Creating the CD outside cover art

As the song is called 'fireworks', we thought it would be only fitting to have the front cover reflect this in some way. In our research we had observed a few main features of CD covers in our genre.
- Bold Text in a clear and bold font
- Not all covers had artist images
- Use of vibrant colour

We have decided against using a picture of our artist as one will be featured on our magazine advert. We have also decided to use a theme of fireworks overlaying clear and bold text. Below you is a rough design of our idea:

FRONT COVER

This is a rough layout we intent to use on our cover, over a black background. We are aiming for a simplistic style in our design.

From here, we created our entire cover on Adobe Photoshop, here's how:

We first created a new document w the dimensions being 12x12 inches

We then created our background layer, using fill tool on the document we created to make it black.

We now have our canvas. The next stage required us to find images of fireworks that we could then manipulate into looking like the clip art styled images we need.

We found a suitable image of a firework through searches on google. We then imported the said image into photoshop. First we desaturated it to make it black and white by clicking Image>Adjustments>Hugh/Saturation... We than applied the following settings:

Now the image had become black and white, we had to apply an effect that would give it the clip art like appearance. We chose the stamp effect by clicking Filter>Sketch>Stamp... We then applied the following settings:


We then duplicated the result so we had two copies of the firework clip art on our document. We used a colour overlay to make them both white and placed then where we thought best. Here is the result:


Now we had the fireworks in place, it was time to add the text. We searched dafont.com for a suitable font and we discovered on named 'Roadway', we imported this font into photoshop and, following the rough layout of our plan, added the text to the image using the Horizontal type tool tool.



We then changed the colours of of text. To a pale orange and a very slightly orange tinted white. We also placed the text and changed its size by clicking Edit>Transform>Free Transform. Here is the result.

We then added a gradient to give an orange theme to the front cover. The gradient was added with the gradient tool on the sidebar and the following settings:


We also added the compulsory parental advisory logo into the bottom corner and here is the result:


The bulk of the work is now done, but we still need to add the effects that will give a professional look to our cover. First of all, I wanted to give the cover some paper texture so that it carried a similar style to the poster and our disc, which are all paper themed. I found that many of the photoshop effects available to me were not good enough as they were too neat and structured in their design, so i decided to find an image of paper texture through google. This is what I chose:

Once placed in the document, this image obviously needed some editing before it gave the desired effect. First we had to set the blending mode to overlay in the layer pallet so that the image would blend in with our cover. However this was to strong so the opacity had to be changed, these are the setting given to the layer:


This produced the following:

Now the cover is almost complete, all that remains is to overlay the firework images, again found in google, to give our front cover the final touches it needed. The following images were found:

Once placed into the cover image, these layers were both given the blend mode of overlay and each had their opacity changed to levels that suited us. Once we were happy with the result, we readded the parental advisory logo and we were finished. Here is the end result:


BACK COVER

Click to enlarge

SPINE

Creation of the spine was quick and easy. The spine is 0.8 inches wide and 12 inches in length. As with the front cover and the back cover, we followed a number of stages.
-background of spine set to black
-Roadway font, Horizontal Type Tool and Free Transform used to make the text span the entire spine as seen on many covers we researched.
- Text set to the same pale orange and orange tinted white colours as used in the front cover stages.
-Young Money record label logo imported from google and placed at the top of spine, as seen on other young money CDs.
-Finally, a firework image added on a layer over everything. The blend mode is set to overlay and opacity is changed, as before.

Here is the final result:

Making the disc art

Digipak - CD

Location Shots of Car Park and Filming Pictures

Filming Production Photos from Media Group on Vimeo.

Filming Schedule

Above is an estimation of our shooting schedule. Obviously, there will be unforeseen circumstances in which factors such as weather and group availability will hinder our ability to follow this schedule religiously. However, these are the days we intend to film the bulk of our footage.

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

1. What potential hazards will be encountered?

· Glass- In our video we plan for our artist to smash a photo frame containing the image of the girl who broke his heart. Therefore, the actual process of smashing it may cause glass shards to fly off and hit someone or scatter around the area we are videoing in.

· Fire- We also plan to burn an image of the artists love interest in our video. This process will involve the use of flammable products such as lighter fluid and fire lighters; possible burn injuries may occur whilst lighting the image.

2. How will these hazards be prevented?

· All footage will be filmed from a substantial distance. In the case of the smashing glass, this will be carried out in as minimal ferocity as possible in order to prevent shards flying in an uncontrolled manor. Glass shards are extremely sharp and dangerous, these could be hazardous to any one of the group and mainly the actor.
Also, sheets will be put down surrounding the area to prevent the glass being left behind once the filming has been done.

· Again all footage will be filmed at a substantial distance in case large flames are produced. when lighting the image protective gloves will be worn and the surrounding area is fire resistant.

3. What potential location hazard(s) will be encountered?

· Filming in multi-story car park- In our video we will have footage of our artist on the top floor of a car park. vehicles will constantly be on the move around our filming area. Also we will be filming at the edge of the car park in order to gain some perspective of being up high; therefore there is a rather large drop over the edge.

4. How will these hazards be prevented?

· We will be cautious at when we use the car park, setting up in areas where the cars cannot go. We will also make sure that our artist and equipment don’t get to close to the edge but still maintaining the perspective of height.

Magazie advert - research

Features of regular magazine poster adverts shown above. We need get an idea of how they look so we can create our own concept that fits our idea. Most of the posters looked at had their own unique design, with common features such as the artist name and album name. Many also had pictures of the artist. We will make sure our work follows this style.