Most covers live or die on their text. In
the cover designer every
piece of text is its own layer, so the title, your name and a tagline
can each be styled and placed separately.
What you can set
Font family. There are 40 built-in font families to choose
from. They are served by OutaStory itself, so a reader on any device
sees the cover exactly as you built it — nothing is downloaded from
elsewhere and nothing falls back to a substitute.
Size. Set the type size for each text layer on its own.
Colour. Any colour you like. Contrast against the background
matters more than the exact shade — see the legibility notes below.
Alignment. Left, centred or right within the text layer.
Bold, italic and underline. Each can be switched on and off
independently.
Rotation. A text layer can be rotated up to 45° in either
direction. That is deliberate: enough for a tilted banner or a
diagonal tagline, not enough to end up sideways or upside down.
Softness. This is the shadow control. Turning Softness up spreads
the shadow behind the letters into a diffuse glow; turning it down
makes the shadow tight and sharp. A little softness is the single
most reliable way to lift pale text off a busy photo.
Outline. Draws a border around the letter shapes themselves. It
works where a shadow does not — light text on a light background, for
instance — but it thickens the letters, so keep it modest on small
type.
The 500-character limit
One text layer holds up to 500 characters. That is far more than
a title or a tagline needs, and it is not meant for a blurb — a cover
is not the place to summarise your story. If you are running against
the limit, the text almost certainly belongs in the story description
instead.
Long passages of text also break the thumbnail test below.
Making a title readable at thumbnail size
Almost everywhere readers meet your cover — home rows, search
results, an author page, a phone — it is small. A title that looks
elegant on your screen can be an unreadable smudge in a list.
- Fewer words win. A short title at a large size beats a long
one squeezed small. - Contrast beats colour. Very light text on very dark background,
or the reverse. Two mid-tones next to each other disappear when the
image shrinks. - Give it room. Leave clear space around the text rather than
pushing it to the edges. - Watch the thin fonts. Fine hairline strokes are the first thing
to vanish at small sizes. If you love a delicate font, bump the
size or add a little Outline. - Use Softness before you use a shape. A soft shadow often solves
a busy background without adding another layer. - Test it small. Zoom your browser out, or step back from the
screen until the cover is the size of a fingernail. If you cannot
read the title, neither can a reader scrolling past.
When text alone is not enough, a plain shape behind it — a bar, a
panel — gives the type a clean surface to sit on. That is covered in
Shapes and image layers.