Blog Post 27 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Formative Feedback

Now that I have completed the design for Stage One for this assignment and I have discussed and explained how, and also more importantly why, I went about this, this meant that during the time in the lectures it was possible for me to gain some feedback about my design. This was mentioned in the specification whereas it was planned that some feedback would be given to me so that I know how I am getting on and I personally felt that this was a really good idea as another pair of eyes is always beneficial in case I had overlooked something quite obvious, or just made a mistake somewhere along the design stage.

Feedback received from Wezi

With this in mind, here is a scan of the written feedback that I received from one party, Wezi, who was good to talk to and run through what I had done and reasons why as well as answering any questions.

Overall I was very pleased with the comments that I received from Wezi and also I felt that it was useful that he gave it a potential grading out of thirty for this part Stage of the assignment. In regards to potential improvements in relation to his comment of "however needs to illustrate independent research for arriving at certain conclusions" this was to do with when we was talking about the cover and why I went to about doing certain things to the cover, and it is important to fully research why I would be doing specfic things. For example, why was a 3mm Bleed Line used and why was 300DPi used? Overall though I was extremely pleased with Wezi's reaction to my DVD Cover and it made the effort to make the cover certainly worth it.

I was also lucky to be able to gain another set of written feedback from another party, Ben, who was also good to talk to and explain what I had done and why as well as again answering any questions or queries he had. 

Feedback received from Ben

I was particularly pleased when Ben wrote the comments about the piece of work looking "very professional" as this is one element that I had really been striving to give the impression of through the work and I was pleased that this came across in the end result. Ben also pointed out and confirmed that all of the required skills needed to be completed to satisfy the assignment specific had been carried out which was something to always bear in mind, however as also pointed out by Ben I had gone above and beyond the original specification set out.

After speaking to Ben, later on in the day I was also lucky to be able to get some further feedback from any other individual named Tony, who is a teacher and it was nice to get some further information and opinions from a "professional", similar to that of Wezi. Once again Tony and I had a long talk about how this stage of the assignment and I explained about why I made the individual choices such as the choice of the cars, and he was particularly impressed that I managed to include the Ford Capri into it as it made it very personal with it being my own car. Tony also commented that I should of been grown up in the 80s, which sometimes I would agree with (!). Tony did make a very worthwhile point, though, in regards to the DVD Information Panel that is located at the bottom of the Rear Cover and the different logos of information. Tony kindly pointed out that I had ever so slightly overlooked that of the Region markings which give the purchaser an idea of which region the discs are suitable for, for example that of Europe or United States of America which are different. With this in mind, this will form part of a Modifications section of this Blog, which will details the changes necessary.

Having completed and reviewed the formative feedback from that of the completed design of Stage One of this assignment, as previously mentioned I will now carry out any suggested modifications that I think would be best to carry out to just tweak and improve that of the DVD Amaray Cover.

Blog Post 26 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - Actor and Music Information

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Warp that I will explaining and evaluating is that of the Rear Cover. In a similar vein to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the Rear Cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Rear Cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained; Background; DVD Information; Gene Hunt; Ford Capri; DVD Summary Information; Actors and Music Information. Having just completed the element of the DVD Summary Information the final stage would be that of the Actors and Music Information.

Actors and Music Information

I must admit that this element of the Rear Cover was not one that I originally envisaged on my cover, and you will probably notice this from my design ideas back in Blog Post 10. However, with all of other different elements finished and added to the Rear of the cover this left a space just below the Capri and above that of the DVD Information. 

Steel Tongs Font from the Abstract Fonts website

I was thinking for quite a while as to what I could possibly put in there, however I did not wish to just put something on there just for the sake of doing so as that would not be professional and could hinder as opposed to help with the appearance of the cover. With this in mind I decided to revert to the original DVD cases that had already been made as to try and get some inspiration. When reading through the back cover I realised that I had overlooked an element that I really should not of done at all. On them all was a section dedicated to that of the Actors that would be included in the DVD, but also that of the Music too. In modern day DVDs and films the music included would not bee publicised that much, however in this case of a retro 1980s DVD the music is very much part of everything and therefore should be included.

