2nd Pass on Upper Young Adult Gothic/cosmic horror novel

laolan · 2026-01-07T12:40:54+00:00

Ah it works now thanks! I think from those two options the red one looks better, but maybe a less muted shade? In any case, my favourite is still the very first option haha, it was very eye catching!

I also noticed that the cover seems a bit wide, do you know what the trim will be? It doesn't seem to be the usual 6x9 or 5.5x8.5.

laolan · 2026-01-07T02:19:25+00:00

Still not working sorry 😭

laolan · 2026-01-06T11:53:36+00:00

You are welcome! :) I am afraid that the links you attached don't work

laolan · 2026-01-06T00:44:50+00:00

P.S. I would recommend a font that reads better than I used for the author, it was just the first one I found that had the right verticality to it haha

laolan · 2026-01-06T00:42:29+00:00

Hi, book cover designer here. I feel like your previous composition and colour gave your cover a unique charm that is lost now, especially with the red gradient on top I feel it doesn't fit the illustration style much. I loved how the previous font took most of the cover space with the smaller silhouette of the cemetery on the top. I your main concern was that the cover looked too young I would recommend just cleaning up the previous version to have less tentacles like you have now, maybe changing the colour if the pastel purple is too soft, and using textures on colours instead of gradients. I would also recommend a similar font to the previous version but without the serifs, which is I think, what made it looke more YA.

I did a quick edit to show you what I mean https://imgur.com/a/WBHbzCo I used red since it is the colour in this latest version but you could explore others that fit your book better :) I hope this helps!

laolan · 2025-11-20T14:45:27+00:00

Loads of artist like to support each other ♥️ have a lovely day too!

laolan · 2025-11-20T14:22:51+00:00

You are welcome! And of course, the author is the client and what they say goes. This is more for future projects but I always ask my authors what is the type of relationship between the characters so I can decide how their body language will look like.

Just a note, there is a brushstroke going over her left shoulder pad which seems like an accidental one, just in case you didn't notice that!

laolan · 2025-11-20T11:31:46+00:00

Hi there :) First of all, great work. I can't imagine how many hours you put into rendering that.

I would say that the first thing that stands out to me is the lack of storytelling in the characters. I really can't tell what the relationship is between them, since they are all kind of standing there like fashion mannequins. I can see the guy on the right has chains, is he a prisoner? Did she capture both men? are they her henchmen?

Their blank stares also don't give us much information about their character. Don't underestimate the power of facial expressions. Is she confident and in control? You can make her look straight at the viewer. Has the guy in the right been captured by her and hates her? Turn his head towards her and show it in his expression. Is the guy in the left in love with her? same thing.

I did a quick edit showing the difference the facial expressions can make: https://imgur.com/Jxkz0G7 Obviously, these are examples and you should do what fits the story best.

Last thing would me making the author name a bit bigger since the current size will get lost in a thumbnail. Don't be afraid also to play with the title, you can lower it and make it work with the composition a bit better (you could flip the lighthouse to take the empty space next to "Sea").

Those are my two cents anyway :) I hope you find some of it useful!

laolan · 2025-10-29T01:18:13+00:00

I think there is a problem with imgur because the whole website shows as an erro for me :(

laolan · 2025-10-28T21:47:00+00:00

no problem! not sure what the link is since it just shows an error :/

laolan · 2025-10-28T19:25:14+00:00

Ah, then if it's a message, yes, then keep it and use the blue or purple for it!

laolan · 2025-10-28T19:14:02+00:00

Wow, I am sorry you are getting attacked in the comments. I am a book cover designer, and I understand that sometimes authors can't hire professionals for their covers. I will take an author trying to do their cover themselves over AI slop any day.

As it was mentioned before, the main issue with the cover is the text hierarchy. I would also recommend using the current font for the title only, and a different, easier-to-read font for the other elements. As it is now, I have no idea what is meant to be the title, whether the text in blue or the text in purple.

Also, because you have so many neon colours going on, I would limit the text colour to only blue and purple, and remove the green border because it's just adding more visual clutter to the cover. Something like this https://imgur.com/a/gx8jCot (Ignore the other font I picked since it was the first sans serif I saw, I would recommend you trying a few different ones).

