CD design: working to a professional brief

CD Design

:Transcribe interview

:Logo – Research – Design

:CD Package – Research – Design

:Font/Type – Research – Design

:Colour Scheme

:Background Images

hoto Processing

RESEARCH

In a group of 5, today we thought up a questionnaire that we could ask a band that would give us an idea of the style they’d want their CD cover. The questions we decided we want to ask are:

Band Name Without A Reason	Genre Progressive Rock
Members Names Paul, Adam, Tom, Danny	Influences Pink Floyd
Sounds Like Pink Floyd	Site/Myspace Myspace.com/jerseystreet
Audience (Age/Interest) Late Teens, Early Twenties
Existing Designs (covers) none	Pre-existing photos or Images none
Type Faces/Fonts No particular font	Layout No particular
Colours Anything but pink	Favourite Artwork none
Basic Idea of style ‘trippy’	What type of design do you hate? Anything pink
Contact Name Contact through myspace	Contact Number
Email Contact through myspace	MSN Messenger Contact through myspace
Where to download or listen? Myspace.com/jerseystreet	Track list Jersey street Passion Hate, love, loathe, fear Ash tray memory Runaway slave Sheltered Rock‘n’roll soul You must go away my girl Drugs are free Disco biscuit
Record Label none	Sale Price No sale price
Any other details or information to go on CD cover or Logo? logo spells W.A.R

With this information, we should be able to find out enough about them to know what they’d like as the cover.

After we had interviewed the band and asked the questions, we took some photos of them and asked if they’d like us to try them out in the album cover. The information that we got from them wasn’t very useful. They were very sketchy with any details they could give us by saying things like “trippy” and “not pink”. The only really told us what they didn’t want, not what they actually wanted. Because of this we had to think of anything related to a war or to unemployment as they seemed to be the only two things they were clear on. However, these two things are completely unrelated and it is hard to create an image that uses the two together. We can try to do something with the photos that were taken, but they didn’t want any pictures of themselves posing for the artwork. This makes it a little tougher because we would have to edit the images to get anything that they would like unless we use the images of them talking and laughing together.

During the Meeting

While we were talking to the band, I got the feeling that they didn’t have any specific idea for what image they wanted. Their answers weren’t very detailed and they seemed to refer to Pink Floyd a lot. They sounded like common people who were happy with any help they got promoting themselves and it felt like that was how they wanted to be shown.

While we were doing the photo shoot outside, they didn’t look as though they knew what they were doing or what they wanted to happen. I think they are very unsure about how they want their album to look. To know what kind of design we should do, I think we need to hear some of their music and base the design around the feel of that.

LOGO RESEARCH

To make a logo for the band, we must first look at existing logos for various different companies and icons.

By looking at these logos, it’s obvious that there are 3 different ways to present it. As a symbol to represent something (such as the Elder Scrolls logo, it represents an item exclusive to the game), the name of the company or product (like Sega) or both together (Seagate). I like the look of the logos that are just a symbol the best as they are simple and effective. However just making the name of the product into the logo can be better because it advertises the company name and makes a dynamic effect on how the audience thinks of the company. I will try making a couple of different designs for each and see which looks best.

CD RESEARCH

To begin designing my work, these are some CD covers that could help with planning how it will look:

From looking at these CD cover’s it is clear that there are a few different ways to present the art; photographs, drawings and logos. I think the photos look the bets and so I will try a few different covers to see what I can do with the photos taken of the band. But first, I will try designing a logo for the band.

PLANNING/DESIGNS

This is a logo of a grenade I have done by drawing over an image in flash and shading it on Photoshop using the magic wand, lasso, burn and dodge tools.

This is another design for the logo I have thought of. It is a random shape with a patterned stroke around the edge. It is not as detailed as the grenade but this is good because it makes it simple and easy to remember. The initials of the band are in the centre as they wanted the logo to include the ‘w.a.r’ letters.

I do not like either of these logos because they don’t seem to relate to the title of the CD (the ups and downs of unemployment). The grenade id only logical because of the W.A.R initials of the band, but this logo could be a little complicated to use repeatedly. The logos I have seen have all been very simple and easy to recreate and so that is what I tried with the second logo, although it is very random and has nothing to do with the band.

We are using a 12×15 case for our CD and so each member of the group will stick to this when we make our designs.

