Blog Post 43 - Stage 2 - Completed Design: Gene Hunt

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 Gene Hunt.

Gene Hunt

Putting Gene Hunt onto the On Disc label was always something that I definitely wanted to include in my design, as originally set out in Blog Post 38 - Design Ideas. My reasoning behind this is due to him being the main character of the DVD and therefore I felt that it was important that it was part of the label. Looking around at the images of Gene Hunt that I had previously researched for the Stage One DVD Amaray Cover I, after much consideration, decided to opt for the same base image as that of the DVD Amaray Cover.

Gene added to the label.

Not only did I feel that this was a very good image, I also felt that it was in keeping with that of the House Style that I was striving to keep to during the design phase. For the DVD Amaray Cover I applied some effects to the portrait of Gene in that the opacity was reduced as to form a type of ghosting effect - further details can be found in Blog Post 14 - Gene Hunt Portrait. Moving back to the On Disc Label for Stage Two I decided to opt for another effect. To being with I decided to open up a new document in Illustrator which meant that I would be able to start manipulating the image of Gene separately prior to placing it in the DVDDiscCase Illustrator File whereby I could place and arrange it to the area that I wanted it to be. With a new artboard open, I was able to go to File -> Place... and place the photograph of Gene into the new artboard so it was ready for editing. By using place was the best route for importing an image outside of illustrator into the artboard. Prior to using the function of a Clipping Mask,  I decided to explore the different options that I had to subtly change the appearance of the layer that was Gene. Although the original photograph element was perfectly acceptable, in the end I decided to utilise the Image Trace option that is situated on the Toolbar. This is something that I had not been previously shown, so some research and trial and error in regards to how it works was needed, however in basic terms the Image Trace tool literally traces the photograph that you have placed in the artboard and essential converts it from a bitmap image to that of a vectorised graphic. Not only is this really rather useful in regards to resolving pixelated images that would occur if a bitmap image was resized too large, for example, the Image Trace also produces some very interesting and appealing effects too. There really is a whole host of different effects, worthy of a blog post of it's own perhaps, however in my case after some trial and error I decided to opt for the option called 6 Colours. By using this option, when Illustrator traces the images and converts it from a bitmap to a vectorised image it takes into consideration the most common 6 colours and utilises these in the design. 

Image Trace Options

I feel that it is also worth bearing in mind that you can change the options in the Image Trace options for the number of colours that are present in the Image Trace, however I felt that the 6 Colours option was the best suited for my design. For reference, the different between the original and the 6 colours vectorised image can be found here. In regards to the other options for Image Tracing these include Shades of Grey, Sillhoeutree, Line Art and Black and White Drawing, however I felt that the effect given from the 6 Colours option was the best compromise in regards to the design that I wanted - all in all the simple colours worked well and for example I feel that the Black and White Drawing would of been too contrasty for my design.

After this was completed, I decided that I did not want the background to feature on the On Disk Label, and therefore I needed to go about removing the background from the photograph of Gene, so it just left me with the outline of him. I decided this as the background that was currently in place was nothing to do with what I had in mind for my design and therefore was surplus to requirements. To do this I decided to use a combination of both the Pen Tool and a Clipping Mask. To start with by using the pen tool this meant that I could draw around Gene to select just the areas that I wanted - in this case, just Gene. By using the pen tool I thought that this would be the the best tool to use to select around the portrait of Gene, and this was also a very accurate way to do things. Referring back to Blog Post 33 - Pen Tool explains more in depth details, however utilising the pen tool to it's full potential was certainly something that was very useful and allowed the precise selection of the area I was wanting to keep. After the pen tool was used to select the portrait of Gene, this meant that I could right click and Clipping Mask -> Make. This then effectively clipped the selection away from that of the entire placed image, and left me with just the selection. By deciding to use the clipping mask this was, I think, the best solution in regards to removing the background which is why I opted to use it.

Clipping Mask and Image Trace "6 Colours"

Once the clipping mask was in place, I was then able to save the Illustrator file with the name of the Gene which meant that I would be able to easily find it when I came back it in the future. This would be quite soon indeed, as reverting back to the DVDDiscCover Illustrator file meant that I was able to go to File -> Place and find the Gene Illustrator File. Once this had been placed this meant that unfortunately it had been placed in a layer with another element of the On Disc Layer. I really wanted to keep each element separate, so a New Layer called Gene was created. Then, with Gene selected this meant that I could navigate to Object -> Arrange -> Send to current layer whereby Gene was then able to be moved to it's own separate layer. I felt this best as if in the future I needed to edit Gene further, for example moving or creating some more effects, then I would be able to find and select the layer ready for editing. Also, it just makes everything much more accessible and easy to use when all is nicely in order and in separate Layers. Once Gene was in his own Layer, then meant that I was now happy to move and resize the new layer to the area that I wanted. Back in Blog Post 38 - Design Ideas I had originally decided that I wanted Gene to be in the centre of the disc, almost at the centre of attention. With this in mind, to resize I held down the Shift key which meant that the aspect ratio of Gene was kept the same as to not skew the orientation. Regarding the end position I decided this as of course I had to take into consideration that of the cut out whole in the middle of the disk that would not be there once made into production. With this in mind, I decided to try and keep things symmetrical again and place his hands where the hole would be which centred up the image well.

Once I was happy with the location and size of the image (had to take into consideration the other elements that were to follow in the design), I was able to move onto the next element of the design which was that of Trio of Cars.