Digital pack 17

Having finished the whole of my digital pack to its entirety, I collapsed all the layers on the front, back and spine. Afterwards I proceeded to place them all onto one full size canvas that reflected the true nature of a DVD cover.

Digital pack 16

I began the changes to my work by starting with the spine. I decided to create a black background with white squares along with the black background to create the chequered image. Afterwards I added the text of the DVD spine. Then I changed the colour of the words so that the words on the black background changed to white and the words on the white background change to black. This proceeded with the theme of black and white in the digital pack and the music video. I then proceeded to make all the remaining changes from my peer review.

Digital pack 15

In this lesson I received peer review on the work I had done so far and the comments I received were to add more colour to the advert and to include the title of the DVD to the front cover. I also had to complete the spine for the digital pack.

Digital pack 14

I continued work on the advert by adding the images of the band. Firstly, I decided to create the wall as there were no walls around to take images of that would have created the desired effect. I created the wall by using the chequered background but with each individual square at its maximum scale. Then I coloured the squares with a darkish red colour that resembled a brick wall colour. Then I went and used the effect called texturiser to make the wall look grainy like bricks.

Having done this I used the images of Sheriece that I took to put on the wall. However, I first removed the colour of the images by messing around with black and white settings. Once this was done I then gave each image an outer glow that was a jelly blue colour. This allowed the images to stand out from the wall. I then flipped some of the images so that wall layout along with the advert was symmetrical. Afterwards I included the details of the DVD release on to the wall of the advert.

Digital pack 13

This time I decided to start work on the advert as I had yet to start work on it. I did this by beginning with the title of the band. Firstly I needed a font and thus went to the website daFont. Having selected the font I was going to use I created a text box on my blank canvas and created the title of the advert.

After creating the title I began work on the background for the advert. I did this by looking at the gradients of the pattern designs. The gradient I was most interested by was the radial one. This was because when I experimented with the colours, the black and white colours created a target in the centre of the canvas. Although this was not linked to my original idea for the advert, my new idea for my advert was more related to the idea of the band being ‘mad’.

The new idea that I had created was that the band would stand on a wall in front of the target as if they are human targets. This would then connote that they are targets of the media at first because they are breaking conventions. However, since the artists would be standing on the wall it shows that they will take the criticism and prove to everyone that they are modern artists.

Digital pack 12

Having completed the front cover I began finishing the back cover. I did this by adding all the unique data that needed to be added to make the CD cover official. This included the barcode, the publisher’s logo, the copyright details and the DVD logo.

Digital pack 11

Having finished the inside cover I decided to return to the background for my front cover. Since I had already used the chequered square idea for the title, I thought that if it was used again then the effect would wear thin. As a result I decided to experiment on the background by using the templates already available. The template I decided to use reminded me of a jigsaw puzzle but wasn’t a mass number of jig saw pieces. Once the background was inserted and moved so that it was the bottom layer, I added colour to the background using only bright colours. Despite doing this, I decided to leave lots of white spaces to resemble that our band was modernising Ska, as shown by the colour, but also keeping to the roots of the Ska genre, as shown by the white.

Digital pack 10

Although I thought my inside cover worked well as an ensemble with the rest of the digital pack, I strongly believed that the inside lacked colour to fully merge into my designs. Therefore I decided to add an outer glow to the spirals. At first I tried a jelly blue colour. However, this did not work with the background and failed to make the spiral stand out at all. After several other colours did not work I tried a vivid green colour. This immediately stood out against the black background and as a result I extended the idea of black and white squares to create black squares with green lines. I achieved this by using the brush tool on a moderate size so that the lines would stand out.

Digital Pack 9

Upon reflection of the design of my inside cover originally, I decided that the idea was basic and needed to be changed. However I did not know where to begin, so I started with the background and used the chequered background idea gain to have a constant theme throughout the digital pack. Once the background had been created I use some effects to distort the background to make it more interesting. The effect I used was under distort, and was the twirl effect. This changed the background into a large white swirl with a black background. This effect worked well with the composition of work I did so far so I duplicated the layer and made two smaller swirls so that the inside cover was denser.

Digital Pack 8

Having already started the back cover I had decided to continue working on the back cover as I knew more needed to be done on it. This time I finished using the magic wand to remove the background of the pieces and I placed them in specific locations on the computerized chess board so that the song titles could be placed in positions where there was not a chess piece. After doing this I added the song titles in the album using the text box tool and changed the colour of the font so that if it was on a white square the text was back and if it was on a black square the text was white. This would ensure that the titles could be read on the background; otherwise the process would have been futile.

Digital Pack 7

In this lesson I began looking at the criteria and noticed that I had to show clear and excellent use manipulating images in Photoshop. Having also looked through my music video for more ideas of what I could focus my back cover on I reflected on the use of the chequered squares and pondered how I use that idea to show the breaking of conventions that our band want to represent. After creating an idea of using a chess board as the back cover I went and found a chess board and pieces and took several images of the board and the pieces. After importing these images into Photoshop I began deleting the background of each unique piece using the magic wand tool and by creating the chequered background on a blank canvas, using the preset pattern designs.

