Calling on all designers for help

[Mike Buckley]

I am putting together a book commemorating our recent 30th anniversary trip to South Africa and we are giving a copy of it as a gift to our friends there who helped make the trip so special. The photo shown below will be the full-bleed cover once the title and author credits are added to the upper area. What would be the best color to use for that text?

It's my wife's photo, so I've gotta get this right or suffer the consequences. Thanks in advance!

[Geoff F]

I take it that you are just referring to the title page text.

Do you have anything in the way of software which enables you to do quick color change to text?

What I usually do in these circumstances is to type on the wording, which is arranged to a suitable font size and general composition; then do a few colour changes to see what works best.

For example, over the clouds you need a bright contrasting colour, like yellow, red or magenta etc.

If the text is on the bold side you could possibly get away with simple black over the clouds.

[Mike Buckley]

Yes, I can quickly change the color of the text and see the differences. The issue is that I don't know that I would ever select an ideal color even after trying out several colors. That's because I don't trust my judgement in this area.

[FootLoose]

You could also try a dark brown, which would pick up the tones in the elephants and earth, and offer some contrast. Magenta or some reddish browns might invoke the African theme too.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, guys!

If I were to select a color from one of the colors already in the photo, which one would you suggest?

[Geoff F]

Yes, I can quickly change the color of the text and see the differences. The issue is that I don't know that I would ever select an ideal color even after trying out several colors. That's because I don't trust my judgement in this area.

Well let's start by choosing a type face and work on from that. Better still, start with an idea of the text. It doesn't have to be exactly what you intend to type but some indication of how many lines and the length of lines etc.

Then we can decide on a bold or thinner type face. Do you, or more importantly your wife, have any favourites?

Plain or Serif lettering? For example, I don't like the over used Times face, although it does look better in italic. I do use Andre quite a bit, and Boulevard Heavy for main title lettering.

[Mike Buckley]

First line: Two glorious weeks in
Second line: South Africa

The two lines will be about the same length, necessitating that the second line will be a larger font

The authors' names can be either on the same line or different lines: Joellen Brassfield & Mike Buckley

To be consistent, I was planning on using the same font style for the text on the internal pages as on the cover but will consider your advice about that. If I use the same font style, it will need to be easy to read at the smaller size inside the book.

We like Arial and Times New Roman. We created a book earlier this year using Calibri, so it might be more interesting though not important to use a serif style for this one.

Neither Andre nor Boulevard Heavy are included in the drop down list of fonts displayed within Word or Lightroom, so I assume they aren't on my computer. I would rather not have to download a font to my computer.

[rpcrowe]

Mike, this is an off-the-wall thought! I wonder how the cover would look if the text were some sort of variation of the colors of the South African flag, especially the red, green and black!

OTOH, perhaps an African style font might be appropriate:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...onts&FORM=IGRE

Or something like this:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...ectedIndex=126

or this

http://666kb.com/i/ait0offik6mtgembl.jpg

Although you were not in the jungle, perhaps one of these?

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...nt&Form=IQFRDR

However, don't pay any attention to me. My shortest suite is layout...



BTW: The ladies in my rescue group selected lavender and teal as the rescue colors and the body of text is a lot more readable in a larger size and when printed, the grid lines are not visible... ...

[Mike Buckley]

I like the guy being gorged by the rhino, Richard. He deserves it.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mike,

A couple of visuals for you to play with. For my first try I did these in Word with a mix of Arial and Garamond (a favourite font of mine) in the tan colour of the elephants, and then one in Garamond (tan) and AK Berkley (deep blue) but I couldn't save them as jpegs...

So I used Picasa (free download which you can delete when your done with it) to insert the text. In Picasa you can play with the transparency of the fonts and colours. Not InDesign but free and simple.

Arial Narrow 18 and AR Berkley 28 (the blue should be warmer to better match out the blue/green tones in the grass




Garamond 14 and 48



With your names, and then I started playing with the position and fiddling too much... Anyway a simple visual to start with...

[Loose Canon]

There are a lot of free font downloads available out there Mike!

If it were me I would sure do it in Photoshop. Once you get your text layer then get into the “Layer Styles” where there is a ton of good stuff to tweak your text to give it some zing (emboss, strokes, depth, blending, and on and on)!

You will have all control over color and your choices in “Layer Styles” will affect that. I know you will find something cool that suits you.

Its Big Fun to play around with Mike! And believe me I'm a long ways from "designer"!

[Mike Buckley]

Perhaps I should have explained that I'll be using Lightroom's Book module to create the book. That module will allow me to add the text in whatever color and opacity that I want. It won't allow me to include gradients in the text and all the other fancy stuff but I don't want to spend the time doing that anyway, especially considering that I wouldn't be good at it.

