Blog Post 12 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Front Cover - Background

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the first element of the DVD Case Wrap that I will be explaining and evaluating is that of the front cover. The front cover consists of a large range of elements which when brought together form the finished front cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the front cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained: Background, Trio of Cars, Gene Hunt Portrait, Title, Tag Line, Miscellaneous Icons/Logos. Therefore when discussing these individual elements, they will be in the above order, starting with the background...

Background

The first element that I considered when starting the DVD case wrap was that of the background that I was going to use. In Blog Post 10, I mentioned in my Design Ideas Blog Post about that of a warehouse, and that I would like to incorporate a similar styled image into my cover. At this point in time I believe that I took this inspiration from an Ashes to Ashes scene whereby the Audi Quattro was once revealed from underneath a cover in a darkened warehouse situation which I felt worked well. In light of this, I decided to research photographs online of either abandoned or derelict warehouse type locations. When searching for the different photographs to use, I used a wide range of website and search engines to help me find one that I thought would be most suitable. These include Google Image Search (www.images.google.co.uk), Bing Image Search (www.bing.com/images), Flickr (www.flickr.com), iStock Images (www.istockphoto.com) and Shutter Stock (www.shutterstock.com). By using this wide range of search engines and also royalty free image stock photos this helped me to find the most suitable image. It was also necessary to bear in mind the resolution of the image that I was going to use, as it had to be large enough to cover the size of the entire front cover. Obviously I did not want an image of low resolution as this would lead to a blurred background and therefore a sub-standard end result. 

Possible Backgrounds

After searching for the possible backgrounds I short listed a total of three which are referenced below. As you can see, the image that I opted for in the end was the third image which I thought gave the best effect of what I was looking for. I personally like the angular and perspective look of the warehouse going into the distance which I thought would work well with the next stage of the Trio of Cars, too. 

Duplicate Layer: Used to import the Background layer

In regards to how I used this image as my background, this is as follows. Firslty, once I had downloaded and saved the image from online to my computer, I was then able to open it up in Photoshop. Once this was open, I then opened up my previously saved Photoshop file which I would be using for creating the case wrap. With the background image open in Photoshop, I firstly unlocked the background layer by double clicking on the layer, and this allowed me to edit and make changes to the background. Once this was done, I could then Right Click on the layer, and Duplicate Layer. This allowed me to duplicate this layer, and I chose to duplicate background into my Photoshop file which I would be using for creating the case wrap, called "DVDAmarayCover". I decided to use the duplicate function as this is a quick and effective way to place an exact copy of a layer into another Photoshop file. Having done this, I could then close the background image and revert to just my "DVDAmarayCover" file. 

Layer Groups for ease of use.

At this stage I decided to create a new Layer Group called Front Cover, as to keep all the layers in a logical order whereby I could find them again in the future if needed. Within this group another group, named Backgrounds, was created and the layer placed in there. The next stage was in regards to resizing the image so that it was firstly in the right area for the front cover, but also so it filled the entire cover and extended through the bleed and safety areas right to the edge of the canvas. To do this, clicking on the corner of the image with the Move Tool (keyboard shortcut V) and holding the SHIFT key allows the aspect ratio to remain the same so that the image does not appear to be stretched which would not give a very good appearance. After confirming the image size and location after pressing the confirmation tick, due to the nature of the image being of landscape orientation and my front cover being portrait orientation, some cropping of the image was needed. Before this, though, I had to ensure that I was totally sure in regards to the location. For this, I decided that I wanted the appearance of the cover to be symmetrical, and this would be based on the the railway tracks which start at the bottom of the image. Once I was happy with the location I was then ready to crop the image. To do this, it was necessary to select the "Background FC" layer, and then select the Rectangular Marquee Tool. With this selected, I was then able to draw a rectangular shape, and this would then select the areas that I did not wish to keep. When I wanted to add to this selection, I could then click on the "Add to Selection" option for the Rectangular Marquee Tool which means that my next drawing would be added to the selection - by using this, this would therefore all me to quickly select all of the elements that I want to, and therefore saving me time in the long run as I didn't have to select everything individually. Once I had selected the areas that I wanted to remove (or crop), then I was able to press the Delete key on the keyboard. This would allow me to delete all that was selected in that layer. Personally I feel that this method of removing the areas that I do not want worked well, and allowed the precise selection of these areas worked well in this situation. Therefore, having removed the areas, resized to the required size and also positioned the background where I wanted it to be I could then move onto the next section of the Front Cover; the Trio of Cars.

Different stages of the front cover background

References

First Possible Background - Link - Last accessed 27th February 2014.

Second Possible Background - Link - Last accessed 27th February 2014.

Third Possible Background - Link- Last accessed 27th February 2014.

Blog Post 11 - Stage 1 - Completed Design

Since the last blog post which was in regards to the design ideas for the DVD case wrap there has been a significant delay in Blog Posts, and this is because I have been waiting until I have completed this first stage which would then enable me to comment on how, and why, I have completed the different elements. Therefore, below you can find my finished design:

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

Overall, as an initial conclusion I must admit that I am very pleased with the outcome of the case wrap and at this stage I currently do not think that I would like to make any further changes. However, if any changes do come to light, then I will document these in the form of a "Modifications" Blog Post in the future.

At this point in time, now that I feel I have completed this stage I will now revert back to the notes I made when I was making the cover and explain how, and why, I went about creating the different elements to the cover. This will be a very in depth review and evaluation, and therefore I will be splitting this into three sections; Front Cover; Spine; Back Cover. This will hopefully make it easier and more understandable to follow in a logical order. This was also the same order that I created the case wrap too.

Finally I think it is worthwhile to point out that looking at the Design Ideas Blog Post 10, there are indeed some differences to the layout however this was always going to be expected. This is because in practise the appearance was either not to my taste or did not come out as well as I was expected. All of this, however, will be documented in the future Blog Posts.