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How can I make this book cover look more professional?


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This is my first attempt at a book cover, and I'd love some feedback on taking it up a notch. How can I make this look more professional?

I'm open to any suggestions, but I think my main issue with it is the central green area the text inside. It doesn't really look right to me. Something about the solid color and the faux Asian text. It's a book about agriculture in Asia, so I assumed the font made sense, but... 

Anyway, I'm kind of stuck and looking for feedback. 

Thanks!

Attached in .jpg and .Afphoto formats below. 

FOFCCover.jpg

FOFCBookCover.afphoto

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Well, I'm not great at book cover's so take what I say with a grain of salt, maybe just try a few different designs and have people vote on it?

You can try different text styles and see if anything stands out better.

I made a quick attempt at it, and I don't exactly like your font but I think it's easier to read then what I have though so...  maybe try a few different designs and look at a few book covers and try those styles.

 

I think for the most part at the end of the day it's mostly personal preference... 

exampleBook.png

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The font style makes the word centuries look like tenturies, so I would try a different font style for legibility.

Considering the title is "farmers of forty centuries" maybe have a greyscale image or a sepia toned image indicating age.

example:
image.png.7ccc1c23f1b4b19492a5272142901b2a.png

 

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The lower picture now looks like a volcano had struck the valley with ash.

The original Font is fine with me, I would just replace the „C“ by a single, larger, more stylish letter. The font signals „Asia“, which is good, and the readability issue is just this single letter. So replace it by something Asian looking, and make it large(r).

The fruits in the top center stand out a lot. Move it to the left, where the normal viewing of a page starts ? It would form a sequence: Detail - midsize (farmer) - large (Temple).

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The use of several images reduces my professional feeling. It appears one wasn't able to make a decision for the title image and, as compromise, simply shows a bunch of pictures, maybe to "make it more complete" for the book content. – In my understanding a book cover should rather be designed like a billboard or poster, than like a magazine title (which often tries to tease with the topics changing weekly or monthly).

Maybe the small images can go to the back, where you will have explaining text. (It might help to layout front + back page on one spread.)

For the front you can easily do a web search for "book cover" and decide yourself which you prefer over others, then analyse what makes their difference. For instance...

2130378601_bookcovers.jpg.4d74b8d6e9c486b774c8161bd2a6098f.jpg


If you add "farmers" to "book cover design" the result will be different since in particular non-fiction books, even if highly scientific and/or expensive, often seem to place additional "design-objects" of obvious simple geometry (like lines and rectangles) to the layout in any, hardly understandable, way, as if they must meet an unwritten law of scientific book covers with an odd understanding of looking "professional".

images.jpg.32631460fe1cbace20914d313234d0ee.jpg - images-2.jpg.cd0652f37f935669a8d3e2c69abd64cc.jpg- MCCP3.jpg.49bb49094f80ab61b6809eec25e43223.jpg - 51Oag3YRMWL.jpg.e9a3143aebbc65e4d3667b1541876a12.jpg

p.s.:
"The crisis of book cover design"  https://www.litkicks.com/ToroCovers
"The book cover archive" http://bookcoverarchive.com/

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15 hours ago, AntiqueFlaneur said:

It's a book about agriculture in Asia, so I assumed the font made sense, but...

If you particularly like Vic Fieger’s Asian-style fonts, either Gang Of Three or Osaka-Sans Serif would probably be a better choice than Nuku Nuku.

A72D4A1B-CA48-493D-9401-8A53F6EC6A14.jpeg.fb34caa8cf1adf3b60a908251a986745.jpeg
8D1A8AC7-3F17-4EE0-9BC8-279B87E67806.jpeg.59b5461d8ea0789e916ccc92cf2b0302.jpeg

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2 hours ago, AntiqueFlaneur said:

I think Cinzel is exactly the font I was looking for. Thanks!

Here is a favorite of mine for Asia-related things.  It can be called Formal Script or Ondine.  Ondine is a slightly looser (tracking) version of Formal Script.

1302272856_ScreenShot2020-08-13at11_53_41AM.png.f69d6554ed71bf86381ff9f3fee5f3b9.png


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With the cover pictures, there are 2 strategies that are legally sound:

  1. Buy the exclusive rights to a picture (or a few of them), or take them yourself (which may be harder than it sounds), and be safe from others using the same one. It can still happen that other pictures are pretty similar.
  2. Use stock photos that come with a general license (free or paid) including commercial use. Here is may happen that the same picture shows up in another, if things go wrong in a conflicting or negative context. I would always make sure I have a copy of the license saved that show the legal fine print at the moment of the download.

I would decide about strategy based on the size and importance of the project.

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1 hour ago, Blende21 said:

With the cover pictures, there are 2 strategies that are legally sound:

  1. Buy the exclusive rights to a picture (or a few of them), or take them yourself (which may be harder than it sounds), and be safe from others using the same one. It can still happen that other pictures are pretty similar.
  2. Use stock photos that come with a general license (free or paid) including commercial use. Here is may happen that the same picture shows up in another, if things go wrong in a conflicting or negative context. I would always make sure I have a copy of the license saved that show the legal fine print at the moment of the download.

I would decide about strategy based on the size and importance of the project.

All the photos come from the stock photos inside Affinity Photo, so I think I should have the rights to print them. 

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2 minutes ago, AntiqueFlaneur said:

All the photos come from the stock photos inside Affinity Photo, so I think I should have the rights to print them. 

When you say stock photos inside Affinity Photo do you mean the sites from the various Stock photo companies, Unsplash, Pexels etc? You still have to read the rights from those sites. They are commercial in nature. That panel is included for convenience only, saves one from having to fire up a web browser.

What I am trying to say is you may not in fact have the rights to print them.

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6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

When you say stock photos inside Affinity Photo do you mean the sites from the various Stock photo companies, Unsplash, Pexels etc? You still have to read the rights from those sites. They are commercial in nature. That panel is included for convenience only, saves one from having to fire up a web browser.

What I am trying to say is you may not in fact have the rights to print them.

They're all from unsplash, which uses this license. It says that they are free for commercial or other uses.

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The stock platforms currently integrated in AP with the current licensing policies seem to be o.k., as well for professional use. Pictures from these platforms are usually marked (invisibly) to distinguish them from other sources.

There were cases in the past where the legal use cases were restricted a while after somebody used a picture. Later somebody found it in commercial use, and started a legal attack. To prove that it was covered by the license at that time, it makes sense to download and file the licensing details before starting to download and use stuff. Probably once a year and only from platforms you use should be o.k.

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8 hours ago, thomaso said:

Before an image decision you might want to check its current use, for instance:
https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/research-handbook-on-entrepreneurship-in-emerging-economies-9781788973700.html

9781788973700.jpg.32ad09d5bce53664fe156a82a40ad2c3.jpg

Just in case this post caused the current turn in this thread from its initial explicit "look" (see topic title) to "legal":

This comparison wasn't posted for legal concerns but rather because of "look", which always is also related to "known", "common", "boring" versus "new", "never seen before" or "interesting". From a professional perspective it can be right to hit any of those feelings – the decision depends on the goal. The author, editor, publisher and designer usually have different ideas about this goal, or at least how it can be achieved. Not to mention buyers and readers. In mind we are all professionals.

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10 hours ago, Blende21 said:

The stock platforms currently integrated in AP with the current licensing policies seem to be o.k., as well for professional use.

They should be OK, but I’m afraid I’m not convinced that they are!

Even with sites such as Unsplash there can be legal issues, as discussed here:

https://www.thephoblographer.com/2019/07/15/unsplash-copyright-infringement/

My thanks to @haakoo for sharing the above link in another thread on these forums.

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Makes some minutes well spend on the blog article.

We have a real Internet / Regulation Infringement Industry in Germany, due to the fact that the legal agencies pursuing can charge relatively high fees per case. This means they charge several hundred to a few thousand Euros for just sending you a standard letter, threatening legal action. They use methods of machine based search to scan millions of web pages to find infringing content.

This is easy money taken that many will shy away from getting the case to a court. The cases they take on range from shops (real and virtual) looking after the fine print, the energy efficiency labels, the size of price tags etc. and of course web sites - for content (as pictures, video, music), missing or wrong legal documents or data protection violations. Once you have the structure in place to run such a business, I estimate the profit margin to be in the same range as drug dealing.

This IMHO malpractice was taken to parliament to establish a cap on the fees - which was hit by severe lobbying by interested parties. There are (too) many lawyers in parliament ...

To avoid problems one can

  • buy a photo for exclusive or non-exclusive use (which I think is fair due to the fact that there is work and artistic value invested into the picture)
  • use own pictures (why do we have this professional software to make good pictures even better ?)
  • if using stock pictures, document the download (which means keep the original file with the typical file name on storage) plus the license valid at the time of the download
  • think about whether to use the stock picture as it is, or just as a part of an own creation, like a collage

None of this is absolutely bulletproof (even not for own photos, if a person or a piece of art is in the picture). But if you take the bull by its horn and the case goes to court, it will be checked if you used the necessary care in getting hold and use of the picture. If you did, your exposure is significantly reduced. The rest is probably life risk - you can be hit by the bus on your way to court as well.

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