Blog Post 42 - Stage 2 - Completed Design: Titles

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 Titles.

Titles

One of the elements that was always going to be included on the On Disc Label is that of the Title mainly so people will know what the disc contains...! Reverting back to the House Theme and Style comments that I have previously mentioned numerous times, this was another element that I really wanted to keep in keeping with the rest of the design. Back in Blog Post 15 - Front Cover Title I explained all about how I went about sourcing the font of WrestleMania which I decided to use for my Title - full details can be found there. However, in the case of the On Disc Label I decided to make some subtle changes as for this to fit into the design better, with another play on words being used within the design - more on that, to follow...

Title in place

To begin with, though, as per usual a new Layer was created called MirrorManTop - once again by using the different named layers this meant that 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. Once this was created this meant that I could then head on over to the Type Tool, which would enable me to add some text (or type) to my design. As per the screenshot to the right, I decided that I was going to curve the Title to follow the curvature of the previously placed border. Prior to selecting the Type Tool I really did consider using the Type on a Path Tool which would mean that I could literally type around the edge of the border...however in practise when tried this did not result in the effect that I really wanted as it did not space correctly as to how I wanted it, even after adjusting both the Kerning and Tracking (previously explained in Blog Post 35 - Typography). So with this in mind I decided on the Type Tool, which allowed me to type the text how I wanted it, however I still had the slight issue of ensuring that the text was manipulated in such a way that it was able to be formed in line with the border curvature. Firstly I decided to edit the appearance of the text itself, and after the font of WrestleMania was selected (as to keep the house style), I decided to select the font size to that of 36 point, as I felt this filled the area well although some fine tuning later on in the process meant that the actual size was 33 point. 

Warp options used to curve the titles

In regards to the other appearance considerations, I decided to add a stroke of 0.75 point in the colour of white which meant that it was admittedly a bit different to that of the solid fill of the DVD Amaray Case, however I felt that in this application it worked well and was still in keeping with the house style. This contrasting stroke outline meant that it also worked well with the extended lettering areas which were in Black. After this, a few effects were applied to that of the text, namely a Drop Shadow - I decided on the Drop Shadow as personally I feel this makes the end result of the text appear much more professional as opposed to just being placed there with no shadow. Finally, the other effect was that of the arc effect, which was used to curve the text. Within the Warp options there was a whole host of different types of Warping however I decided on the Arc option. By using this option this meant that the text was equally arced and produced an aesthetically pleasing end result with the text matching the curvature of the border perfectly. This would not of been the case, if for example, I used one of the other warping techniques such as that of Arch or Bulge which do not curve the type in an equal manner. In regards to the amount of arc that I applied, I decided on 42% which meant that it matched the curvature of the border.

Bottom Title placed and Arc warped

With the title now in place, I decided that I wanted to add another title to the design, however this would be at the "bottom" of the design - obviously as it is a circle there is no true top or bottom, however in the design orientation that I was working with this was going to be opposite that of the first title. As previously mentioned, I wished to, once again in a similar fashion to that of the background used on the DVD Amaray Cover, use a play on words of that of the Mirror Man title.  With this in mind, I decided to create another version of the Mirror Man text (all details in regards to how are above), however once that had been placed and the appearance edited to be that of the same I decided to use the Rotate function to rotate the type 180 degrees so that it was effectively upside. Then, once again heading on over to the Warp options (Effects -> Warp) I was able to apply an Arc Warp effect, but this time to a degree of -42% as the warp was going to be to the other flip side of the previously edited top title. I realised that admittedly this was not of course going to be a true Mirror effect, however personally I felt that the slightly affect and subtle play on words worked well and I thought that by incorporating the second title this made it also slightly different to the masses that usually only feature the one title.

With the two titles now in place on the On Disc Label, this meant that I could now move onto the new element which was that of Gene Hunt.