These are the front and inside cover designs I have thought of I am not happy with them because I have to guess what it is they want. The band wasn’t specific on anything and so, didn’t mind what the groups came up with. This makes it harder to design a cover that is supposed to be personal to them. To someone that was looking at this, the image of the empty room could seem a bit random and so it wouldn’t be the best one to use. Something better to use could be a beer glass like ones other members of the group have tried because it is something related to unemployment.

This is another idea I had for the front cover. It is a mix of 2 different styles I saw in the covers I looked at; I have used the combination of photos and drawings to make 4 images and arranged them onto the cover. I used a photo of each of the band members and used the pen tool to create paths over the defined features on the pictures. I first tried to create this effect with the threshold but a lot of the detail was lost. I could make it look a lot neater with paths. I quite like this cover because of the simplicity. The band wanted something simple, so what was better than a black and white image of the band? However, after talking with the other members of my group, we have all agreed that the font and positioning of the text isn’t right, so now I will try to tidy this up.

Altogether in a group, we have decided who will do what for the CD packaging:

Isobel (me) – Front Cover

Niki – CD design

Luke – logo

Louise – inside cover

Chris – back cover and spines.

The font we have decided to use is Gill Sans MT because it is clean and simple, like the design on the front cover. With the new positioning and font, I like how the front cover is looking.

This is a simple design, I have thought of for the back cover. Keeping to the linear idea, I used the lasso tool to select an area and make it into a path. I deleted a few anchor points and changed the shape slightly before I filled the space. It gave me a black boarder that although looks scruffy, it frames the area for the track list nicely. I think keeping it to black and white is a nice idea because it is effective enough for the band. As the title is “the ups and downs of unemployment” the black and white represents this well as they are opposites of each other to show ‘ups’ and ‘downs’. The tattyness of the black adds to the thought of ups and downs as it sometimes looks neat representing the ‘ups’ when life goes smoothly, and it looks scruffy for the ‘downs’.

I have found a CD template on the internet that would match the measurements of out 12×15 CD case. This will be big enough for the 12×12 disk to fit in. Using the measurements given here, I used rulers in Photoshop to get an accurate sized template to design an image for the on body print.

In some of the photos that were taken of the band, there were images of shattered glass. I liked this idea and so I found an image on the internet and made a selection that would look good for the CD. I used the colour range to select all the blue and deleted this to leave the white spaces. I inverted the selection and made the cracks black to stick to the linear black and white theme on the CD. I think this looks quite good because it mainly focuses on the negative side of ‘the ups and downs’.

EVALUATION

I like my front cover because of the simplicity. It’s not complicated of fancy, just what the band asked for even if they weren’t very precise. I think it gives the cover a modern feel but at the same time emphasises the title of the ‘ups and downs’ by using the contrast of black and white. When talking to the members of the band, they said they wanted to be shown as average people with nothing special about them and I think this is shown quite well in the expressions they made in the photos. They don’t look as though they’re posing and nothing was change when I traced over them.

The font used with the images looks good because it is just straight forward and there’s nothing complicated with it. It carries on the linear theme and keeps the image looking neat. I think it is better than the first font I tried because it looked as though it had been taken from another band and used as though they were a tribute to it. It looks nicer than if a font such as Bradley hand ITC had been used because this could have broken up the theme and given the impression that the music was quite childish as the font looks handwritten and messy.

I think something better could have been designed if the band members had been more specific and had an idea of what they wanted. As they were very sketchy on any details that could have been useful it made it difficult to think of anything that could represent both them and their music. This was already tricky because the fact that wanted a logo to contain ‘W.A.R’ on a CD entitled ‘the ups and downs of unemployment’ gave us a task of trying to link that two together. This was though because there is no connection between them.

When I finally thought of a design to do, it was quite easy and didn’t take as long as I though it would to make all the paths and stroke them. The final product was effective and a great image to set a theme for the final products which the other members of the group were doing. In a way, the effect of the product seems similar to this (see below) because of how simple and modern it is. As this is aimed at the same target audience as ‘The ups and downs of unemployment’, I know that it could attract attention and encourage people to listen to the music. Although the Linkin Park cover is slightly more detailed in the sand and sea to possibly make the cover more attractive, the cover I have made has the same texture on any facial hair the group has. Overall, I think the image looks quite good and emphasises the title on the album.

~ by Fizwidget on July 1, 2008.