Moodboard

Since I was still stuck for ideas on what to do for my album artwork I made a new mood board to help me.

1. smashed glass 2. Rihanna 3. Abstract background 4. Abstract portrait 5. Rihanna 6. Grunge background 7. Leopard print 8. Smoke 9. Mosaic portrait 

Photoshoot edits

Black and White effect:

Threshold effect:

Background erased:

Sepia effect:

Sketch grain effect:

Photoshoot

This is my first photo shoot. I tried to take pictures that relate to my artist or the type of music, for example photographs of musical instruments, recording equipment and people.

Digital surface design

Repeating vector pattern:

Since the project is about CD albums, I decided to use musical notes for my repeating pattern as it relates to the theme.

Letter wallpaper:

I used the letter 'R' for Rihanna which was then rotated/flipped to create the basic shape and then I had to repeat the pattern across the whole page to get this effect.

Rainbow background:

This was made in Photoshop, using lots of different layers, tools and effects to reach this outcome.

1. Add a gradient of black to white on the background layer.

2. Filter-Wave. Set the number of generators to 10 and change the type to square.

3. Add another gradient to the background layer, use the pre installed rainbow gradient.

4. Change the angle of the gradient to 0, the blend mode to linear burn and the opacity to 80%.

5. In a new layer add another black to white gradient and change the blend mode to soft light.

6. Make a new document with size 50x100 (to make a brush)

7. Fill it in black and then define brush pre-set to save this as a brush tool.

8. Go to the brush window, set the spacing to 350

9. Go to shape dynamics, set the size jitter to 100%, scattering to 1000%, the count to 1 and count jitter to 100%.

10. Finally for the brush set the opacity jitter to 100%.

11. Go back to the original file, select the brush tool, make it white and then start clicking over the background for the pixels to appear at random on the page.

12. Finally change the blend mode to overlay.

Bokeh wallpaper:

This was also made in Photoshop, with a few different layers, but it was less complex than the previous design.

1. Open a new document, make the background transparent and draw a black circle over the top.

2. Reduce the fill to 50% and add a stroke of 10pixels.

3. Select the circle and go to define brush pre-set to save it.

4. Open a new document and make the background a dark grey colour.

5. Make a new layer and add a gradient with the four colours yellow, blue, pink and orange.

6. Change the angle to the gradient to 45 and the blending mode to overlay.

7. Make a new folder and change the blending mode to colour dodge.

8. Select to brush and change the colour to white.

9. Go to the brush window, change the spacing to 200%, size jitter to 100%, minimum diameter 50%, scattering to 1000%, count to 5 and set both the options in other dynamics to 50%.

10. Make strokes with the brush onto the background to get random circles to appear.

11. Add a 20px Gaussian blur for the back layer.

12. Reduce the size of the brush and repeat the previous steps but this time making the Gaussian blur 4.5px

13. For the final layer, reduce the brush size even further and make strokes with it.

CD Booklet experiments

Basic album inlay:

Closed: 12cm x 12cm Open: 24cm x 12cm

Poster:

Closed: 12cm x 12cm Open: 24cm x 24cm

Stapled inlay:

Stitched inlay:

Elastic band inlay:

CD Packaging ideas

Fabric knot wrap:

Newspaper:

Origami CD Packaging:

Star Helena CD case:

CD Moodboard

This mood board is to help give me ideas for my CD packaging:

1. Rihanna 2. CD faces 3. Pop up CD 4. Rainbow pixels design 5.Si Scott Typography 6. simple pop up CD 7. Squares

CD Analysis

The designer of this CD packaging is unknown . The piece of work is an CD cover for an album called 'VH1 50 Greatest hip hop artists', that was released in around 2008. I chose to analyse this piece as I like the style that has been used and the effect using the brown cardboard has. 

I looked at some websites about the album to see what kind of music it was and when it was made. From this I found out that VH1 is an american music channel based in New York that was launched in 1985. The theme of this piece is American Urban culture, I knew this because it is hip hop music, its an american music channel album and the images shown are of a guy break dancing/street dancing. The artist is trying to represent the style of hip hop music through the images, stickers and style or packaging. 

The artist has used thick brown cardboard that folds up into the CD packaging and printed onto it using only black ink, with a kind of stencil effect. This gives it a simple design with the colours having a nice contrast. 

