Cover Design Contest

[Troll_Inc]

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Matt - I will pay you a million-zillion-quadrillion dollars to write an Omaha book and use the suggested subtitle.

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That's funny and my thoughts 'xactly.

How about when I write my PLO book, in homage, I'll call it:

The PLO Bible:
Or How I Learned to Stop Playing that F**king Bording Holdem and Love a Good Cash Game

[Wilco23]

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Ignore the card design, I'll probably trash that, just curious how this type of color scheme sits with other people. I started out with somewhat brighter colors but have been toying with this look a little bit.








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wow, as a joke, i was going to suggest getting some of the guys from bbv4life to do an mspaint cover design contest, but these are really good. you may have some talent there, gons.

[Gonso]

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I'm from the less-is-more school and would prefer very little writing on the cover and back cover. Back covers in particular tend to have too much writing imo (not just poker books). But that's Mason's decision. Maybe we could use "Volume I" as the subtitle?

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It somehow seems more correct to do this, ala the HoH books. I also hate the idea of any kind of TOC on the cover, even if it's good marketing. It's not good design IMO

TITLE BIG, SIMPLE
volume 2: informative subtitle
authors' names

price of book maybe

Other than that, I'm trying for something that would look good sitting on someone's coffee table. Nothing against the standard 2+2 covers like 7CSFAP or SSHE, but those covers are much more function than form.

The back cover to me is where you put everything - I'm thinking in terms of what a DVD cover layout look like, I think it does well for books as well. This can look good even if it's a little busy.

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Can you make the main title slightly smaller so it doesn't come so close to the edges? Or is that important to the design?

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Yes, but there's kind of a design challenge I'm trying to figure out. First, I can't find a way to make the title look good breaking it into several lines, case in point:

Professional No Limit
Hold 'em: Volume 1
Learn to Think and Play
Like a Professional

It's half a paragraph and looks like a poem. Now it's an even longer first line now that 'Volume 1' is part of the main title and not the subtitle. To make this more narrow requires that I skinny up the text or just use smaller text... it will be kinda small as a one line.

I have some ideas though of other things I can do... I never really get there on day 1 of design anyway. In this case I was shooting for a kind of rustic look for the artwork but very clean, sharp text. It's loses the effect with too much text, of if the text is too small.

Thanks for the compliments and I guess the king stays then.

[Gonso]

Also WTF is with the revolver on all of these 2+2 books lol

Yeah I'm pretty much going with a fresh new approach, even if it clashes with everything Mason is used to.

[Troll_Inc]

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Also WTF is with the revolver on all of these 2+2 books lol

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It would be totally cool if you could put that revolver in the kings hand!

[Matt Flynn]

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Also WTF is with the revolver on all of these 2+2 books lol

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It would be totally cool if you could put that revolver in the kings hand!

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Or a miniature one in one of the hearts.

[1p0kerboy]

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Thanks for the compliments and I guess the king stays then.

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In this day and age, where everything has to be more PC, shouldn't we include a queen too? After all, isn't much of the wording changed from "him" to "her" to satisfy a more diverse group of readers?

[Gonso]

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Thanks for the compliments and I guess the king stays then.

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In this day and age, where everything has to be more PC, shouldn't we include a queen too? After all, isn't much of the wording changed from "him" to "her" to satisfy a more diverse group of readers?

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I'll try it out

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

Based on comments here, we have decided to drop the subtitle for Professional No-Limit Hold 'em by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller.

This is now corrected in the original contest post.

We will keep the subtitle for Sit ’n Go Strategy; Expert Advice for Beating One-Table Poker Tournaments by Collin Moshman.

Thanks for the input and Best wishes,

Mason

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
Based on comments here, we have decided to drop the subtitle for Professional No-Limit Hold 'em

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This will improve the cover IMO.

Anyway, here are the revised rough drafts (still with subtitles). The colors are similar to the brighter ones I tried above but I toned them down just a slight bit.

I tried using a Queen on the second cover, seems to work for me, but I could just as easily use the king for all of the covers. Or, a different king. I could also reverse the colors or change wahtever.

If the authors think there's a good chance there will be more than three volumes, there are a few limitations in terms on design continuity - I could make cover 1 a king, 2 a Q, 3 a J, but then do I do another K for Volume 4? Minor issue.