With this in mind, I set about once again using the Rectangle Tool which would allow me to draw a rectangle to the size that I wanted and also in the area that I wanted too. In regards to the colour, I decided to set it to a 100% total Black which in the Hex colouring is 0 for Red, Green and Blue, however once I had drawn the rectangle, I decided to change the Opacity. By doing this and having changed the opacity down from 100% to that of 75% this gave an aesthetically pleasing effect whereas the black rectangle was of course still visible, however you can just see through the background too, just like that of the DVD Information panels in Blog Post 25. 

Actor and Music Information added to the Rear Cover

Once this was completed I now had a base to work with however the issue I was battling with was that of the font choice as no matter what I tried it just did not look right. With this in mind I did not just want to settle for something that I was not happy with and thus had to look at another option. Then, I noticed on the previous DVD Covers the font they used was quite specific and decided to research on Google to find out what it was. After some research I managed to find that the font used by the majority of DVD Covers for the Actor and Music Information is called SteelTongs. Some further searching found that I could download and install this font onto my computer, and this was from Abstract Fonts this time  (http://www.abstractfonts.com/font/11551). Once downloaded and installed I could then adding in the different information including the some example Direction and Producer Names, but not forgetting Phillip Glenister who plays the character of Gene Hunt. With this in place, I really felt this was the icing on the cake so to speak, as it really added to that professional appearance that I was so trying to keep to.

With this element of the Rear Cover now being completed this meant that I had actually finished the design of the entire cover. With all of the different elements and stages being completed and brought together this meant I was now at a stage that I could conclude an evaluation of Stage One of this assignment after receiving some feedback from peers and to gauge their thoughts and if they had any suggestions or alternations from an outside source. With this in mind, the next stage will be in regards to the feedback received.

Blog Post 25 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - DVD Summary Information

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Cover

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Warp that I will explaining and evaluating is that of the Rear Cover. In a similar vein to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the Rear Cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Rear Cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained; Background; DVD Information; Gene Hunt; Ford Capri; DVD Summary Information; Actors and Music Information. Having just completed the element of the Ford Capri the next stage would be that of the DVD Summary Information.

DVD Summary Information

This next part of the Rear Cover that I wanted to complete was that of the DVD Summary Information. As with all DVDs that you will come across, a short and to the point description of the DVD is placed on the back for a potential purchaser to read and therefore then understand that of what the DVD actually is about, and what they can expect to be watching too. I think it's also worthwhile to point out that I decided to complete the different elements of the Rear Cover in this order as for the benefits of space. For example, now that I was up to the stage with Gene in place I now know how much space I have to work with for the Summary Information which will also help me with keeping to the point for the short and snappy effect of the summary information too. In regards to the first stage, I, like the DVD Information panel, decided to use the Rectangle Tool which would allow me to draw a rectangle to the size that I wanted and also in the area that I wanted too. In regards to the colour, I decided to set it to a 100% total Black which in the Hex colouring is 0 for Red, Green and Blue, however once I had drawn the rectangle, I decided to change the Opacity. By doing this and having changed the opacity down from 100% to that of 75% this gave an aesthetically pleasing effect whereas the black rectangle was of course still visible, however you can just see through the background too. I think that if it was left at 100% opacity the appearance would of been far too rigid and block-like - not the effect that I wanted. In regards to the placement of the rectangle, I once again had to take into consideration the safety and bleed areas of the canvas too, as if I did not then I would run the risk of this important information not being included. This was then placed in a New Layer Group called DVDInfoDisc which meant that I could revert back to this area in the future if needed and this would be much easier to find with them being all organised.

