CD Package

Final Spine

Final Inside Panel with CD

Final Inside Panel

Final Advert

Final CD

Final Back Cover

Final CD Cover

Editing at Home:

I downloaded the Photoshop Trial on my computer to allow myself more time to complete my print products, as it takes quite a while to create as I have to cut around, shade in and do other technical things to achieve the look I want, making each part quite complicated.

I couldn't do the official print products at home, so instead I decided to work on the second front cover. For my back cover, I initially planned to have a small image of a second album, which was the 'official' full album of the group. This seemed conventional of single albums that were released in the 90s and was used on my Brownstone case studies back cover. I had planned it on my first back cover:

However I didn't think I would have the time to create it, so scrapped it for my second, official back cover. Nevertheless, I decided to try and do one and test out the Photoshop trial.

I started off by creating a basic template, outlining the page with black rectangles somewhat similar to the way I did with my official front cover but obviously a different colour. I then added the group name - I had planned to place it around the edges, inside the black rectangles similar to how I styled by proper front cover however I ended up placing it like this:

I continued on with the template, adding thinner pink rectangles into the black ones, sticking to the colour scheme and theme of the first cover. There were issues with making the lines meet correctly, so I ended up shading in the pink sides to make them meet:

After this, I decided to add the title of the album. Our song is called Side Crush but that is already the name on the advert, and the album is called Side2Side - I did not want to name the album after one of these, since it was meant to be the separate full album. I looked up songs from each of the artists, and then came to the decision to use the name 'Crush on You' taken from the title of Lil Cease and Lil Kim's 1996 hit track. I chose this title because 1 - I felt like it linked to the girl group theme, as well as the colour scheme of pink as it connotes romance, cuteness and femininity. 2 - because this is the backing track to Side Crush so it still links to the other products, just not too obviously. In terms of typography, I decided to use the colour pink for the word Crush due to the connotations linking directly to the meaning of having a crush on someone. I also used it on the T in MTB to create a styling link between the two pieces of writing. I chose a simple, bold font as I wanted it to stand out but not be too full and fancy:


I then moved onto the background as I did not want it to be white. I coloured it in many variations of pink and purple finally sticking to this, as I felt it again fit the theme:

However I still felt that it was quite plain, so I decided to add a graffiti background to it. I chose to use graffiti as I felt that I had lacked the use of it in my actual, print products. The advert, and back cover largely link to the Clueless theme of the actual song, overlooking the r&b and hip hop 90's theme that I was going for with the girl group - the graffiti is conventional of hip hop and therefore ties back into that. Pictures of graffiti from Southbank was used, however I felt that it was too harsh as the background so I lowered the opacity to 70%:

Then, I wanted to add a picture to see how it looked on the background. I chose an image from the photoshoot, used the Magic Wand tool to cut around it and added it on. I felt like adding a picture would go, but not that particular one as the chair legs looked weird to me:


From this, I looked through pictures taken during filming and in the studio to go on the front, going through various ones. I started with the ones taken during filming in Southbank. The images were good, however they were hard to cut around due to the detailed background:

To cut around it, it had to be in extreme detail to make sure every last part was gone:

I was unable to use the brush tool to cover it as I had previously done on my proper front cover, as the background was not a solid colour but graffiti. Because of the difficulty cutting around the Southbank pictures, the studio pictures seemed like the obvious option to use. I tried a few but ended up using the same one I used for the CD silhouette. It was easier to cut around, however still hard and complicated:


When adding the image to the template on the next tab, it somehow ended up behind the graffitti. I ended up liking this look, therefore I decided to keep it as it reminded me of the overlay from the video. I actually tried to use the same overlay effect from the video on the cover, however it came out too harsh, so I just went for the darken and opacity on 70%:


Here is the final, second front cover:

Editing

As I did not have a media lesson today, I stayed back to do some editing across all of the parts of the print product.

I started off with working on the CD as that was nearly completed and I wanted that to be finished. I firstly coloured in the inner part of the smaller circle in the centre, to give it the look of an actual CD. I then added the MTB logo to the back, to fit into the conventions. The last conventional thing I need to add is the logo of the company, as all my case study CD's included that. I was going to add the song titles however it looked too crowded, so I took it off. 

