“Every house has a story to tell.”
Riley Sager, Home Before Dark
This book is all about the atmosphere. The “home” in question is creepy, drafty, and filled with snakes. While the book itself screams Gothic with a twist, the cover just screams campy horror. Maybe it’s the overly large text. Maybe it’s the green? Honestly, it might be the green. I may be biased because I’m a classic black and white type of gal (see redesign above) but I think the design could have been saved if they didn’t have that fluorescent green on there and had a more muted color. Whatever the reason is, in my opinion that the cover just doesn’t match with the overall vibe of the book.
For my redesign, I tried to take the Gothic feel into account. That’s why I decided on black and white. I also made the background dark black because…….ding ding ding the book is called Home Before Dark (which side note, should also not have been the title of this book, but I digress). I left off the New York Times bestselling author bit and the “a novel.” The reason for this was two-fold partially to make the overall design cleaner but also because I never really understood why people but “a novel” on book covers. I don’t think anyone is under the impression that what they read on the flap happened in real life, so why say it? I don’t know… shoot me an email if you know the reason why that is.
Dinosaurs and Blueberries 