Digital Pack 6

When I worked on the computer this time and began working on the back cover for digital pack. However, having already played around with Photoshop I had decided that my original design would no longer work. Therefore I began by creating a format for the titles of the song. After a short brainstorm I decided to have the songs in a crossword format. Once I had created the layout for the foreground I immediately saw that it did not work with the front cover I had already created and I began brainstorming more ideas for the back cover.

Digital Pack 5

In this lesson I spent time finishing the title at the beginning by mirroring the title so that it looks like a reflection. I did this by using the same method of the magic wand and the paint bucket tool, but instead of making each square black, I added colour to the title by using a mixture of several colours. This was done as I wanted to use the addition of colour as a symbol of how modern our band is relative to the Ska genre, by showing we are breaking conventions.

After I completed the title I began working on the foreground for my front cover. I decided to use the idea I had designed originally of the images of shadows by I decided to contrast the shadows and the black title, with the colourful title and brighter images. This contrast of colour would also help convey that our band is breaking conventions showing that it is a modern band by breaking the idea of 2 Tone Ska being black and white.

I created the foreground by using 2 images. The first image was of Sheriece and the other was of Stacey. With the first image I duplicated the layer and used the original layer and flipped it horizontally. This was so that the images were both on the correct plane relative to the title. I did the same method with the second image however after duplicating the image three times I flipped two versions of the image. This was so that two images were next to the first image making the framing of the foreground excellent.

Digital Pack 4

In this lesson we started using the Mac computers for the first time and I began by creating the canvases for all the sections of the digital pack. Once all the canvases had been created and saved I began work on the title for the front cover. I did this by inserting the chequered style background and cropping to the section that I wanted to place the title. I then created the title by using the magic wand tool to select each individual square so that I could then use the paint bucket tool to fill in each individual square a black colour so that it spelt out the bands names.

Research and Planning: Digital Pack 3

In this lesson I decided to finish the work I had done on the front and back covers by including the locations of the barcode, copyright and publisher details in the design. Afterwards I designed the location of the song titles and created my own song titles for the back cover. along with finishing my front and back cove rI cimpleted my inside cover and my advert.

Research and Planning: Digital Pack 2

I began the research for my advert and decided that I would use the jigsaw theme as it could then relate to my front cover. I plan to use an incomplete jigsaw as my template and then have some images of Sheriece as shadows above the template. However, I also plan to have the quotes and reviews of magazines and papers within the jig saw pieces along with the details of the album and the band.

Research and Planning: CD covers

This CD cover inspired me in my planning for the ancillary tasks because the lack of colour highlighted the need for new modern Ska bands to express themselves. It also helped highlight the attraction needed for the target audience, therefore I knew I had to use lots of colour much like with the music video.




Another CD cover that inspired me were the ones completed by past students. Although their work was not professional the ideas were based on research from professional covers, and the idea of using recurring themes from the video link the package together effectively. This was evident through professional music videos and packages that use a recurring theme or symbol, and therefore I wanted to stick with this convention.


In this example Jay Zs cover uses the idea of the three red stripes, which is featured in the rest of the media package as a symbol for the album and the artist. Although in my case I do not have a particular symbol to use, I could use ideas in my music video such as chequered squares or the jig saw pieces.

Research and Planning: Photoshop tutorial

We were given a tutorial of how to use Photoshop by the technician Mr Winters. He showed us how to import images and use the magic wand tool to select and remove sections of the image. He also completed other things.

Research and Planning: Digital Pack 1

I began creating the idea for my music video’s DVD front and back cover. I focused my idea around the idea of chequered squares and jig saw pieces. I felt that these were the more effective parts of the music video as they stood out against the band playing and the stop animation. However, I did not believe that this was enough for either the front over or back cover. So I also went with the idea that our band was breaking conventions of Tone Ska because in our music video we did not only use black and white but used an effect called colour corrector so that the colour on the screen changed constantly. This breaking of conventions is important and needed to be portrayed in the DVD cover as well as the music video.

Editing

I had no lessons until the end of the day when I had media. Therefore, I decided that I would finish the ending of the music video. I did this by recruiting the aid of the technician Mr Winters so that he could help me decide the best method to complete my idea. The idea was to create a jig saw puzzle out of an image of the singer so that I could put the jigsaw together on the screen. This would then fade as a natural transition giving the effect that the jig saw has changed to a live performance. I had difficulties putting the jig saw pieces together but after using Photoshop I managed to make the pierces the same size as the canvas so that they would not need to be resized on the screen only moved, making the ending easier to complete.

Editing

I stayed after school to meet the first deadline of our music video. During this time I added effects to the music video such as the mirror effect. I used this effect to create a sense of abnormality to the music video, referencing to the typical conventions of the Ska genre, making the music video more effective.