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Cover advice: Of Ash Immortal

Updated: Feb 13, 2020

Apropos of this post.


Firstly, the title treatment. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the approach. The font is well chosen and the colour and placing are good. However there are a number of issues in the type treatment that are collectively making this treatment lack impact and clarity.


I have annotated these below on the left, and on the right shown how I would fix them (in an very quick-and-dirty cut and shut job) on the right:

You can see how the version on the right feels more pleasingly aligned, and has a balance to it that makes the whole title lockup feel more cohesive. It also reads better. Presenting a title in all big capitals is a bit like speaking in a loud monotone. Sometimes that is appropriate for a title, giving it a sense of import or similar. Ususuall you'll want the title to feel impactful to have the visual equivalent of nice intonation, though.


As in all design it's about creating the right kind of contrast and hierarchy.


Now for the visuals. Others and myself have given some tips on the figure itself.


But something you should definitely look at his the figure's placement on the cover. Nathan at Covercritics already mentioned she should fill more of the frame. I've added to that some fine-tuning which again I've annotated here:

In addition to what I've noted, you'll see I've pulled the wings around to be more even. The cover might be too symmetrical like this, and start to become a little dull. However, in the existing cover I don't think the wing positions are quite working because it's obviously the same wing mirrored, and it looks odd then that we appear to be seeing both flat-on, but one is tilted up higher up on the air.


In the adjusted version, the place the composition works best on the right hand side where the shape of the skyline complements the line of the wing and closes up the empty space. It also helps that there are dark buildings at the edge, framing in the light centre and drawing the eye to the figure. If I was doing a proper edit of this I would bring in similar tall dark shapes at the left hand side of the skyline too.

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