Modern Book covers

since my book cover would have to appeal to a contemporary audience i decided to research some modern bestselling mystery novels to see how effective and eye catching there covers are i got all but the last book cover from the amazon best sellers list.

this design is incredibly simple, the predominatly black background is dramatic and the lack of motif forces the eye to the text which dominates the cover. although i dont think the font is interesting i do like the  larger spaces between the letters which  somehow seems to enunciate the drama ( again in keeping with the mystery/thriller genre). the colour scheme is once again reminiscient of  film noir something i will definatly take into consideration when designing. the white on the left hand side of the cover intergrates a sense of movement nad divides the frame vertically in two which directs the eye across the cover and along the text.

 

the colours in this cover are really effective the red instantly focuses the eye drawing the eye outwards from the text along the wavy line of cloth. the cloth provokes a  real sense of movement  intergrating a directionality which is aided by the darkened corners. the blurryness of the male figure  ( works much like a silhoette concealing the features enough to initiate mystery which is congruent with the genre). i think this design is a little too serious to take aspects from for my design but it has confirmed that i would like to introduce an element of playfulness into my own design.

out of all of the modern best sellers this is my least favourite cover- i think its because the title and author name take up too much of the frame. the black on white is boring and although the angle of the panther directs the eye to the title the whote cover looks too empty to be effectivly eyecatching and i definatly think that colour could have made it look more intresting.
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Mystery-Thriller-Suspense/zgbs/books/18

i love this cover its probably my favourite so far out of all of the covers researched, it has a very retro feel about it i particularily like the purple tone used which focuses the eye. the text on the back is really unusual and i think that its a very ingenius way of presenting the title. the curved font of this text matches the vibrant tone and has a 60s style.because of the bright tones used the bare background offsets the figure and helps to elucidate the line of the shoulder. i think that this cover contains some clever intergrations ( the text curving round the figure and even the penguin logo in the 007) which i want to try and include in my own  cover.

http://dev.typophile.com/node/53664

after looking at some modern covers i want to look into covers that use silhoettes since i think that using silhoettes is going to fully reference the film noir/ 1940s mystery genre without me having to compromise on the moderninity.