or A though. C doesn’t really have a “fantasy” look to it, and B looks pretty but might be too hard to read on a thumbnail image. I think overall I prefer D as far as the typeface. The upward angle of the crossbar in the “A” and the rounded “E” say fantasy. It’s attractive and a little fancy without sacrificing legibility. I think I’d prefer it in the yellow though. The blue/green doesn’t jump out enough. But the last one, A, looks “younger” to me if that makes any sense, so if you’re specifically aiming for a YA audience, that might be a better choice.
Not sure why I put them in backwards. I must not have been paying attention. Yeah, C (too sci-fi) and B (like you said) are definitely out. That’s an interesting comment about the YA appeal. I hadn’t thought of that. I’m still not sure what the target demographic is for these things. I’ve had a couple people in their 60s and 70s email me about how they enjoyed them, and I’ve had teenagers do the same. Shrug.
It’s a close call for me between treatments A and D. The font used for D is nice and clean and genre-appropriate. Might look better in the yellow tones, but is acceptable in the blue. The font for A is also nice, with the excessively sized serifs and inconsistent character height providing a nice degree of nuance without distraction. I think A’s treatment of your name is better, too, and offers another bonus: the correct spelling thereof. 🙂 That said, the “Book One of the …” tag at the bottom is best in treatment D, so I’d pull that into the A treatment.
Treatments C and B and no-gos, for me. The C font says “classic sci-fi”. The B font falls below my legibility threshold (and the gradients are too obnoxious).
I seem to like the word “nice” today. How nice.
Well, it is a pretty nice day here today. Sunny, high 60s.
I’m wavering in between A and D also. The majority of the feedback so far is pretty evenly split between those two. Ultimately, I think either of them would work just fine, but I’d like to choose what’s best. Eh. Time for the Kirkegardian leap.
Christopher, I like B. The text to me gives a glimpse of the content of the story. Seems to me like the most “fantasy like”.
I’d go D with A’s colour scheme, myself.
Yep. That’s the one I decided to go with (using a different Trilogy bar, though, at the bottom).