Blog Post 45 - Stage 2 - Completed Design: Background Pattern

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 Background Pattern.

Background Pattern

Having already added a Background (Blog Post 40) and a Border (Blog Post 41) to my on disc label the element of a background pattern was admittedly something that I hadn't really considered in the design ideas that I set out in Blog Post 38. However, once the Trio of Cars had been added I thought that I would like to investigate that of a potential background pattern as to add just that little something to the design. My first thoughts for this was to include some graduated shapes to graduate from the edges and fade to the centre. With this in mind I decided to do some research into what would be the best route for the effect that I was looking to achieve, as this was something that I had not been taught and therefore was an untaught feature that I was looking to expand my knowledge of. 

Video Tutorial for Vector Sunburst

After researching Google I came across a link to some Video Tutorials which covered a whole host of different techniques for using Illustrator, however the one that caught my eye was called a Vector Sunburst tutorial. Upon watching this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBTasGzCNrQ) video, I knew that this was the pattern that I was going to try and include in my design. The very first stage, as per usual, was to create a New Layer called Pattern which was placed behind the Trio of Cars and Title layers so that the pattern would effectively sit behind these layers that would be on top. In regards to how I went about this, to start with the Ellipse Tool was used along with the Shift and Alt Key so that the circle that I was to draw was kept to a true circle with exact dimensions, and also so that it was drawn out from the centre. Once this was done then the stroke could be confirmed as Black, however then the fill was deselected as this was not something that was needed. As I would later find out, this was in regards to the stroke being used as the sunburst effect and not in relation to the fill colour at all. Once this was in order I could then navigate to the Appearance panel and click onto the Stroke Options, whereby I could then fine tune the options for the stroke that I wanted. In the video tutorial the weight was selected to be 200 point, however I personally found that this was far too large for my application and therefore I decided to decrease the weight to 123 point which was the size that I was looking for - to span the entire disc area. 

Stroke Options

After this was selected, the Dashed Line option was selected and this meant that the sunburst result would be split up and therefore not remain totally solid which was not the result that I was looking for at all. The next stage was in regards to the Dash size, and in the video this was set to 20 which resulted in a large amount of sun beams around the edged. Personally I thought that this was not the result I was looking for, and therefore I ended up with using a 77 point dash size which was resulted in five sunbursts which was exactly the type of look that I was aiming for.

Now that the sunburst was in place and also with the number of sunbeams that I was looking for, I decided that I wanted to take this another stage further in regards to the appearance. I was looking to keep the appearance of the black sunbursts, however navigating to the Gradient panel this meant that I was able to fine tune the gradient that I was looking for. Also, the gradient was set to the Type of Radial, as opposed to Liner, which meant that the effect would be from inside out as opposed to one direction (radial). In the end I opted for the custom gradient that I wanted for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I felt that I would like the full black areas to continue to the very edges of the disc, however a gradient to blank (and thus to the background colour of grey) was chosen to emulate the effect of promoting that of Gene in the middle of the disc cover. 

Gradient Options

Thinking about to my previous research that I carried out there in the previous DVD Amaray Cover's that had already been made for Ashes to Ashes there was the inclusion of typical 1980s patterns such as chequerboard patterns to the design, and I suppose that this is my sort of take on a pattern that links in with the era that the DVD would be closely linked too.

Once the gradient was fine tuned and tweaked to a level that I wanted, this meant that this element was complete and I could move onto the next element which is the Logos.