Blog Post 22 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - DVD Information

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Wrap that I will be explaining and evaluating is that of the rear cover. In a similar vain to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the finished Rear Cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Rear Cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained: Background; DVD Information; Gene Hunt; Ford Capri; DVD Summary Information; Actors and Music Information. Having already added the Background, therefore the next element that I will discuss is that of the DVD Information.

DVD Information

I decided to start with the DVD Information as this was an element that I knew exactly whereabouts I wanted it to be on the Rear Cover and with this in mind I decided that it would be the most logical area to start with. I once again decided to have a look at the DVD Cover Research which I carried out in Blog Post 6 so that I could decide what elements should be included in this Information Area. I concluded that there would need to be the following elements within the Information area; Age Certification; DVD Video Logo; Barcode; Dolby Digital Sound; Copyright Information; DVD Logo.

Rectangle added to form the base of the DVD Information

Prior to starting this, however, it was necessary to create a specific area for the information to be held, and I decided on a rectangular shape which would "house" all of the necessary information and act as a sort of background on top of the background to distinguish this area from the rest of the cover. With this in mind, I decided to firstly navigate to the Back Cover Layer Group, and create another Group in-side this group called DVD Info Standard which would allow me to keep all of the different elements together and in a logical order. This would definitely help me in the future as if I, for example, needed to go back to one element it would save so much time looking for the layers whereas I could quickly locate it instead. Once this had been done I decided to use the Rectangle Tool which would allow me to draw a rectangle to the size that I wanted and also in the area that I wanted too. In regards to the colour, I decided to set it to a 100% total Black which in the Hex colouring is 0 for Red, Green and Blue, however once I had drawn the rectangle, I decided to change the Opacity. By doing this and having changed the opacity down from 100% to that of 75% this gave an aesthetically pleasing effect whereas the black rectangle was of course still visible, however you can just see through the background too. I think that if it was left at 100% opacity the appearance would of been far too rigid and block-like - not the effect that I wanted. In regards to the placement of the rectangle, I once again had to take into consideration the safety and bleed areas of the canvas too, as if I did not then I would run the risk of this important information not being included. Having added the rectangular base for the DVD Information, this meant that I could move onto the next part which was the Age Certification.

Age Certification added to the DVD Information Area

In regards to the Age Certification of the DVD this is very important piece of information as in relation to the British Board of Film Classification (http://www.bbfc.co.uk) all DVDs released have to be classified and carry a labelling. With this in mind, in a similar route to that of the circular "15" age certification that I used on the front cover and spine I headed over to the BBFC website and to their downloads area.  Once downloaded, the age certification was firstly opened up in the vector program Adobe Illustrator, whereby I could Export this logo and place it into my DVDAmarayCover. Once this was in the file, I could then move it around and also resize it to my desired location which I felt was going to be best suited just above the BBC Logo, but also having an equal distance between the edges so that the appearance and presentation was consistent, also taking into consideration the safety area guidelines too. It was also necessary for me to utilise the Horizontal Type Tool to insert text into the area as this was previously blank.

DVD Video Logo added to the DVD Information Panel

The DVD Video Logo was the next element on the agenda to be added to the DVD Information Area, and the firstly thoughts were that this would be a simple duplication of one of the two logos that I had previously used however this was not to be the case. As you may remember, I have already used the DVD Video Logo on the Front Cover and the Spine, however the colour combination is that of Black Text which for those applications worked well. However, for the DVD Information Panel on this Back Cover, the background was close to black and therefore there would not of been enough contrast for the logo to stand out enough. With this in mind, I once again decided to look at Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) which allowed me search for an adequate Logo. I managed to find a Logo which was of the right colour combination, with white being the text colour which worked well. Once downloaded, I was able to open the file into Photoshop and then I could use the Duplicate Layer function. Once again by using Duplicate Layer this allowed me to take a copy of the layer (the Logo) and place it into my DVDAmarayCover Photoshop File. With this imported I could then utilise the Move Tool which allowed me to quickly move the logo around to my desired position. Also using the Shift key when resizing meant that the aspect ratio of the logo was kept the same, as to not skew or distort the image.

Sample Barcode added to the DVD Information Panel

As with all products such as DVDs there will be a Barcode of sorts on the cover, so therefore room a barcode would have to be left. I did think whether or not simply leave a designation space for the barcode on the DVD Information Panel, however I personally thought that a sample barcode would be the best for the appearance of the entire case and give the appearance of a totally finished case too. With this in mind, I decided to once again head over to Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) which allowed me search for an adequate barcode. It did not take long to find a barcode and Once downloaded, I was able to open the file into Photoshop and then I could use the Duplicate Layer function. Duplicating the layer allowed me to swiftly take a copy of the layer (the barcode) into my working Photoshop file and then move (Move Tool) and resize to my chosen location. Once again the Shift Key was used when resizing so that the aspect ration of the logo was kept the same and so that the image was not skewed or distorted either.

