This post is part of Cover Design Week. To see other posts click the CDW tag below.
Here is a large version of the cover of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE):
You can see a smaller version in the right-hand column on this page, and on the Smashwords page where the collection is currently being sold. [Book removed 01/03/17.]
One of the few practical things I knew when I set about designing the cover was that the small image would be more important than the large image. The reason was that the cover would almost always be shown as a thumbnail to interested readers, rendering subtleties all but indistinguishable.
For that reason, along with aesthetic reasons I’ll get to momentarily, I decided to make the title of the work and my name clearly visible at almost any size, and to make the composition simple enough that it wouldn’t be corrupted by a reduction in size. Whatever you think about the design, I feel confident I achieved this practical goal. I did have to resign myself to the fact that the subtitle would not be visible at reduced size, but I felt that was an acceptable loss. Whether this calls into question the inclusion of a subtitle I’m still not sure. [ Read more ]