If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if someone designed a book cover entirely in Microsoft Publisher during their lunch break, look no further than Write a Novel in a Year. This isn’t just bad—it’s corporate-training-manual bad.
First, let’s take a moment to appreciate the stiff, sterile composition. Everything is centered to death: a giant iMac, a keyboard, a mouse, and a sad little prop assortment pasted together like a ransom note from Office Depot. The whole layout screams less “inspire your creativity” and more “welcome to Module Three of your workplace compliance training.”
Now, about those “details.” There’s a porcelain duck perched awkwardly on the desk, a decorative choice so baffling it makes me think even the designer gave up and said, “Eh, throw in a duck.” Then we’ve got the cut-and-paste keyboard, monitor, and mouse, which don’t even belong in the same dimension. None of them cast realistic shadows, none of them align, and together they look like a surrealist IKEA ad that lost the will to live.
And what’s that behind it all? Oh yes, the unreadable scribble background—random faint handwriting that’s meant to imply “writing” but instead looks like your printer was running out of ink while spitting out a lawsuit. It adds absolutely nothing but clutter, like background noise at a bad café.
Typography doesn’t save us either. “Write a Novel in a Year” is shoved in bright orange inside the monitor, like a PowerPoint slide. The subtitle at the top is a long block of text that’s as readable as tax instructions and about as exciting. And of course, the author’s name sits at the bottom, stiffly boxed in by all the floating objects above it.
The irony is exquisite: this is a book about creativity, yet the cover is about as creative as a spreadsheet tutorial. Where’s the spark, the fire, the passion? This design makes the act of writing look as thrilling as reformatting a Word doc.
Write a Novel in a Year? Sure. But judging by this cover, step one was: “Open PowerPoint. Step two: drag random stock objects around. Step three: insert a duck.”