Blog Post 41 - Stage 2 - Completed Design: Border

My finished design for Stage Two: On Disc Label

As mentioned in Blog Post 39, the following posts will be in regards to the explanation of not only how, but more importantly why I went about designing the On Disc Label in the way that I did. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In a similar vein to that of the DVD Amaray Cover, these posts will be split into the following elements: Background; Border; Titles; Gene Hunt; Trio of Cars; Background Pattern; Logos; Information. The next element that will be discussed is that of the Border.

Border

The Border was one element on the On Disc Label that you will notice is absent from the design ideas and layout ideas in Blog Post 38, however this is something that I thought of after the design posts and when I was making the on disc label. The element of a border came to mind as I thought that I would like a definitive edge to the design of the on disc label. However, I had to bear in mind the safety and bleed areas of the disc that I had already set out as to ensure that the border would not be cut off. First things first was to create a new Layer for this background to be part of, so navigating to the Layers and Artboard Toolbar a new Layer named Border was chosen. Personally I chose to use layers in this as in the future if one was to come back and need to edit a certain aspect then this would mean it would be easy to find in the future. To begin with I decided to head on over to Illustrator and start by using the Ellipse shape tool. As per usual, I also decided to hold down the Shift and ALT key which meant that not only would the circle be drawn perfectly (an equal diameter all around), but once selected in the middle of the border this meant that the circle would be drawn out from the centre. 

Border

Personally I decided to use these two functions as it would mean the circle was guaranteed to be perfect, which is what I wanted. Although, I did decide to once again draw a circle of a random size, and then revert back to the previously used Transform option on the toolbar. I previously used this option in Blog Post 40 in regards to the Background, and by using the Transform option I was able to exactly type in the exact size of circle that I was looking for. The Transform option is beneficial as by typing in and specifying the  exact dimensions of the circle that I was looking for this is guaranteed to be correct, as opposed to being difficult to get that accuracy when resizing manually with the mouse. To begin with, I decided to type in the dimensions of 117.5mm which meant this ran up to the safety area. However, after thinking about this further I decided to revert to 115mm diameter of the circle. The reasoning behind this is in regards to having to take into consideration the stroke and thickness of the border that I wanted to include, and also did not want this to fall past the edge of the safety area either as that would risk the border being cut off if the on disc label was to be printed.

Appearance Options

Heading to the Appearance Toolbar on the right hand side, I was then able to choose how I would like this new Ellipse to look like. To begin with, I obviously decided to opt for the House Style colour of grey for the Fill which matches in with the colours of the background originally set out and explained in Blog Post 40 - Background. The next aspect was the most important though, as it was in regards to the effects of the Stroke, or edge, of the Ellipse that would make up the Border of the disc label. Once again heading on over to the Appearance Toolbar this meant that I could choose which type and style of Stroke that I was going to use. After much consideration I decided to opt for Dashed Line 1.5 with a Stroke size of 1 Point and colour fill set to Black. Looking at the different stroke options there were quite a few different options ranging from single stroke to the dual stroke like I chose, however I personally thought that the dual stroked outline gave a much better overall appearance to that of the border. Personally I also thought that the dual stroke gave that extra bit of weight to the design, whereas when the single stroke option was tried and even with the point size increased, the design still lacked the weight and appearance that I was looking for. 

Having now placed the border onto the background, this meant that I was now able to start on the main content of the On Disc label and with this in mind the next element that will be discussed and explained will be in regards to the Titles.