As for downloading the free fonts, Terry, the problem is that I would have to find them and download them. That requires more time and less fun than I'm willing to put into this particular part of the project. By the way, very nice image and text!

I like the idea of using the blue tone, Christina. However, the sky in the photo is uninteresting enough that I'm inclined to think that the text should be larger, more like the size that you used in your other two images. Good taste? Bad taste?

[Andrew76]

Just chiming in here - I really like Christina's last attempt. Mike, you're right, the sky is uninteresting, but I think that negative space really helps the image, and the design layout.

Her placing of the text on the 'almost-mid point' really, really works. And, I like that font too. Has a kinda African feel to it. Whatever that is.

[Loose Canon]

Perhaps I should have explained that I'll be using Lightroom's Book module to create the book. That module will allow me to add the text in whatever color and opacity that I want. It won't allow me to include gradients in the text and all the other fancy stuff but I don't want to spend the time doing that anyway, especially considering that I wouldn't be good at it.

As for downloading the free fonts, Terry, the problem is that I would have to find them and download them. That requires more time and less fun than I'm willing to put into this particular part of the project. By the way, very nice image and text!

Just a Theory Mike!

[pnodrog]

A very dark blue against the sky is a safe choice as Christina has shown but not exactly the hue I would pick.

White always looks clean and crisp but may need to be augmented by either darkening the sky a fraction with a gradient adjust or adding a drop shadow.

The other option mentioned is to use a contrasting warm colour that already exists in the photo. The dark brown lumps of soil maybe a suitable starting point but may need desaturating slightly to avoid being to overpowering.

Personally I tend to use drop shadows to add some bulk but it is easy to go to far with it.

Have fun making up your mind - now that is the really hard bit.

P.S. You will need to keep an eye out that the shadows on the sides of the elephants retain a bit of detail when printed.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to everyone that posted ideas and for everyone who responded to them!

making up your mind - now that is the really hard bit.

No doubt about it, at least for me.

Whatever I decide, I'll post it here.

[xpatUSA]

Late to the party as usual, Mike, but you might want to Google "complementary" and/or "opposing colors" (of the additive variety of course)? Something like picking the blue of the sky (my screen picker says HSB = 210, 30, 90) and heading round to the other side of the color circle. e.g. a Hue of 150 degs . . . . saturate and lighten/darken to taste . .

[edit] I missed "If I were to select a color from one of the colors already in the photo, which one would you suggest?" Sorry [/edit]

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi Mike,

How about something like this.
You may want to use Christina's font style.
Focus is more on the elephants. A distinct icon of Africa.
( sky? it's universal, not one country alone.)



HTH

[Mike Buckley]

Though your concept works well, Victor, it's not the concept that I have in mind for this particular project. It's good to see, though, for future reference that the part of the image where the text is displayed does not have to be plain when using your approach.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mike,

I'm have yet to explore text and photo books in LR (yikes, I still have so much to learn) but if you can choose the exact blue, tan or beige in LR (as Terry says one can do in Photoshop) I think that would work wonderfully. Word and Picasa offer a very limited choice of colours.

I like the empty blue sky as I see it as part of a beautiful scene. I think just the word South Africa would work in larger text (to fill the sky more), if the remainder of the text is smaller.

Another version which would fill the sky more is with

two glorious weeks in --- stretched out horizontally across the very top of the image, the entire length

South Africa --- in a much larger font, in blue, centered, filling up just the center portion of the sky.

You could add your names below the text (South Africa).... vertically with a little loop on the bottom, so each of your names forms an elephant trunk - meeting in the middle (& symbol)

Perhaps a little too cute and lovey-dovey but if for friends and memories...

or

place your names along the ground beneath the elephants feet... If you can skew, scatter the odd letter in Photoshop or LR like one can do in InDesign I think it would look wonderful.

Perhaps I should have explained that I'll be using Lightroom's Book module to create the book. That module will allow me to add the text in whatever color and opacity that I want. It won't allow me to include gradients in the text and all the other fancy stuff but I don't want to spend the time doing that anyway, especially considering that I wouldn't be good at it.

As for downloading the free fonts, Terry, the problem is that I would have to find them and download them. That requires more time and less fun than I'm willing to put into this particular part of the project. By the way, very nice image and text!

I like the idea of using the blue tone, Christina. However, the sky in the photo is uninteresting enough that I'm inclined to think that the text should be larger, more like the size that you used in your other two images. Good taste? Bad taste?