I actually like the murder font, it looks appropriately bloody. What I don’t like is that 3D gradient on it, and that bezel bazel dazzle on the font directly below. Even E. R. has some dumb shadow on it. These poor fonts have been horribly abused, and the treatment makes the whole cover look terribly amateurish. To bad, because the cover has great potential.
It’s interesting now that I think about it, I see a lot of those bezel 3D whatever-they’re-called font effects on pro covers and they always look good. I wonder what they’re doing differently. Need to learn their secret.
Professional graphic designers do one thing differently. I will tell you the secret Catie!
The secret to bevels: Don’t leave the bevel effect on the default setting! Graphic designers who know how to use bevels spend a few minutes changing the effect, increasing or decreasing it, playing with styles, changing the colour, fiddling with the nobs, until it looks good.
For example the bevel here is just too large for the font. Also it deals with red/black (Reck) text issues because of the chosen colour. It makes it blurry and hard to look at. An easy fix with some time invested.
Not sure who would pick the smallest and least important text to make stand out more with a bevel though…
So again it’s the matter of being able to SEE what looks good. It’s a bit like when some people can’t tell they’re singing off key. I find the whole thing fascinating, the way the brain works, especially in visual arts. People who, for example, draw portraits but just don’t see that their placement of facial features is all over the place. I have a better eye than most but I know there are still things I can’t see (or tell, or differentiate, call it how ever you want), and I’m particularly visually impaired when it comes to design (I can tell when things are really ugly and that’s about it), but at least I know my limitations. I bet the designer of this cover genuinely believes it looks good, and to him it probably does. I find that fascinating. I know a lot of it can be learned, but some things you’re just born with, your brain either “gets it”, or it doesn’t.
And you’re right, the bezel is way too big for that font size. Dumb choice of words to emphasize, but I think it turned out for the best. Imagine how much uglier it would’ve been if the same bezel was on all the text. At least like this that particular ugliness is limited to one small insignificant portion of it.
![cover[1]](https://lousybookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/cover12.jpg)
I actually like the murder font, it looks appropriately bloody. What I don’t like is that 3D gradient on it, and that bezel bazel dazzle on the font directly below. Even E. R. has some dumb shadow on it. These poor fonts have been horribly abused, and the treatment makes the whole cover look terribly amateurish. To bad, because the cover has great potential.
It’s interesting now that I think about it, I see a lot of those bezel 3D whatever-they’re-called font effects on pro covers and they always look good. I wonder what they’re doing differently. Need to learn their secret.
Professional graphic designers do one thing differently. I will tell you the secret Catie!
The secret to bevels: Don’t leave the bevel effect on the default setting! Graphic designers who know how to use bevels spend a few minutes changing the effect, increasing or decreasing it, playing with styles, changing the colour, fiddling with the nobs, until it looks good.
For example the bevel here is just too large for the font. Also it deals with red/black (Reck) text issues because of the chosen colour. It makes it blurry and hard to look at. An easy fix with some time invested.
Not sure who would pick the smallest and least important text to make stand out more with a bevel though…
So again it’s the matter of being able to SEE what looks good. It’s a bit like when some people can’t tell they’re singing off key. I find the whole thing fascinating, the way the brain works, especially in visual arts. People who, for example, draw portraits but just don’t see that their placement of facial features is all over the place. I have a better eye than most but I know there are still things I can’t see (or tell, or differentiate, call it how ever you want), and I’m particularly visually impaired when it comes to design (I can tell when things are really ugly and that’s about it), but at least I know my limitations. I bet the designer of this cover genuinely believes it looks good, and to him it probably does. I find that fascinating. I know a lot of it can be learned, but some things you’re just born with, your brain either “gets it”, or it doesn’t.
And you’re right, the bezel is way too big for that font size. Dumb choice of words to emphasize, but I think it turned out for the best. Imagine how much uglier it would’ve been if the same bezel was on all the text. At least like this that particular ugliness is limited to one small insignificant portion of it.