Hello, my name is Professor T Lex, PhD (Phony Degree) in graphic design. I'm here to teach you about the art of creating covers because I am a sexy beast. Let's get started, shall we?
**Please ignore everything Miss Beaver writes. She is slightly ill in the head.
However, we do have some lessons.
I will keep adding to this, and if there's something you have a question about or want me to make a lesson on, just say so.
Also, all lessons are according to tools on picnik.com, a photo-editing website. Registration is free, guys and gals! Check it out!
LESSON 1: bands
Okay, first thing I want to tell you about is bands. These are incredibly helpful when you've got a cover that's too cluttered for text to show up clearly. A band is a rectangle across the picture on which you put your text. Like this.
First off, how to make them is simple: Go to stickers, geometric, and then click rectangle. You can make any color band you like then, and any size, though I would generally recommend having them stretch from side-to-side.
Some things to be careful about with bands:
1. Make sure the color is appropriate for the pic's color scheme. I'd generally recommend using white or black, whichever stands out more.
2. Sometimes, it's helpful to fade the band a bit. Let the picture pop through. Don't fade it too much, though, or you'll lose its worth.
3. Be careful where you place it. Try and put it somewhere where you won't be covering a critical part of the picture.
4. Also, beware of blank space. This is a problem when your text doesn't take up the whole width of the band, the blank space on the sides. It's unattractive. Usually you can solve this problem with stickers like Floralia, which are used in the above cover.
5. Sometimes the author name will fit on the band, sometimes it won't. If it doesn't, don't try and squeeze it in.
6. Make sure your text is split so that it makes an attractive format.
LESSON 2: text
Alright. Text. Really, text can make or break a cover. No matter how good the pic is, no matter how good the effects are, if you have crappy text, it all goes down the drain.
Something very big with text is text placement. For those covers where it's simply impossible, we have bands. But when there is room, or when you can put text across something and make it visible, you have to keep this in mind.
Put it somewhere where it's not covering something critical. You have to be careful of this. Blank spots are ideal, but not all pics have these.
If it's a long title, don't try and fit it all on one line. Break it up. But try and make it balanced. Also, splitting it up according to the title's meaning can work---like here. The 'Just Yet' is a side note, so it is put in curly script beneath 'I'm Not Over You.'
Make it balanced, make it attractive. Often, if you have two lines of text, it's nice to have a line of curly font. Curly font over solid font can look gorgeous. I would recommend Olho de Boi--it's the curly one on the link above. Very pretty.
Text color. This is also a biggie. Sometimes people try and use big, bright colors to stand out--no. Just no. Big, bright colors may be flashy, but they're not professional, and honestly, most of the time they're not very attractive. There's really no cover where you can't get away with a nice white or black. If you're looking to spice it up, sometimes you can use things like 'Overlay' and 'Difference' in the 'Advanced Blend Modes' scroll bar. If you want more information on how to use those, just ask.
Capitalization. I don't know if you've noticed, but on most published covers, the title and/or the author name are in caps. There's a reason. Caps look very professional, and really stand out on a cover without being outlandish. If you do it right, the viewer almost doesn't realize it's in caps. Here's an example of a capitalized title and author name.
Sometimes, you can do the opposite. Though I would recommend this method less, you can also make a word that should be capitalized in all lowercase. This would be most highly recommended when there are two levels of text and this is a bottom level, especially if there's a letter with an upwards stem like 'd.'
Spacing. Sometimes, it helps to space out the text. I wouldn't recommend this with normally capitalized text, but with full caps, it can work brilliantly. It also looks great for an author name, especially with the font 'Gill Sans.' That is the font and technique I used for Kris's name in the above cover. But it works for titles, too, like in this cover.
Then, the dreaded fonts. Fonts are a big issue. Some people use all kinds of wacky fonts. It's cute, but it doesn't look very--here I go again--professional. Some of the more professional fonts I'd recommend:
Georgia
Times New Roman
Gill Sans
Geosan Light
*sometimes* Courier New and *sometimes* migraineserif.
And then there's the curly text I mentioned earlier, which looks great coupled with these.
Make sure your text is okay AFTER your effects. It may look perfectly good at first, then you do Pixelate or Boost and BOOM--where's my text? Be careful of this. It may need to be adjusted afterwards--feel free to tweak.
Author's name in relation to title--I've found that it can look lovely when the author's name is right beneath the title, stretched so they're the same length. I did that on Kris's cover. Sometimes, it works to have them on opposite sides of the cover. Sometimes they look good right on top of one another. It really varies.
I could keep going on and on but I've already been going on for about twenty minutes, so here is Lesson 2, Text.
