Which is Better?

[Zeke D]

I trying to decide between two different covers. One has white title text, the other black. The benefit of white is it makes a better thumbnail. The black looks better artistically. WHat say you all?

 

[960design]

Try silver?

Both look pretty harsh to me. You could just soften the obnoxious white shading behind the black letters.

 

[sonicrobby]

Of the two, I prefer the right. But I agree with him ^^^^^ try silver

 

[12dylan34]

Respect the font, and what it's designed to look like. It's supposed to look spraypainted or whatever on some sort of grungy surface, yet it's got massive drop shadows and glowing white. EDIT: Maybe a bit of the white is alright if you grain it up like you have (to look like paint overspray), but definitely not too much of it.

Try to make it silverish, remove all traces of the black stroke and drop shadow/glow, then get a grunge texture and screen/multiply/overlay it over the top part of your cover. Add a slight inner glow to the text, and overall, just do some more stuff to texturize it.

Also, try to make "Body" and "Rentals" the same width (i.e. make "body" as wide as "rentals" by increasing its font size).

Also, soften that black that fades to the yellowish on the top to something more similar to the yellow-green color. Huge dramatic gradients like that usually don't look good for most design purposes.

Sounds like an interesting title, though. But really, just do some tweaks so that people won't judge it so hard by its cover.

 

[kevinfulton.ca]

I trying to decide between two different covers. One has white title text, the other black. The benefit of white is it makes a better thumbnail. The black looks better artistically. WHat say you all?

If these are the only two options I'd go with the black. The white type over powers the background. That being said if redesigns are still possible, I'd ditch the drop shadows all together and go with a different font. It just doesn't fit with the background and looks a little too 1990's (sorry not trying to be mean, just honest). Maybe try something a little cleaner. If you really want to make it look grungy then add a subtle texture to it. That way the edges are kept clean, the type is nice a modern, but you still have a worn look. Most importantly it's a better match to the background. I'd also make the name at the bottom very slightly smaller, keep it a very simple, legible and white, add a vignette to the background to create a darker area at the bottom, and place the name within it. I'm assuming this is a book cover so the author will appreciate their name in bright white type on a dark background. It will be super easy for people to read the name from a distance.

Hope this helps!