I wanted to look at this design as I like the style that has been used and a similar style could also be used for the artist I have chosen (Rihanna). I like the work because the images are very bold and stand out well from the cardboard background as only black ink has been used. 

The designer of this piece of work, the Jakebox, is Jakob Skarin,. He was originally a graphic designer/art director in advertising, who was born in 1964 in Stockholm, Sweden. He also worked as a writer/director in film and television. The piece of work is a CD/DVD packaging box made for the media market. The company's objective was to make an attractive, user friendly and environmentally friendly packaging concept that would add value to the product. In 2004 Jakob Skarin founded the Jakebox AB company when he invented the Jakebox concept. I chose to analyse this piece as it is a CD packaging with a unique, cleverly made design and I would like to make something similar.

I looked at a couple of different websites to give me more information about the work and the designer. The type of work is packaging/product design. The theme of the packaging changes depending on what the CD/DVD it is made for. In the picture one of the designs looks as though it has no theme as there is no colour or surface designs added to it. However the second design clearly has a football theme. The name of the product, 'Jakebox', doesn't really give much away about the product apart from the designers name and that is is a box.

The packaging is made of 100% recyclable materials or sometimes even recycled cardboard/paper and it is printed with vegetable inks. This is to meet the environmentally friendly requirements of the design. To create the box, a pop up technique has been used, when the package is opened the disk is lifted up in the middle. This makes it easy to access and eye catching. I think the net of the design was made on the computer using software such as Illustrator or 2D design and then cut out using a CAD machine or laser cutter. The colours of the product depend on what CD/DVD is inside. The size of the box is slightly bigger than a CD/DVD disk as it has to be able to fit inside the packaging.

I chose to look at this work as it is a very effective design and I would like to create something similar. My first reaction to the work was that it is eye catching, stylish and I wanted to know how it works. I like it because it looks simple yet how it works is complex and unique. It reminds me a bit of a pop up book. The work has inspired me to try and create my own mechanism to use for my CD to make it attractive and add value to it.

The designer of this CD packaging and date it was made is unknown. It was made for an artist/band's album. I chose to analyse this piece of work as it is very unusual, has lots of different sections/layers and I wanted to get some ideas for what materials I could use.

I couldn't find any further information about the work as the image was found on Google images under 'unique packaging' and the artist is unknown. The theme of the work is postage/letter etc or recycled materials. The subject of the design could be fan mail. 

Postal/recycled materials have been used to create this CD packaging. I think that it was handmade using lots of different materials, the letters are also handwritten in pen. The artist kept the natural/basic colour of the parcel materials (brown), string and letters but added in a few blue coloured pieces. Such as the postcards/pictures, piece of cloth and the CD itself. This could be to make it stand out from the rest of the layers in the package or to make it all less dull. The size of the package is a bit bigger than a CD disk when closed but opens up to 3 times the size. There are a lot of different textures in this piece. This could be to give it a sense of touch and to make it more interesting to the customer.

I chose to look at this piece as it is very unusual and has a lot going on inside the album. At first I wasn't sure what to think of it as it looks quite messy but it also looked interesting. I like the idea of the work but dislike how it has been made as it doesn't look very professional or well constructed.

Mindmap

Final Logo

Emblem Logo

For this logo experiment I used the abstract shape from the 3D combination marks. I really like the style the emblem logo gives and I would like to develop it further so I can use it for my final design. To improve it I think the abstract zigzag shape should be made 2D as it currently looks a bit out of place.

3D Combination Mark Logo's

I took my 3 favourite ideas from the brand mark logo's and developed them into combination mark logo's:

My favourite design is the one at the top as it is the most abstract, which make its stand out from the rest. I would like to use this design to develop with other techniques to find the perfect idea for my final logo.

Itunes logo

Brandmark Logo's

These are my brand mark logo's:

To create these shapes in Illustrator I used the different tools within the path window. Such as 'minus front' , 'divide' and 'merge'. My favourites are the top left shape with the headphones shape cut out from a rectangle, the divided circle with the play button cut out, the red zigzag shape and finally the grey design that has been split up into a play button and pause button. The other designs are either to simple or not very or not very unique.