Better Book Cover Design of the Week: Futura Edition.

How to fuck up a good title font:

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1. Put a cover blurb above the title that uses alliteration. This will be the first thing people see and will immidiately notify them that you do not give a shit how the cover of your book looks.

2. Put your title in with a time-tested reliable font. This will be the second thing that people see and it wil trick them into thinking that you might actually give a shit how your book cover looks.

3. Put in a long-ass subtitle that seems the requisite for most non-fiction books aimed at scarring parents into a fever-frenzy of buying, buying, buying things that might possibly make their manufactured problems disappeared.

4. WE’VE SOLD A SHIT LOAD OF BOOKS! SO IT’S GOT TO BE GOOD! RIGHT?! TEN MILLION PARENTS WHIPPED INTO PANIC-Y CONSUMER MODE CAN’T BE WRONG!

5. By this point it’s clear to the viewer that you do not give one microscopic fecal choliform cell about how your book cover looks, but they are trapped now and must finish viewing. So throw in a cluttered image that bluntly illustrates your point.

6. Fuck, you forgot to put in the author’s name. Just put it over the cluttered image. Wait, you can’t put it there, no one will be able to read it. I know, who gives a shit about the author, but she’ll raise a big stink about it. Just throw it in a gold box or something. That feels like an afterthought though. Probably because it is.

7. Looking a little too uniform? How about throwing all ideas about consistency and cohesiveness out the window by changing all the fonts and making them completely different from one another? Congratulations, you fucked up a perfectly good title font.

How to use a good title font correctly:

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1. Get that cover blurb away from the top and make it work within the title itself. What’s that? It’s not the first thing you see? So fucking what. If you need Machiko Kakutani to tell you what books to buy you shouldn’t be trusted with money.

2. Two colors.

3. Hey, look at that, it’s the authors name in a clear and legible place at the bottom. And it’s in the same fucking font as the title. Imagine that.

3 Comments

  1. Katie says:

    fecal coliform. no h. i’m a professional in this area. i know these things.
    p.s. i like the new site

  2. chris says:

    Thanks grammar police. Jk. I bet you do know. You should write an essay about your job. I want to hear your crazy stories.

    p.s. thank you

  3. Katie says:

    no, i really don’t think you want to hear anything about my job. i deal with poo water.. nuff said. although, poo water aside, i do encounter some crazy (and frightening) characters and i do drive around and get lost in some random (and frightening) areas.

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