Blog Post 25 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - DVD Summary Information

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Cover

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Warp that I will explaining and evaluating is that of the Rear Cover. In a similar vein to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the 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 just completed the element of the Ford Capri the next stage would be that of the DVD Summary Information.

DVD Summary Information

This next part of the Rear Cover that I wanted to complete was that of the DVD Summary Information. As with all DVDs that you will come across, a short and to the point description of the DVD is placed on the back for a potential purchaser to read and therefore then understand that of what the DVD actually is about, and what they can expect to be watching too. I think it's also worthwhile to point out that I decided to complete the different elements of the Rear Cover in this order as for the benefits of space. For example, now that I was up to the stage with Gene in place I now know how much space I have to work with for the Summary Information which will also help me with keeping to the point for the short and snappy effect of the summary information too. In regards to the first stage, I, like the DVD Information panel, 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. This was then placed in a New Layer Group called DVDInfoDisc which meant that I could revert back to this area in the future if needed and this would be much easier to find with them being all organised.

DVD Summary Information added to the Rear Cover

In regards to the font, I decided to once again keep to the House Style of the design as to keep a professional looking design and decided to use the previously downloaded Alien Encounters font. Full details about the source of Alien Encounters and how I went about getting it can be found in Blog Post 16 when I first used it. The words for the DVD Summary Information took a little while to perfect, however with the space limitations and me also wanting to keep things short and sweet I decided on two simple paragraphs giving a short introduction. Regarding colours I opted for the white font for the majority of the text which meant for ease of reading again the contrasting Black rectangular background, however I also decided on some other colours for emphasis. For example, the top line features the previous series of Ashes To Ashes and Life on Mars, and I decided on the Orange colour which was actually chosen using the Colour Picker from the Ford Cortina that was used on the Front Cover - an ever so retro colour, and to make this stand out a bit more, Italic font was used promote emphasis too. Two other colours were used including Red to highlight that of the fabled Audi Quattro which was the colour (Mars Red, if we're being totally specific...!), and Blue for that of the Capri. Admittedly the Capri was already White however to emphasis this I decided on Blue due to the "Blue Oval" badge of the Ford Marque being Blue, so there are reasons behind the colours chosen too. In regards to the text, in the paragraph option I selected the text to be fully justified as to once again give a professional looking appearance and fill the entire top safety area of the Rear Cover, which I felt worked well. Also, the Leading setting for the text was set to 12 Point which meant for a reasonable and aesthetically pleasing space between the rows of text which spaced out well.

Finally, I also wanted to keep to the House Style to as to stay with the professional looking appearance by utilising the same font for the Mirror Man title. For this I had to keep to the WrestleMania font (more details once again in Blog Post 16) and the font colour was also kept to White too in regards to the contrasting effect again the Black background panel that I had chosen. All in all, I was very happy with how the text element of the Rear Cover came out and felt that the font worked well as well as the location being the best for it too.

With this element being completed, this meant that I could move onto the final stage of the Rear Cover being the Actors and Music Information.