Evaluation

Final Piece

Final piece:

Overall I am very happy with the outcome of my final piece as it looks good and suits the album artist and title, I am also very happy about how it looks in a CD case, as this makes it look even better as you can see it in its physical form.

Final Piece WIP

To begin creating my final piece I created a Template on photoshop I used the ruler tool to create bleed lines and to make sure each page was the right size, I then colored each square using the gradient tool to make the background less plain, I then added the spine to the template.  

After I had set up the document I was working in I added my final character design (Blog post of how I created it) I then cut out the bit of his face where the text would be going, I did this using the pen tool by creating the selection I wanted to delete and then removed it.

I then began adding the text the font I used was 'Bebas Neue' this is a really nice san serif font which is simple and works well in most areas of graphics, to create the fish eye effect on my text I used the warp text tool and I clicked the fish eye option and tweaked the setting, to create the text above the logic text I used a different font and then went to the warp text tool and instead of using fish eye option I used the arc option.

I then began adding the background shapes, I got this idea of my first 'copy' as I thought it looked really good and filled in the white space, to create these shapes I used the pen tool to create each shape individually the reason I did this instead of duplicating them is because it flows better with the piece.

I then began creating the back cover of the piece, my starting point on this piece was the barcode and the copyright information, the reason I started with these is because once these were in I knew how much space I had to work in.

I then began creating the main part of my back cover, I started by creating the crown at the top to create this I used Illustrator, once this was in I began adding the song names and adding little details such as the lines coming out the end of each text line.

After I had finished creating the back of the CD, I began creating the inside of it and my starting point was to re add the bit of the face I had cropped out, so after I had placed that I tweaked his face adding shading and more detail to his face.

I then began adding the text, to make this process easier I opened the character window so I could make precise changes to my text i.e kerning, after I had finished my text I added an under line and changed the background slightly.

After I had added the sub header I added the body text, I then added a signature to make it look like the artist had signed his work, to create the signature I found out his first name and searched for a good looking signature and I then emulated and added it to my piece.

Finally, I started working on the last square of the Album which is the one that goes behind the disk to create this I copied the crown which was on the back cover of my CD album.

Creating vector main character

This is the initial drawing of what I wanted my main character to look similar to. 

Knowing what I wanted my main character to look like I took several photos of my friend trying to get the best photo eventually I got this photo and decided to start to create my main character. 

I created my main character in illustrator, the reason I chose this program to create this character is because in Illustrator you can create vector images which are images that don't have pixels in them, this means you can make clear images which makes your piece look more professional.  

To begin my main character I used the pen tool to create an outline of my main character and then when I had finished the main outline I began to add details such as shading and adding more detail to his eyes, I also tweaked the face shape.

I then began coloring my main character I used the color picker to make sure I got the color I wanted, I then began removing the lines and adding some final details.

This is the finished color version I used this color version on my final draft, but when I completed my draft I did not like this colored version of my main subject.

So I decided to change it to a monochromatic color scheme and use the color blue as the main color I believe this looked better than the original colored version.

To create the crown I looked about on my subject matter pins and based it around the royal crown, the reason I based it off this crown is because it was big and had lots of jewels on it.

              Beging outline                                 First colored version                           Finished version

Final Ideas and Drafting

Here is a rough idea of what I want my final piece to look like, I created this so that I could see what my final piece would roughly look like, I also created it to see what I believed I could improve on and to see what looked good, what I took away from doing this is that on my final piece I would like to use a different color scheme as I believe the one I used of this rough version makes the piece look to messy and less professional. 

When creating this rough version I created a vector image of what is going to be my main subject, initially I was going to create another vector of my main subject but I then decided that the one I had made for this piece looked good enough, so I am going to tweak this one for my final piece and change the color scheme.

Vector Experiments

Before creating my final piece I created mini vector experiments in Illustrator I did this to gather ideas and to enhance my abilities in Illustrator, For the first piece I created Iron mans suit of armor I did this because to begin with I wanted my final piece to be based around my Artist being a 'superhero' because in a lot of his songs the lyrics suggest him being a Rap god and being better than others in his genre.

The second piece I created was just an experiment I created to test the style I want to apply to my final piece, after doing these experiments I have decided that I am not going to use the superhero theme and I am just going to have the main artist on the front. 

Digi pak experiment

For this experiment I created a Digi pak design using photography for the main part of it, I did this to gather ideas for my final piece as I am thinking of incorporating vector designs within a photo.

Photos used: