Some covers whisper mystery. Some covers suggest tension. And then there’s Pandemic Hacker, which screams “I Googled every image associated with Covid and hacking, stacked them on top of each other, and hoped for the best.”
Let’s start with the title treatment: PANDEMIC HACKER in jagged stencil font, stretched and battered until it looks like it came free with Windows 98. It’s supposed to say “thriller,” but it actually says “old Geocities fan page about The Matrix.” The subtitle, “Hacking and surviving an international blackmail group during Covid,” sits beneath it in timid white text, barely visible under the digital avalanche behind it.
And oh, the background. Where to even begin? We’ve got a pixelated globe. Cascading green code ripped straight from every hacker movie cliché. Floating blue virus clipart circling like spiky beach balls of doom. Random padlocks. Giant Bitcoin logos that dominate the lower half of the cover like someone yelled “Cryptocurrency! Don’t forget cryptocurrency!” It’s not atmosphere. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s vision board.
But the pièce de résistance is the Readers’ Favorite Five Stars seal slapped right on top like a price sticker at a used book sale. Nothing says “serious cyber-thriller” quite like a giant grayscale badge blocking your view of the actual art. Instead of lending credibility, it reads as: “Please notice I won an award so you’ll forgive the design.” Spoiler: we don’t.
The colors are a nightmare cocktail of neon blue, radioactive green, grayscale stamps, and high-contrast black and white. Nothing blends. Nothing harmonizes. Every single element screams for attention, and the result is pure sensory overload.
This isn’t a sleek cybercrime thriller cover. It’s a pop-up ad for malware, complete with bad fonts, floating viruses, and desperate award stickers. If design were a crime, this one’s guilty on all counts.