I have a companion book on my @VictoriaKaer profile with writing tips. This book will cover some basic elements of cover design as well as some dos and don'ts of design. I also have information about requesting from a designer here on Wattpad.
I ce...
I have lost count of how many contests I've seen of late where the judges don't seem to have a clue about design and inevitably the winner's skills are subpar and they were chosen simply because the judges happened to like the cover. There are things you should always consider when judging or critiquing a graphic. Especially if the graphic is for a contest.
Does it fit the prompt? Did the contestant do everything the prompt asked?
Is it the correct size the contestants were asked to make?
Are the images clear, sized properly and centered nicely?
Does the font fit the graphic, is it sized correctly, centered properly and can it be read easily?
If you're judging things you should be impartial, that isn't to say you can't like some of the graphics you're judging, but you must take a step back and judge based on skill not preference. You might really love 'Cover A' and want to give it good marks, but if it's the wrong size for the prompt or the images are fuzzy, or any number of other things are wrong, then you should judge it based on those things. If you can't be impartial then you shouldn't be judging, remain a spectator so you can comment about your favorite graphics.
I've seen covers with extremely fuzzy images that have comments on them saying how awesome it is and telling the designer how great they are. I tend to wonder if we're all looking at the same graphic. I'm not saying everything I make is super spectacular, but I understand the basics of design and I end up scratching my head sometimes when I see comments on some of these graphics.
The following examples are recreations of covers I've seen people make. Not everything is exact but I got them as close as I could. I got lazy with the backgrounds and with some of the titles because I honestly couldn't remember how they were done on the originals I saw. But I wanted to showcase some of the bad design decisions I've spotted in some contests.
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This is most certainly not a manip cover.
Let's talk about what's is wrong with this design -