Dolby Digital Sound Logo added to DVD Information Panel

Looking on the previously made DVD Covers, it was apparent that an information logo in regards to the sound of the DVD was in place on the DVD Cover. With this in mind, I decided to opt for the Dolby Digital Sound Logo which would highlight he sound information of the quality of the video, in this case Dolby Digital. Once again, Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) were used to source an adequate logo and it did not take long to find one that was suitable for my situation. Once downloaded, I was able to open the file into Photoshop and then I could use the Duplicate Layer function. Once again by using Duplicate Layer this allowed me to take a copy of the layer (the Logo) and place it into my DVDAmarayCover Photoshop File. The Move Tool could then be used to move and also resize the image, once again using the Shift Key to ensure that the aspect ratio was kept the same and not to distort the image. I also placed the Logo in such a way that it was in keeping with the location of the barcode and gave an attractive and professional looking appearance too which I was striving for too.

Copyright Information added to the DVD Information Panel

Once again consulting the previously made DVD Covers, it was apparent that they all had some form of Copyright Information for the DVD Video which was important that I was to replicate on my DVD Case Cover as to keep up with the professional appearance of the case. I must admit that I took a lot of inspiration from the previously used copyright wording however made changes were necessary and I also came up with production company ("Turbo Films") which I would later go onto make a Logo for... The text was simple task of utilising the Horizontal Type Tool, however the font colour was decided to be set to white so that there was adequate contrast to the background panel. If it was set to Black it would not have been readable and therefore not a wise move. The text size was set to 4 Point which allowed for it to still be readable once printed, however as it really is the renowned "small print" it does not have to be of a huge size.

DVD Production Logo Before and After

Leading on from the Copyright Information, I previously mentioned that of a production company logo and having decided on the name of Turbo Films this meant that  DVD Logo would be needed on the Information Panel. Certainly looking back at the previous DVD Covers from the other Ashes to Ashes DVDs all of them featured a Logo from the production company and therefore by wanting to keep a professional appearance of the cover I decided I too wanted to go down this route. Ideally, I wanted the Turbo element to be visible in the Logo (inspiration from the Turbocharger of a car) so once again I decided to firstly look at Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) to find a Logo I could adapt. I was very lucky and managed to find a base image of a Recovery Firm that utilised  the Turbo shape which was perfect for what I was looking for. Once downloaded and opened up into Photoshop, I firstly decided to select the Quick Selection Tool and  I decided on a 50 Point and 100% hardness which allowed me to swiftly select the black background which was particularly easy to carry out due to the high contrast between the black background and the white border. The quick selection tool was particularly useful on this occasion as opposed to any others like the Magnetic Lasso Tool which would of taken far too long to get a less than effective effect than that of the Quick Selection Tool. Having selected the entire black background this mean that I was able to Delete this background as I was looking for a transparent "floating effect" logo. After this I obviously needed to replace the Towing and Recovery wording on the Logo. I decided that the best route for this would be to simply paint over them with the Paint Brush tool, and also colour in all of the Red area too which had some black shading areas which I did not think were the best in the world. With this in mind, I decided on the Quick Selection Tool once again, which allowed me to swiftly select the areas I only wanted to colour. Then, using the colour mixer I could select the colour red and then paint in the selected area resulting in a loss of the text which is what I wanted. The final stage was then the replacement text which I wanted to add saying "Turbo Production". Once typed out with the Horizontal Type Tool, I think used the Create Warped Text button on the toolbar so that I could warp the text. By doing so this meant that I could curve or warp the text to the curvature of the top and bottom arc. Finally, once this was completed, I could then use the Duplicate Layer function. Once again by using Duplicate Layer this allowed me to take a copy of the layer (the Logo) and place it into my DVDAmarayCover Photoshop File. With this imported I could then utilise the Move Tool which allowed me to quickly move the logo around to my desired position. Also using the Shift key when resizing meant that the aspect ratio of the logo was kept the same, as to not skew or distort the image.

Completed DVD Information Panel

Now that final, rather time consuming, element was completed, this meant that the DVD Information Panel was therefore then finished and I could then move onto the next element of the Rear Cover which was Gene Hunt.