Friday 20 January 2012

Development of digipack

I have been thinking about using a particular colour theme throughtout my digipack to give it some structure and stability within its design. From listening to the song, a cold blue comes to mind, so I applied this to my designs to see what it looked like.
I uploaded a couple of pictures to Adobe Photoshop and used the hue/saturation tool to add the blue to the images:

I then placed these on my digipack document on Illusrator to see if they worked with the rest of the design and whether I could get the same blue for the other digipack pages to match the blue of these images:
The colours went well together, so I am now thinking I will continue to delevop the digipack with this colour! I then started to think about using the same idea as the streets digipack cover which I have shown on the previous post. I started playing around in photoshop with different images to see what I could come up with in order to give me ideas on where to go to take pictures to provide me with the opportunity of designing my own cover.
After taking pictures of my handwriting for the title of the album, I decided to write out the song names for the album on a blue lined piece of paper with a blue berol to keep the blue effect in scruffy handwriting. I didn't want it to be neat as it would come across too clean and 'rehearsed' which is not the vibe this song delivers. This is what I came up with:
 I then opened these up into photoshop to crop them and add some effects such as exposure and contrast levels. I used an old wood effect background and rotated the images to a relevant degree to see what it looked like and this was the outcome:
I like the look of this and although it isn't yet finished, I think it has potential and does fit the genre. I think I will add more blues and maybe more images to represent the helplessness of the character such as a spilt wine bottle or cigarettes.
My task for the weekend will be to take pitures of objects and backgrounds for me to use to create this kind of cover!

Thursday 12 January 2012

Handwriting effect inspiration

I came across 'The Streets' album 'Original Pirate Material' and really liked the idea of using handwriting to display the names of the songs on the album.
This is the back of the album cover and I think that the handwriting effect is really nice. It is unusual and slightly abstract opposed to a neat, typed appearance which is what I would like to use for my album cover. From seeing this, I looked back on the designs I have already for the front of my album and I think a signature of 'Rob Young' has potential to look good. Therefore, I scribbled down some different styles of writing 'Rob Young'

I also took some pictures of them close up so I had a better view of them which enabled me to choose a hanful which I thought might work well. I liked the thickest ones the best and I also thought the scruffy ones would look better than the others.

I then opened these images in Adobe Photoshop to see what I could do with them to make them suitable for the digipack, this is what I came up with:


I selected the writing only so I was able to put it onto one of my album designs. I realise there is a lot of work to be done to this to finalise it and make it look professional, however I think I will stick to the idea of using handwriting!
 I will probably not use this image for the front cover of the album, however this comparison is just to show why I prefer the handwriting oppsed to the text. I want the overall look of the character to be 'messy' and I want him to look as though he doesn't look after himself. I got this idea from the message the song brings which is how he has troubles in his life etc and I think the handwriting shows this.

Friday 6 January 2012

Video containing similar shots to my ideas..


These New Puritans 'Elvis' - Director: Saam Farahmand from Tom Lindsay on Vimeo.
Above is a video very different to what I will be producing, however it has shots and ideas similar to mine.

 I want to include shots similar to this in my video. I am planning on putting a spotlight behind Ed's head so I get a silhouette of the side of his face which I think will be very effective when he lip syncs the lyrics.

 I also like this shot as the facial expression on this girls face shows upset/troubled emotions which relates to the emotions in my track. Therefore, I will ask Ed to use these facial expressions in order to deliver the emotions of the song.
Another thing that I like about this video is the black background. It is another feature that adds to the effect of the video and helps to show the dark emotions of the song.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Developed Ideas for the music video

Whilst continuing the design and production of the digipack, I have been thinking of more ideas for the video.
I would like to include shots of Ed's mouth alone as he is singing the lyrics with dim lighting as I feel this will fit the genre.
Locations such as the beach with a sunset and maybe somewhere like a field at night time when there is minimal lighting or when it is really cloudy, or even raining as I dont want bright lighting.
Another one of my ideas is to include shots of Ed's silhouetted face whilst he is singing and maybe some longer shots of him sat down looking at the floor with dim lighting whilst singing. I have not yet found any real material to show what I mean as these are just ideas I have  thought up.
To help show these ideas, I will take photos of the shots I would like to use and post them up on my blog. I will also keep searching for real media products with these similar shots!

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Facebook inspiration!

Facebook is sometimes very handy! Being a graphics and media student, I have friends on facebook who are also very interested in design. By keeping up with the constant posts on here, I was lucky enough to come across some really cool photos that gave me ideas for my digipack.
These photos have inspired me to go to different locations such as the beach and get shots similar to the ones shown below. I also really love the editing that has been done and these kind of colours would work well with the mood and genre of my track.





These are all photos from a friend who has kindly agreed for me to re-post them.

I thought these kind of photos would work well for the inside panels of my digipack as the text could go down the side of the photo on the opposite side to the character.

Monday 2 January 2012

Photos for my digipack!

I went out to the same location that I have previously taken photos in-but this time, I took my actor. It started to rain and was freezing cold which ruined the shoot a bit, but I got what I could with high efforts of keeping the camera dry! We also had people walking past giving us funny looks as it was 19:30 which was fun!
Seeing as it was very cold, my fingers found it difficult to operate the camera which meant I did not hang around to get all of the shots that I wanted, but I will work with what I have and there are more opportunities to go out and take more photos if need be!








I am going to put some of these photos into Adobe Photoshop and see what editing I can do for improved lighting. Although these photos are quite nice already and have the lighting I was looking for. I will compare different edits to see if any look better.