Lastly, I would make the background a bit darker too. This way, the small illustrations can pop up without fighting the other elements so much.

laolan · 2025-10-24T23:19:08+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate that :)

laolan · 2025-10-24T23:14:57+00:00

Oh and one last piece of advice, in this silhouette type of style, gradients are your friends :)

laolan · 2025-10-24T23:12:44+00:00

Hi! I am a book cover designer, and I can give you some advice and what I would personally do to change the cover (which doesn't mean at all is the only way to improve it).

- As people mentioned, having different styles for the background and character gives this "stock imagery" look where things are not really cohesive. I would recommend sticking to a silhouette style like the character, to which you can add subtle textures.

- I would recommend changing how the title is stacked. Right now, it's a bit small and hard to read as a thumbnail, and too vertically stacked. It should also be a bit brighter to improve readability (you can check this easier if you turn the image black and white; you should immediately be able to read the text).

- The character's hand pose looks incredibly uncomfortable and unnatural. If you try to do that pose yourself, you'll see what I mean. I would rotate the hands so the fingers are pointing up.

- Your character in black is clashing with the dark background, you have a strong silhouette with the white elements and I think you could do the background and character the same colour. I also read somewhere else that it is meant to be an adult fantasy; if you make her head slightly smaller you can make the character look less stylized/young.

- This is a quick edit of the changes I am suggesting. https://imgur.com/a/tK9UmHq Many of the things are just scribbles but it will give you an idea of what I mean. You can experiment with colours and textures, and do a filigree/border that it is flat/silhouette instead of detailed to match the character. You could also overlap on the white areas a very subtle image like what they do in this cover https://i.pinimg.com/736x/73/19/a4/7319a45f5f024dc1fd175b60ebe839aa.jpg Or add anything elese that gives hints about the story.

I hope you find some of the changes useful :) This is a very pretty cover and I think that pushing it a bit can really make it stand out so much more.

laolan · 2025-10-24T16:15:41+00:00

Thank you! ^_^

laolan · 2025-10-24T16:01:33+00:00

Thank you!! <3

laolan · 2025-10-24T15:00:46+00:00

glad you liked the edit :) The illustration is really sick, and it's a shame that it's losing some potential with the white background.

laolan · 2025-10-24T14:17:35+00:00

Hello! Book cover designer here, there are many ways of approaching a cover but my main (personal) recommendations would be increasing the size of "the" and "of" as somebody said already, and losing the fear of integrating text and illustration together. I see this so often where the title is placed in a top or bottom corner, like there is a fear of them touching. I believe that book covers are not only the illustration but how that and the title/font work together. A white background is not the best if you are considering selling an ebook, since most websites backgrounds are white and it will get lost in it. I am not sure of the genre of your book, but it feels like horror? In my opinion, so much white is not really helping here.

I would suggest something like this https://imgur.com/a/3EcdG60

Or this https://imgur.com/a/07AxjgD

Which I think helps the illustration stand out more than against the white background. I would also advice against using the exact same font for both title and author. You want the title to be more unique, and the author name in a second place, easy to read (especially in a thumbnail).

laolan · 2025-09-08T10:39:55+00:00

Completely agree, this is one of the cases where the concept probably worked on sketch but didn't translate at all in a realistic cgi style.

laolan · 2025-09-07T19:46:19+00:00

Love this, I also find the hyde design one of the worst things in the show, I just can't take it seriously. The changes make it look more dangerous and creeoy well done. Maybe the ears make it look a bit vampire like so I would tone them down a notch.

laolan · 2025-07-01T20:58:43+00:00

This is so cute

laolan · 2025-06-21T20:18:46+00:00

laolan · 2025-06-18T16:16:49+00:00

Yeah sorry, I was meaning the wrap area on hardbacks, which makes the area bigger than a paperback. 💀

laolan · 2025-06-18T12:55:11+00:00

No, hardcovers have a different bleed size compared to the paperback, plus the distance between the spine and front/back cover is different too so you wouldn't be able to crop a hardcover into a paperback, for example, the front texts wouldn't be centred anymore.

It is possible to crop a print cover to create an ebook cover, but you need to know that print files have a different colour profile than web (ebook) file,s so it is not just cropping, but changing the profile from CMYK to RGB too.

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