I did experiment with the background of the CD - I had initially wanted it to have graffiti as I felt like I had not included enough indicators of the 90's hip hop theme, and focused largely on the clueless, girly aspect of the song, video and group. I added a graffiti image, coloured around the sides and turned the opacity to 40%-50% however on feedback from my friends with me I decided to take it back. Instead, I used a shiny png cd template from google, as ti resembled how the CDs were styled in the 90's and also the CD that was used in Bell Biv Devoe's 'Poison' album:

This is what my CD looked like at the end of my editing session:

I then went on to the back cover. As shown in the blog posts, the back cover looked like this:

However,through the editing process, I had thought that the back cover did not look like a back cover, and in some ways resembled a front. Also, it was hard to create a front cover to go along with this back cover, as the picture and styling of the back cover was so prominent and ... created, that the front cover ...
From this, and peer feedback whilst I was editing today, I decided to make this the front cover instead. I deleted the typography that had been placed on the cover that was conventional of a back and left the name of the album and the names of the three girls. I wanted to then add different elements that made it look more like a front cover, and stand out and so I decided to add a pink border around it. This was largely inspired by the single cover for Raye - Decline:
Although this is not a 90s song, I felt like the style could fit into the modern pop vibe that Side Crush has.
After adding the pink border, I started to place 'MTB' around the side. However, I felt like this was too close to Raye - Decline, and it also did not fit the conventions of my case study and 90s album covers where the name of the group is using big on the cover. From this I decided to put 'Side2Side' in the border, and put MTB at the top:

Around 20+ copies of the word were created and placed around accordingly:

I then added a 'parental advisory' logo - after this, my front cover was complete:


After doing this, I wanted to change the side strip to fit the theme slightly more. I experimented with changing the stripes back and forth from vertical to horizontal, and changing the colours from pink and black to pink and white. At the end, I decided that plain pink was best:


I then moved onto working on a new back cover. I decided to use a concept similar to the concept I was going to use for my old front cover and had used on my advert - I used rectangles to create three lines, 2 pink and one white in the middle. I then created smaller rectangles to place in between the three big ones, so that it had the same styling as the advert. I then chose an image I was going to cut around for each girls picture, finally deciding on this one:

I firstly used the Quick Selection tool to cut around Jenae and drag her onto the tab that had the back cover background, placing her inside the white rectangle. As there was still some of the background there, I used the brush tool to colour around it with white:

After doing this, I dragged the conventional features from the old back cover onto this one such as the writing at the bottom. I also put the song tracks at the back, however I used the initial style that I had made in Illustrator rather than the seperated one that was on the old back cover:

After putting these features on it, I decided I liked the look and style of the back cover and carried on with using this style:

I again used the Quick Selection tool to outline the left of the photo and dragged it to the same tab, again using the brush tool to colour in the parts of the background that were still showing:

I did not get to finish colouring it in, so I will do that next. I added a barcode to add more of the conventional features.
At the end of my editing session, the back cover looked like this:

The front cover looked like this:

The CD and inside panels like this:


And the spine like this:

Today's Lesson

In today's lesson I worked on the spine and the CD.

I started off with creating the spine; I wanted to use the split theme that I had used on the advert but with the colours from the front cover colour scheme, so pink and black. I then added the title of the album on the side, using the same font from the back cover, as well as the conventional, institutional features such as the Interscope label logo and the compact CD logo:

I then later added the MTB logo to the side, to see how it looked with the different fonts. I am not sure if I like it together, however I will leave it for now:


I then moved onto the CD. From the start i had been planning to use a silhouette image on my CD, and was initially using the picture taking at Southbank Centre. However, after taking my studio shots, I found a image which was easier to colour in (as it was smaller and each member was wearing black items of clothing) and would also create a nice silhouette so I chose this image:

I added it to the CD outline that I had and firstly used the magic wand tool to cut out as much of the background as I was able to. I then used the brush tool to colour in each of the members, start from me on the left and ending with Jahmeerah in the middle. Whilst colouring in my section in the picture, I realised I liked the silhouette with the white from the bandana still showing so I decided to keep this, and the white from my shoe in. As I kept some of the colour in for my part, I also decided to keep some in for the other members, choosing the white stripes on the jersey for Jenae on the right and the pink stripes on the jersey for Jahmeerah in the middle. I then used the brush tool in white to paint the remaining parts of the background to white to make it all blend in:
Whilst colouring in, I wanted to see if I could use a quicker tool and came across a different type of brush tool, which was more opaque. I decided to try and use it as an outline for the different members (with different colours), making it slightly messy to make it seem more old school and like they had done it themselves:

This was the end result of the CD, in todays lesson:

Today's Lesson

In today's lesson I worked on the advert and finding an image for the front cover.

With the advert, I wanted to try and add the other two members and the rest of the conventional information that should be on the poster. I started by using the magic wand tool to cut out this image of Jahmeerah and try and place it on the poster. However, the sizing was not equal therefore it did not really work, and I had to think of another image to use. At the time I could not find one suitable so I just fixed the rectangles:



I then moved onto working on the front cover, as I had not started it yet. I carried on the stripe theme from the advert to link them to each other somewhat, but again, like the spine, used pink and black to fit the album colour scheme. I also started to add the lettering for the front:

 I then started to cut out of an image that I wanted to try and use for the front cover, however I did not get time to add it on. This was the progress I made in the lesson: