7 p.m. Book Cover - Opinion needed

[Guardian]

I created the cover for my upcoming short novel collection, 7 Post Meridiem. It's about 7 short stories, all with different genre, from detective story to political thriller and science fiction, where the only common element is; all plays around 7p.m. I wanted to create a really easy design for this title and I'm curious it is capable to grab the attention or not? I'd like some feedback. Here is the cover...

UPDATED VERSION #2

[Quill]

The art is evocative, though perhaps darker-looking than the time 7pm might indicate (it looks more like midnight).

I find the typeface hard to read, and probably too small. The cover appears to be shown larger than life and I can't make out some of the words easily. Looks like you've got lots of space in the design to make the words bigger.

Also the term "short novel" isn't clear to me. It seems to indicate seven novellas between the covers, but you describe them as short stories. Why not simply call them short stories or simply "stories"?

[Guardian]

Thanks! Yes, that is supposed to be short stories and not short novels. I don't know how did I miss that one. The typeface is just experimental. I want to keep the Art Deco style for the fonts, but I'll try to figure out something to arrange them properly and balance the whole picture with larger fonts (The small fonts are in the size of 14.).

Now, the colors are a bit strange, because on my display it appears as it would be in a sunset instead of midnight (Presumably the same new LCD / old LCD & CRT problem appears again which appeared on my website too. What is appearing bright here, it may appear darker on certain displays. Thanks for mentioning this as this is used to be a problem in my recent arts, but it's an easy fix. I'll have to double or triple the brightness on one of the layers.).

[Watcher55]

I agree, it does look more like midnight than dusk, otherwise it's fine, but the devil's in the details - spellcheck "Meridian" unless "Meridiem" is a Euro spelling.

[Guardian]

I agree, it does look more like midnight than dusk, otherwise it's fine, but the devil's in the details - spellcheck "Meridian" unless "Meridiem" is a Euro spelling.

Thanks. I already work on the colors and the fonts. But Meridiem is the general spelling and also the Latin spelling. p.m. = Post Meridiem, meaning After Midday in Latin. a.m. is Ante Meridiem, Before Midday. So, unless it's called otherwise, such as Post Meridian in the U.S. (I never heard about this, but that doesn't mean I'm right.) Post Meridiem is supposed to be the correct (latin) form.

[Watcher55]

I agree, it does look more like midnight than dusk, otherwise it's fine, but the devil's in the details - spellcheck "Meridian" unless "Meridiem" is a Euro spelling.

Thanks. I already work on the colors and the fonts. But Meridiem is the general spelling and also the Latin spelling. p.m. = Post Meridiem, meaning After Midday in Latin. a.m. is Ante Meridiem, Before Midday. So, unless it's called otherwise, such as Post Meridian in the U.S. (I never heard about this, but that doesn't mean I'm right.) Post Meridiem is supposed to be the correct (latin) form.

I stand corrected.

[Guardian]

I stand corrected.

No problem. I also made this mistake few times (Meridian vs. Meridiem). :) In the meantime I replaced the old one with the new, brighter version with larger fonts.

[Fenris]

It looks all right to me, though I'll bring up the lighting issue again because while I do see a bit of what I assume is sunlight reflecting off the larger clock to the left (speaking of which, you like triangles don't you?), it looks like it's the last rays before sunset. So while you're definitely closer to 7 pm, it still resembles a time a bit later than that. In winter that might be the appropriate lighting for the time, so if your stories take place in winter then that's fine. However, if there's no specified time frame besides '7pm,' then I'd suggest brightening it up a bit, especially since you're releasing it mid-summer where it's definitely brighter than that at 7. All minor complaints though, it looks pretty good to me.

[Quill]

The larger fonts are better, but since you have room in the design, why not go one size bigger yet?

Also, try centering the main and subtitles. And for the story titles, why not try graduating them by title length (rather than put them in chapter order, which is what I assume you did). Or at least put that longest one at the bottom (it reads a bit awkward right after the shortest one).

[Guardian]

speaking of which, you like triangles don't you?

I never noticed this. :) The triangles between 7 p.m. and CS:A's main logo is just a mere coincidence. In CS:A there is a meaning for the triangles. Here... it's just Art Deco design.

In winter that might be the appropriate lighting for the time, so if your stories take place in winter then that's fine.

There is a specific time frame. Stories, such as 7.30 or TNYH plays in early winter, around December. DemInc, ArmaVeil and 15MoF plays in late Autumn. Message in a Bottle plays early Spring and Anno Humanae Salutis plays on an alien planet. I never write sommer stories. If you check CS:A too, there is also no similar season to Summer at all (Partial reason: I was born in January and as a winter born, I don't really like summer.). Although, in winter the sunset is sometimes between 4-5pm (At least here, in Central Europe. January sunsets are between 4.04-4.44pm (Jan 1 to Jan 31). 28th February's sunset is around 5.27pm and only 31st March's sunset is around 7.12pm ) so around 7pm we already have dark evening up from early winter until the end of March.

[Guardian]

The larger fonts are better, but since you have room in the design, why not go one size bigger yet?

To keep it elegant and to keep the balance in the design. Larger fonts are blowing the balance. I tried it with larger fonts (+12-15), but there, it's already looks like as if the cover would scream at the reader. I don't want that. Hmmmm. But maybe +1-2 won't hurt.

[Quill]

And again, why not arrange the story titles by length, with the shortest at the top, to take advantage of the natural angle of your art in that corner of the cover? I also am wondering if you really need those quote marks around each title.

.......................7:30
...........Democracy, Inc
.........Armageddon Veil
......15 Minutes of Fame
......Message in a Bottle
..Anno Humanae Salutis
.The New York Homicide

[Guardian]

I arranged the titles by order as they're appearing in the book. I set their place by timeline, regardless the stories are not connected to each other. i.e.: The first story, 7.30 plays in the 1930s, while the last one, Anno Humanae Salutis plays in the distant future.

But you're right. The quotes marks are maybe not necessary.

[Quill]

Could you at least shorten "New York" to "NY" to help tuck it into line, and/or omit the word "the"?

Visuals count for a lot on a cover, as I'm sure you know..

[Guardian]

It's possible to change, but it's full title is The New York Homicide (The original screenplay what I adapted is also run under this title and in the past it's been registered under this title at WGA.). But the first story, 7.30's original title is Pale Moonlight and maybe it's going to get that title back (7.30 is the present working title, but it's originally started as Pale Moonlight.). So maybe the first one will be changed instead of TNYH.