Making The Front Cover

On the front of my book cover I wanted to make the main character form the book Philip Marlowe appear to be moving a chess piece as it shows a key part of the book. I didn't want the whole of Marlowes character to be visible, this way he could be big but also add a sense of mystery too the cover as you don't know where he his, also putting the gun in his hand adds to this. I also wanted to create the effect that it is in some sort of room adding in a carpet like texture and a light, I experimented with having a light effect on the cover coming from the light but it looked a bit much and the cover looks fine without one.

Also the chess piece and the table it's on needed to be a big enough size so people could recognise the knight chess piece and understand what is happening. Another bonus of having Marlowe and the teble continue off the cover is that this was possible making it a big as possible.

With the layout on the cover I waated the above mentioned aspects to be the focal point and main imagery but I wanted to layout the etxt nicely as well having the authors name right at the top so it was recognisable on a book shelf etc. I also wnated the title to be in or aorund the center of the cover which can be seen in my initial sketches, the spacing worked out well in my opinion and the text has a good amount of space around it so it does not look cluttered and is readable. Overall I think the layout works well as everything has is own space with it all fitting on nicely.