This post is the first in a series about avoiding the paths that cause book cover failure.
Just like overeating will pack on the pounds, stuffing too much onto your book cover will lead to certain cover FAIL. Let’s explore this particular phenomenon and learn how to whip your cover back into shape (and it doesn’t even take a treadmill):
Book Cover FAIL No. 1 : Adding too much.
Or, as I like to call it: element overload. Our instinct, when creating, regardless of whether it is a book cover or a flyer, is to put in as many elements as possible. The thinking is that the more elements we add, the clearer our meaning. In fact, the opposite is true. Don’t believe me? Take this case study as an example:
Example: Dancing with the Xorons
“Chelsea is an outsider. As the only human living among the Xoronese, a bug-like species of aliens, she faces discrimination every day. But, she has a dream: to win the Lyran Cup, awarded to the best dancer on all of Xoron. Hers is a tale of loneliness and family, dreams and destruction and discovering that the strength to find true victory comes from within.”
Now, I think we can agree that’s a pretty involved concept. But how does that concept make for element overload? Let’s take a look at all of the elements we’d need to make a truly comprehensive cover:
- Add an alien figure, to get the alien point across.
- Oh yeah, and a pensive-looking girl, to get the human element.
- But let’s not forgot a representation of dancing.
- And something about victory.
- Oh, and be sure to make it all green and red, because those are the colors of Xoron.
Before you know it, you end up with something like what you see to the right. Not horrible, but pretty darn confusing! Confusing cover = Cover FAIL.
Solution: Keep. It. Simple.
Beauty in simplicity, folks. Zen up those book covers! There’s a famous quote in the design world that is perfectly applicable in this situation:
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Book covers are like billboards: they’ll only be in front of the user’s face for a few seconds, so it’s integral to make as big an impact as possible in those fleeting moments. The way to make that bigger impact is with fewer elements. Focus the reader’s attention on one point – and hit that point home.
The Bottom Line
Make it simple, make it dramatic, make it eye-catching, and, before you know it: you’ve earned yourself a reader.
Next Steps
Check out other posts in the Cover FAIL series, or let us know if you’ve suffered from this particular cause of cover FAIL in the past. Need overweight cover rehab? Post the cover or shoot us an e-mail and we’ll offer suggestions on how to pare it down to be as effective as possible.
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