Artist and cover designer Melissa Stevens (www.theillustratedauthor.net) has put together these drafts for the Read Tuesday image. You can find the alternates at the bottom of this post.
I need your help with this.
- Do you like this concept?
- What would you like to change?
- There are many possibilities, like changing colors, brightening or darkening, adding or removing elements, adding other details. The door is wide open.
- Which version appeals to you best?
- Which colors or features do you like best?
- Which colors or features do you like least?
- What could we do to make this better?
- If you would prefer something vastly different, please say what you would like.
Read Tuesday is for everyone, so if you have any opinions, please share them.
In case you haven’t heard, Read Tuesday will be a big day for selling and gifting books, like Black Friday, except for books. You can learn more about Read Tuesday (but note that the name has changed) through the link below:
https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/
Chris McMullen
chrismcmullen 
I love the one at the top with the bit of gold ribbon to the right, but the heavy dose of stars seems to obscure the month of “December” ( a wee tad too busy there). I think the third one down, looks best where the stars are concerned. There are plenty of stars to still look festive, but not so many as to make the month of December hard to see. I would add the gold ribbon onto the right side of this one. I love the design with the book popping out of the present. The title jumps out at you. Way Cool!
Thank you for your helpful comments. 🙂 Festive, without obscuring the text, sounds like a good goal. I wasn’t sure if the title would jump out or not, so I’m glad to hear your opinion on it.
The one at the top of the post is my favorite, but the date needs to be more prominent. Also, possibly RE(A)D TUESDAY — in less that would be too confusing. Great work, though. Looks really good.
We had played with Re(a)d when this was originally Red Tuesday. That might make the intended pronunciation more clear. But maybe it was too playful (I’m not sure). Making the date more prominent seems to be a good goal. Thank you for your helpful suggestions. 🙂
I like the third one the best. Though, I do agree that the date needs to stand out more among the stars. Maybe not have any stars behind the date, so it doesn’t start to blend?
Yes, I think we can work on the stars and the date. I appreciate your helpful comments. 🙂
I’d go with the top one, as is. Gaudy as the stars are, I think it’s a nice effect. I downloaded it and tried it out on a number of different backgrounds, and it works on all of them.
Thank you for trying it out with various backgrounds. Though it worked on all, did you notice any particular color(s) that you liked best? I think we might try to work on the stars somewhat to make the date stand out better, hopefully without messing up the effect. 🙂 Thank you for your helpful comments.
It looks really sharp on black–the reds pop out nicely. Against red it looks kind of washed out, but who uses red as page background? Also, how about a small square icon, maybe just the book with Read Tuesday on it, for participating authors to put in the sidebar of a blog?
I’ll definitely have to try it against black. 🙂
Yes, we’ll make a square icon for anyone to use. Anyone will also be able to use the header style for posts, for example. I’ll make the set available (as soon as we square away the details).
I like the second one. The colors are just right. The design is clean looking. Thr ones with the stars aare cluttered looking.
Clean does it have some advantages. Clean versus clutter will be the tough call. If we wind up going with the stars, at the very least we may try to declutter the stars somewhat. Thank you for adding your helpful comments. 🙂
I like the ones with the red bow the best.
Thank you for commenting on the colors. 🙂
I’m with Matt, the one’s with the red bow pop more and even though I love the stars, the bottom is my favorite
Thank you for contributing. 🙂 If we omit the stars, they could still be added elsewhere on the website, at least…