“Desman” – The Patriotic Collage Nobody Asked For
There’s a certain art to the military romantic suspense cover. You want grit. You want tension. You want a hero who looks like he could dismantle a bomb with one hand while holding a baby and a coffee in the other. What you don’t want is something that looks like the graphic design equivalent of a rummage sale.
Desman by Vic Leigh delivers all the right elements — boots, dog tags, an American flag — but instead of blending into a powerful statement, they just… sit there. Together. Awkwardly. Like strangers forced to share an elevator.
The “torn paper” effect separating the top and bottom halves is an interesting choice, if by “interesting” we mean “why is this here?” The fonts feel like they were selected during a caffeine crash — script for one line, bold sans-serif for another, and an earnest handwritten style for the title. It’s less a unified aesthetic and more a desperate cry for typographical attention.
Even the layout feels indecisive. Are we honoring veterans? Promoting a Memorial Day mattress sale? Or are we reading about two people falling in love while dodging enemy fire? The cover won’t tell you — it’s too busy juggling stock photos like a patriotic fever dream.
If book covers could salute, this one would — but it would forget which hand to use.