Blog Post 20 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Spine - Logos

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

Having completed the discussion and explanation of the front cover, this next stage is in regards to the Spine of the DVD Cover. In comparison to the Front Cover, the spine has much less content however I will still discuss these elements in full detail. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Spine, these will include the following which will be discussed and explained; Background; Title; Logos. Therefore the third and final element that I will discuss is that of the Logos.

Logos

After the background and the Title had been completed for the Spine of the DVD Cover, the final element of the Spine is that of the Logos. Prior to starting the element of the logos on the spine, I decided to revert back to my Blog Post 6 which was the DVD Cover Research. With this in mind, having looked at some original examples I decided on a total of three logos that would be used, including the BBC Logo, 15 age certification logo and finally a DVD Video logo too. 

BBC Logo added to the Spine.

Therefore the first logo that I commenced work on was the BBC Logo, which I decided would look best at the very top of the Spine, as to keep a professional appearance of the entire cover. It was quite beneficial to me that I had already used a BBC Logo on the Front Cover of the DVD Case, and therefore I decided at this stage to reuse this on the Spine too. I decided this because then this would allow me to keep in with the house style of the design, with matching BBC Logos on the entire cover too. To do this, I navigated to the Layer Group of Front Cover in the my layers area of the Photoshop File, and then right clicked on the BBC Logo layer and chose Duplicate Layer. I then confirmed that I wanted the layer to be duplicated in my DVDAmarayCover file. Once this had been duplicated, I decided to move this layer into my pre-made Spine layer group as to keep everything in order. With everything now in place, I could then use the Move Tool to firstly move, and then resize the BBC Logo to that of the size that I would like. As previously mentioned, I decided to place the BBC Logo at the top of the Spine area however by doing this it was important to take into consideration the Safety and Bleed Line Areas of the Spine where the Spine would eventually be folded along the edges when placed into a DVD Case. It was also important to ensure that the Shift key was being used when resizing as to ensure that the aspect ration was kept the same and not stretch or skew the image.

DVD Video Logo added to the  Spine

The next logo that was going to be used on the Spine was that of the DVD Video Logo which indeed after looking at the previously made DVD covers and examples, I decided that the best place on the Spine would be the bottom of the Spine. Therefore, this would be opposite to the BBC Logo which is at the top of the Spine and therefore in keeping with the professional style that I was looking to keep with as well as a logical set up. It was again quite beneficial  to me that I had already used the DVD Video Logo on the Front Cover of the DVD Case, and therefore I decided to at this stage re-use this on the Spine too. I decided this because then this would allow me to keep in with the house style of the design, and it would also match with the DVD Video Logo on the Front Cover too. To do this I went to the Front Cover Layer group that I had previously created and found the DVD Video Layer that that I previously used. When on this layer, by right clicking I was able to choose Duplicate Layer which I then confirmed to duplicate the layer into the DVDAmarayCover file. Once this was duplicated, as with the the BBC Logo previously, I decided to move the duplicated layer into the Spine Layer folder as to keep everything in order. Once this was all in order, the Move Tool was put into action whereas I could I could move and then resize the logo to exactly where I wanted it to be. It was important to take into consideration the Safety and Bleed Line Areas of the Spine where the Spine would eventually be folded along the edges when placed into a DVD Case. It was also important to ensure that the Shift key was being used when resizing as to ensure that the aspect ration was kept the same and not stretch or skew the image.

15 Age Certification added to Spine

The final logo that I was going to add to the Spine was that of the 15 age certification, which after looking previous examples of DVD Covers that have been created I decided that it would be located at the bottom of the spine however just above the DVD Video Logo that I had previously added. With this in mind, once again it was beneficial that I had already used the 15 age certification on the Front Cover of the DVD Case, and once again I decided to at this stage to re-use this on the Spine too. Once again to do this I went to the Front Cover layer group and located the 15 age certification logo that I was planning to reuse. With this in mind, I navigated to the layer Group of the Front Cover in the my layers area of the Photoshop File, and then right clicked on the 15 age certification layer and chose Duplicate Layer. I then confirmed that I wanted the layer to be duplicated in my DVDAmarayCover file. Once this had been duplicated, I decided to move this layer into my pre-made Spine layer group as to keep everything in order. With everything now in place, I could then use the Move Tool to firstly move, and then resize the BBC Logo to that of the size that I would like. It was also important to ensure that the Shift key was being used when resizing as to ensure that the aspect ration was kept the same and not stretch or skew the image.

With this final logo added to the Spine, this meant that the spine was now at a completed stage of how far I wanted to take it. Overall I was at this stage of being really pleased with the end appearance of the Spine which I felt kept in-keeping with the overall professional appearance of the DVD Cover. Therefore, with the Spine being completed, this meant that the next, and final element to discuss is that of the Rear Cover of the DVD Case Cover.

The completed Spine

Blog Post 19 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Spine - Title

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

Having completed the discussion and explanation of the front over, this next stage is in regards to the Spine of the DVD Cover. In comparison to the Front Cover, the spine has much less content however I will still discuss these elements in full detail. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Spine, these will include the following which will be discussed and explained; Background; Title; Logos. Therefore the second element that I will discuss is that of the Title.

Title

Following on from the background of the spine and now that is in place and has formed the basis for this element, the next phase was in regards to the Title. It is very important for the Title of the DVD to be prominently featured on the spine of the DVD, as this will instantly make it recognisable if, for example, the DVD is on a shelf full of other DVDs and someone is trying to choose a DVD to watch. With this in mind, the Title had to be prominent and also I felt to keep to the professional approach of design, should follow the house design. By house design I mean that the font should be same as for the design to neatly tie in.

For this I once again decided to use the font that I used for the title on the which was WrestleMania. To start with, I clicked on the Horizontal Type Tool which allowed me to select and area where I would be placing the text, and also select a point size. To begin with, I simply selected the font WrestleMania with a Point Size of 40 and typed my text of Mirror Man. At this stage the font was black in colour, however unlike that of the front cover I decided to stick with this as it did work well with the grey coloured background. After this had been completed, I now had to rotate the Mirror Man text so that it was in the correct orientation for the Spine. With this in mind, having finished entered text the Move Tool was selected, and by hovering the mouse the perimeter of the text a a rotate icon was displayed. At this point I could click and pull the text around to 90 Degrees which is displayed on screen as a useful indicator. Once the text was displayed at 90 degrees (I chose this so that it was exactly vertical) I decided to manually resize the text so that it fitted exactly in the safety area of the spine. With this in mind, when resizing the text, the Shift key was held down at to not disturb the correct orientation of the text and skew it. Once I was happy with the location of the text, clicking on the confirmation tick at the top of the screen confirmed the changes and therefore the Title was successfully placed on the Spine.

Title added to the Spine in House Style

With this element of the Spine now completed, the final part could now be started which was the Logos.

References

DaFont - Link - Last accessed 28th February 2014.