New Cover Art for Bacbbreaker

[curtismartin28]

Here is a cover I've done for Backbreaker. Let me know what you guys think.

[ReMeDy]

Just my thoughts as a graphic designer:

What I love:
1.) Great usage of the type. Looks superbly cleaned up and erased, although I do notice some white on the right-side of the final R.

2.) Great opacity smoke images. Very intimidating.

3.) Logo is in excellent quality.

4.) I love grid layout - it's great for magazines, articles, websites, etc. but pretty bad for sports box covers. You could do a lot worse though (see my bottom point #2 on ideas).

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Constructive criticism:
1.) The Revis photo lacks quality. Yea, I can tell who he is, but considering he is the dominant visual, he needs to have the most dominant clarity. This quality stands out even more alongside the incredibly detailed Jets logo.

2.) I don't like how Revis is boxed in. Try playing with the negative space more. For example, have his helmet protruding into the grey space. If you have more image to work with, extend his torso to the bottom of the cover and his arm to the edge of the left. I'd have to see it, but just an idea.

3.) Shrink all the bottom elements. The ESRB logo is nearly the size of the Jets logo! Use the official BB box art for size reference comparison.

4.) Actually, you really don't need the Jets logo. People will know who they are. Plus, you create a redundancy by having the Jets logo AND the type saying "New York 11 Jets." I'd just drop both. After all, you don't see Madden 12 with a "Cleveland Browns" logo or type on it.

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I love those two smoke-screen images of the Jets to the right a lot more than the Revis one. If you have the quality to work with, I'd just take one of those, resize it, add a background motif behind the whole thing, size down the bottom elements, and call it a day. As of now, I just think you're trying to cram too much info in. Keep it simple. Thanks for the box art though - it's awesome people are still working to breathe life into Backbreaker .

[curtismartin28]

A few changes. I kept the Jets logo though. I think it brings everything together. Let me know your opinions.

[ReMeDy]

Yea, that looks a lot better . Feels more unified and less cluttered. I also like the filter, or whatever it is you did to help merge the images a bit and avoid the original box-model look. The smaller bottom logos are also a big improvement.

Only few things I can think of are:
1.) #57's arms and torso getting abruptly cut off behind the transparent Jets logo is a bit jarring. One way to fix that, if you know how, is to use a gradient transition, so that everything slowly fades into the background. It should work really great behind your white background.

2.) I see some uneven borders around the box housing everything. See if you can make it consistently smooth throughout.

3.) In the top-right of #24's pic, I see an abrupt glitch where the picture ends. Try using the clone stamp tool (Photoshop) to smooth it out, or just use more white to fill it in, so long as it looks natural with the rest of the background.

4.) Is that NFL logo at the bottom a tad horizontally stretched? I don't know, maybe I'm just seeing things.

Overall, a much better cover . Certainly better than many other sports fan covers I've seen.