“Weapons of Power” By David J. Normoyle.

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book cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, design, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, Magic, Wizard

“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” and Book 2 “The Black Bearer” By David J. Normoyle.

This is the first and second part of an exciting young adult fantasy trilogy for which I am producing the covers.

Obviously, when designing a series we have to think about how we are going to keep a consistent feel throughout all of the covers. They need to look like part of a series while at the same time looking exciting and new. Not as simple as it sounds.

David gave me the synopsis of the books and after some discussion we decided to go for a kind of classic film poster format, featuring the main characters and locations that appear in the particular books. It’s also a good idea to hint at the kind of adventure the reader will experience when reading the books.

The intention when designing covers like this is to create a kind of film trailer effect on the viewer, leaving them with a mind filled with excitement and questions they want to know the answers for.

Weapons of Power book 1 cover art © Keith Draws

With that in mind, it’s essential to achieve a well-balanced layout, as well as a pleasing tonal and color balance, in order to draw the viewers eye in.

Weapons of Power Book 2 Cover art © Keith Draws

David designed and provided me with the excellent“Weapons of Power” Logo for the series. It’s always important to ensure that the space allotted for title and Author is going to work well and be readable at all viewing sizes. Segregation of the cover using the rule of thirds or as I did for these covers, the more complex (but also more aesthetically pleasing) Golden ratios is always a good way to determine the best location for the Typography.

The color can really set the mood and it also works on many other subconscious levels. The use of complementary colors balancing out across the layout, and the tonal contrast variations in these paintings all help to draw the eye in creating depth movement and flow across the image. (more about color here)

Weapons of Power book 2 cover art © Keith Draws

Finally when it comes to the actual image (especially for this kind of genre) it can be useful to implement quite a lot of detail in order to keep the viewer engaged and another trick is to try to add glimpses in to landscape of the world in the fantasy that create the desire to enter the image and see more. Although these covers are paintings it’s quite possible to do this with a photo montage and not near as much skill is required.

David’s  Website is  http://www.davidjnormoyle.com/ and facebook is http://www.facebook.com/DavidJNormoyle

Prints and posters of the paintings are available here:

“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” Front and back

“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” Front only

“Weapons of Power”, Book 2 “The Black Bearer” Front and back

“Weapons of Power”, Book 2 “The Black Bearer” Front only
Thanks to http://skydancer-stock.deviantart.com/ for the great reference of Wizards.
Thanks to Marcus Ranum who provides Great Stock photography FOC on DeviantArt which I used for Reference;
Also Thanks to the Model Laura Preciado who posed for the character of
Suma – the woman with the Axe.

Breathtaking book cover

Just wow!

Apparently my cover for “The Island” by Teri Hall is breathtaking.

See the actual post here

Composition: Testing layout alternatives using the “Golden Ratio” and “The Rule of Thirds.”

Tags

book cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, design, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, kindle, layout, Photo compositiing, The Rule of Thirds

I mentioned here that  I’d show you how I apply the various compositional grids we’ve discussed so far on an actual cover design, so here it is. I don’t usually work with finished images but rather roughs, However I felt  it would look better for this post.

Here I’m working with images I digitally painted , but you can work with Photos in the same way. In your photo editing  software Paste two copies of any image you intend to scale, at full resolution into your art. Name one “Final Image ref no” and hide it, and name the other “rough ref no“.  Now you can scale the “rough ref no” image up and down as much as you want because this is just your rough/design image. Once you have settled on the final size and position, use this as a template to scale and position the “Final Image ref no” layer and then hide the rough.

Pro Tip: When it comes to using the final image, remember if you scale it up more than 20% bigger than its original size the quality will be reduced to a point where its not usable. Scaling down is not a problem.

I decided to work with two grids. On the left is the Golden Ratio 9 section Grid, on the right you can see The Rule of Thirds, another 9 section grid.

So I fooled around for quite a while but finally I had six variations I was fairly happy with. Again “Golden Ratio” on the left, “Rule of Thirds” on the right.

There may seem to be not a lot of difference here, but look at the placement. I’ve place the figure so she falls within the grid in a very specific way. On both versions she is occupying the left and central columns and the lowest horizontal dividing line bisects the hips just above, where her right leg flows into the right column. There are other subtle points of grid alignment that you can find if you study both images but they may differ in each image. The end result is that the figure in the Golden Ratio (on the left) is slightly smaller and is placed slightly higher. She fills just over half of the cover while in the image on the right she occupies almost 2 thirds of the cover.

At this point I also put some text in, its not going to be the final fonts but its giving me an idea of what properties the font will need and how well the title is going to work in this format. Notice the text falls higher on the page in the “Thirds” grid.

At this point I’m liking the “Golden Ratio ” more. So now its time to try further alternative:

I wondered if I could get “Book Title” across the top and so this was the result.

