But though it’s readable and no two letters are identical, it places us squarely back in the realm of predictable solutions. The above example was hastily made with Helvetica Neue, a picture of a steak and a Fireworks brush stroke. With the correct tools, you can melt it or drop another image into it. Sometimes, it’s better to use a classic, readable typeface instead. How many hours did you work on your book? Why ruin it by taking typographic shortcuts? Probably, the designer of your distressed typeface used a similar technique. If you want spattered brains, get a straw and some India ink make your own one-of-a-kind spattered letters and then scan them when they’re dry.
The identical Ts, Ns, and Rs utterly ruin the effect of the textured type in the “bullet in the brain” example above. One typographic trend relies on letterforms that come “pre-spattered” or “distressed.” An issue with distressed or “melty” fonts is that if you have two or more letters in the title that are the same-especially consecutive letters-the distress patterns match and the title loses its “organic” appearance. His caption was supposed to read “In war there are two types of casualties.” But because he didn’t pay attention to kerning, his caption read “in war there are two types of casual ties.” Kerning can be manipulated (and almost always should be) but most amateurs take the typeface at “face value.”īook Cover Typefaces: Letters in Distress I had an MFA student once who designed a poster about child soldiers. You can get around this but you have to pay attention.
BOOKCOVERS WITH HELVETICA TYPEFACE FREE
Many fonts on free sites have really poor kerning tables-the built-in logic that controls the letter spacing. If the font is named “slasher,” how many Horror writers do you think will use it on their homemade covers? Call the same font “Drippy” and writers will ignore it in droves. Plenty of “spooky” fonts on free font sites have creepy names but that doesn’t mean the typeface is well-designed or even appropriate. Book Cover Typefaces: What’s in a Name?īe careful not to be seduced by the name of the typeface. Paying even a small price for a typeface ensures that 99% of amateurs won’t be using it. Like free clip-art that’s available to everybody, free fonts get downloaded and used over and over and over. For example, they may offer only capital letters and might omit dollar signs and other useful glyphs.
BOOKCOVERS WITH HELVETICA TYPEFACE FULL
FontSquirrel and a few others offer some quality typefaces but gimmicky fonts often lack a full set of characters.
Rarely will someone take the time to design a serious typeface and give it away. Fonts on free font sites are very often either ripped off and renamed or designed by amateurs. Book Cover Typefaces: You Get What You Pay ForĮxcellent typefaces often cost hundreds of dollars. This article offers a few thoughts on book cover design for genre fiction. For her previous Zombie fiction book, she chose a typeface appropriately named “bullet in the brain.” Though these might seem like obvious choices, their obviousness is precisely what makes them a liability. “I chose a ‘swampy’ font that hangs down over the art to make it look like Spanish moss,” she said. I recently responded to a question in a writers’ forum from an author who was in the process of designing a cover for her novel set in a swamp in New Orleans.
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