Book cover

Working on designing a cover for the book. Have been working on it for about a month now.

First few tries were cool, but when I started with the photo of Deborah's sweet bag, against the deep red of her dress, I knew that was very close to the image I wanted. It isn't perfect, but it is good enough to play with. The final image will need to be against a lot more of the velvet of the skirt, with no trim visible. Also, the bag should be filled with something to make it fuller. Also, the bag should not be closed quite so tightly. Also, the drawstring without a pull should be to the back, not the front. Minor stuff, all of it.

Here is a brief synopsis of recent cover activity:
25 July 2005 - Cover
I showed my latest cover design (#9) to folks at work. Vickie really loved the black and gold trim on the right side of the picture (from the dress opening). OK – that means the trim has got to go. I used Photoshop to doctor the image and replace the trim with the fold of red velvet copied from the left side of the picture. Also lengthened the photo so it fills the 11” .

27 July 2005 Cover
In Photoshop, fussed with Curves to emphasize the darks and the lights. Back in Illustrator, changed the text color from white to a pale silver, very close to the color of the bag. Re-aligned stuff to left and right margins.

28 July 2005 Cover
Showed the cover to Eichling. Her reaction: lose the “of” – it gets lost and is weak.

30 July 2005 Cover
Showed the cover to Gwenna (a graphic designer friend). Her notes: Need more space between words in the subtitle. There are spaces behind the & on the right – lose them and that line will line up properly. Don’t need to lose the “of”, though try dropping it down a line, see what that does.

31 July 2005 Cover
Fixed per Gwenna’s comments. I’m liking it a lot. Created a back cover mockup in Illustrator, with the same image. Would really prefer a “plain” red velvet with soft folds as the background image, as if it were the continuation of the dress. Learned about transparency in Illustrator, to get the “white” background for the black text.