In Both cases I’m Filling the left vertical column and bisecting the central vertical column with the woman, leaving space at the top for the text. This was leaving a large blank space on the right that put everything out of visual balance so I placed a moon in there, bisected by the uppermost horizontal line and the furthest right vertical line. The flames are also helping to fill the grid in a balanced way.

In this case I prefer the result on the Right in the “Rule of Thirds” grid. Next I decided to try and make the text more dominant:

For me these two are too clearly divided up, but that may just be my personal bias. On the good side the title of the Book will be very clear indeed. In any case its worth studying how I’ve used the grids. Take special note of how, on the right, I have added a second grid (marked in red) within the upper two horizontal sections of the first.

By this point I now felt I had enough  information to make an informed decision and decided I like the very first layout I did. So the next stage is to refine it some more. I’m going to discuss that in my next post since there are still quite a lot of issues to be considered.

Here again is the photoshop template for you to use. Its at the correct resolution for a 6 x 9 book including bleed with overlays for both of these grids. It’s 450 DPI at actual size and includes 3mm bleed. It also includes a template for the Kindle cover format which is 1.6 and slightly different to the 6×9 cover. Right click the link to save and and Download here:

Composition: Using the Rule of Thirds on your Cover

Tags

book cover, cd cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, design, golden ratio, Keith Draws, kindle

This is a very simple template that can enhance your layout substantially.

It can be used on any format and it can also be broken down into further thirds sections, but more of that later. First lets look at the template when applied to a standard 6 x 9 book cover.

Standard 6×9 book, “thirds” grid.

The rule of thirds was first written down by John Thomas Smith in 1797. In his book Remarks on Rural Scenery, Smith quotes a 1783 work by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in which Reynolds discusses, in unquantified terms, the balance of dark and light in a painting. Smith then continues with an expansion on the idea, naming it the ‘Rule of thirds’:

Two distinct, equal lights, should never appear in the same picture: One should be principal, and the rest sub-ordinate, both in dimension and degree: Unequal parts and gradations lead the attention easily from part to part, while parts of equal appearance hold it awkwardly suspended, as if unable to determine which of those parts is to be considered as the subordinate. “And to give the utmost force and solidity to your work, some part of the picture should be as light, and some as dark as possible: These two extremes are then to be harmonized and reconciled to each other. (Reynolds’ Annot. On Du Fresnoy.)

Analogous to this “Rule of thirds”, (if I may be allowed so to call it) I have presumed to think that, in connecting or in breaking the various lines of a picture, it would likewise be a good rule to do it, in general, by a similar scheme of proportion; for example, in a design of landscape, to determine the sky at about two-thirds ; or else at about one-third, so that the material objects might occupy the other two : Again, two thirds of one element, (as of water) to one third of another element (as of land); and then both together to make but one third of the picture, of which the two other thirds should go for the sky and aerial perspectives. This rule would likewise apply in breaking a length of wall, or any other too great continuation of line that it may be found necessary to break by crossing or hiding it with some other object : In short, in applying this invention, generally speaking, or to any other case, whether of light, shade, form, or color, I have found the ratio of about two thirds to one third, or of one to two, a much better and more harmonizing proportion, than the precise formal half, the two-far-extending four fifths and, in short, than any other proportion whatever. I should think myself honored by the opinion of any gentleman on this point; but until I shall by better informed, shall conclude this general proportion of two and one to be the most pictoresque medium in all cases of breaking or otherwise qualifying straight lines and masses and groupes , as is agreed to be the most beautiful, (or, in other words, the most pictoresque) medium of curves

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

Basically what he’s saying is only have one center of focus and everything else in the image should serve to complement it and guide the eye toward it. Using this grid should help an artist (you in this case) balance the image. I’ll talk about color and contrast in more detail in a later post.

That’s easily said, even using this grid to create a balanced and pleasing image is not always as easy as it sounds so its always worth experimenting with it.

I’ve created some simple layouts guides to help you in some small way, I recommend you experiment further:

Remember earlier when I said: “ it can also be broken down into further thirds sections”

Here are a couple of examples of that:

And now here are a few examples of actual books with the rule of thirds applied on the cover:

The Golden Ratio Nine section gird

It’s also possible to adapt the Golden Ratio into a 9 section grid for your cover. You simply take four Golden rectangles and overlay them as shown below:

I actually prefer it to the standard “Rule of Thirds” and I’m working on a cover using this format right now, so I’ll post it as soon as its done showing you some of the design decisions I was faced with when I produced it. I’ll talk about color and contrast in more detail in a later post.

Finally, I’m giving you a photoshop template at the correct resolution for a 6 x 9 book including bleed with overlays for both of these grids. It’s 450 DPI at actual size and includes 3mm bleed. It also includes a template for the Kindle cover format which is 1.6 and slightly different to the 6×9 cover. Right-click the link to save and Download here:

Okay, I think that’s it for now, I hope this is helpful to you.