The Crayon Cover

The Crayon Cover

Produce ONE image: a hand-drawn cover, centred, on warm cream. Follow every line below. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the fields?

If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.

If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these four lines only

• The subject: {what this cover is for} e.g. a cover for Vibary's hands-on workshop
• The big title: {three or four words} e.g. Make It Move
• The small line beneath: {credit, byline or one short phrase} e.g. vibary.ai | a workshop for designing with AI
• The scene below: {who is doing what, with what beside them, in which colours} e.g. a round-cheeked kid sitting cross-legged on a wooden floor, holding up a wobbly hand-drawn play wedge that glows, a sleepy tabby cat curled beside them, crayons and a small tablet scattered around, in warm brown, moss green, cream yellow and clay orange

The page

• Portrait 4:5. Centred and symmetrical, top to bottom.
• Ground: flat matte cream, a pale warm buff. Painted, opaque, and completely clean — no speckle, no paper fibre, no vignette, no gradient in the ground itself.
• Three bands, stacked and centred: the title across the top three fifths, the small line beneath it, the scene across the bottom third. Generous cream between each.

The title

• Rounded hand-drawn sans, drawn fat — thick strokes, soft round terminals, wide bowls.
• Every edge furry and slightly irregular, the way a marker leaves it. No clean vector contour anywhere.
• Each letter carries the same vertical fade, applied per letter: warm orange at the top, running down through red into deep plum at the baseline. The fade repeats on every letter — it does not run across the word.
• Letters sit slightly off the baseline, some a little high, some a little low, so the word bounces rather than marches.
• It is the first thing seen: it owns the top three fifths of the page.

The small line

• One line, centred, in dark warm grey, in a plain sans.
• About a sixth the title's size, with the tracking opened up.
• Separated from the title by a clear band of empty cream — close enough to belong to it, far enough to breathe.

The scene

• Flat picture-book illustration, filling the bottom third.
• Every shape rounded: no sharp corners, no hard angles, no thin spiky lines. Soft grain over the fills.
• Three or four soft, saturated colours, warm-based — browns, mosses, cream yellows, clay oranges — chosen from the field, not invented past it.
• A pale violet shadow pools softly under each object, giving the scene its weight.
• Sized to balance the title: the scene is the second voice, never a competing one.

Every part must

• ✓ sit centred on the page's vertical axis
• ✓ carry a hand's irregularity at its edges
• ✓ stay inside the warm palette, the plum fade included
• ✓ leave real cream between the three bands
• ✓ read instantly at thumbnail size, title first

Never

• ✕ a textured, speckled, gradient or photographic ground
• ✕ a straight machine-drawn contour, or type set in a real font without the drawn wobble
• ✕ the fade running across the whole word instead of per letter
• ✕ cool colours dominating — no blue-greys, no neons
• ✕ extra text: no page numbers, no tagline, no logo beyond the small line
• ✕ hard black outlines, drop shadows, glows or 3D

The result

A cover that looks made rather than generated: one fat bouncing title, one quiet line, one warm scene — and a layout you can pour a whole series through without it ever going stiff.