DVD Summary Information added to the Rear Cover

In regards to the font, I decided to once again keep to the House Style of the design as to keep a professional looking design and decided to use the previously downloaded Alien Encounters font. Full details about the source of Alien Encounters and how I went about getting it can be found in Blog Post 16 when I first used it. The words for the DVD Summary Information took a little while to perfect, however with the space limitations and me also wanting to keep things short and sweet I decided on two simple paragraphs giving a short introduction. Regarding colours I opted for the white font for the majority of the text which meant for ease of reading again the contrasting Black rectangular background, however I also decided on some other colours for emphasis. For example, the top line features the previous series of Ashes To Ashes and Life on Mars, and I decided on the Orange colour which was actually chosen using the Colour Picker from the Ford Cortina that was used on the Front Cover - an ever so retro colour, and to make this stand out a bit more, Italic font was used promote emphasis too. Two other colours were used including Red to highlight that of the fabled Audi Quattro which was the colour (Mars Red, if we're being totally specific...!), and Blue for that of the Capri. Admittedly the Capri was already White however to emphasis this I decided on Blue due to the "Blue Oval" badge of the Ford Marque being Blue, so there are reasons behind the colours chosen too. In regards to the text, in the paragraph option I selected the text to be fully justified as to once again give a professional looking appearance and fill the entire top safety area of the Rear Cover, which I felt worked well. Also, the Leading setting for the text was set to 12 Point which meant for a reasonable and aesthetically pleasing space between the rows of text which spaced out well.

Finally, I also wanted to keep to the House Style to as to stay with the professional looking appearance by utilising the same font for the Mirror Man title. For this I had to keep to the WrestleMania font (more details once again in Blog Post 16) and the font colour was also kept to White too in regards to the contrasting effect again the Black background panel that I had chosen. All in all, I was very happy with how the text element of the Rear Cover came out and felt that the font worked well as well as the location being the best for it too.

With this element being completed, this meant that I could move onto the final stage of the Rear Cover being the Actors and Music Information.

Blog Post 24 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - Ford Capri

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Cover

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Warp that I will explaining and evaluating is that of the Rear Cover. In a similar vein to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the Rear Cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Rear Cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained; Background; DVD Information; Gene Hunt; Ford Capri; DVD Summary Information; Actors and Music Information. Having just completed the element of Gene Hunt the next stage would be that of the Ford Capri.

Ford Capri

As well as having the Trio of Cars on the Front Cover (covered in Blog Post 13), I decided that I wanted to have another photo on the Rear Cover of the Ford Capri too. Harking back to my original Design Ideas on Blog Post 10 I was going to have another line up of the three cars however I decided against this at the last minute in regards to design. This was because as there was already the three cars on the Front Cover I decided that another three on the Rear would be too much, and thus I opted for just the single photo. To begin with, this time I did not have to search on the internet for an image as I could quite simply navigate to my computer hard drive and find an image that I had already taken of the Ford Capri myself. This was particularly useful as I could therefore get the exact angle and photograph that I wanted.

Original base image prior to editing that I photographed myself.

For this element of the Rear Cover I wanted do something different and above that of simply just a side on image of the Capri. Therefore after some thinking and research on the internet I stumbled across some Tutorials to replicate that of smoking tyres and emulating that of a large wheel spin and burnout of the rear tyres. One of the main parts of the previous series' of Ashes to Ashes and also Life on Mars was that of the tyre smoking car chases through the streets of Manchester and London, and therefore thought this would be a nice addition to the Rear Cover. The video tutorial that I found was actually on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8tES_PiBoM and after watching it for the first time I felt that I was able to carry out this tutorial and that it would add a nice effect to my Rear Cover. It was also good that the YouTube user also provided a download for the smoke effect which meant that I could easily add it to my base image of the Capri. With this in mind I first had to get my base image ready which was that of the Capri. 

YouTube Tutorial 

To do this, I opted for the Quick Selection Tool. To begin with, I decided on a 75 Point and 100% hardness which allowed me to swiftly select the majority of the car, and I once again went over the edges very slightly. Then, I decreased the point size to 25 Point and altered the settings to subtract selection. This meant that I could then precisely select the areas of the Capri that I did and did not want. Once again I also used to the Polygonal Lasso Tool to carefully and intricately keep the areas of important such as the tyres. Once I was happy with the selection that I had made then navigated to Refine Edge, whereby some settings were tweaked, namely the Smooth Edge to 17, which gives a less obvious "cut-out" appearance to the image. Also, the Shift Edge was set to +6, which ever so slightly adjusts the edge of selection. In this case the edge of selection was increased by 6, which I felt benefited the end result. Finally, the selection was going to be output to that of a New Document. Once in the new document, I could then revert back to the Video Tutorial whereas I could begin editing and creating the effect of the wheels spinning. However, before this I decided I wanted the Capri to be facing the other way, so I flipped the canvas horizontally which meant that the entire car was now facing the other way which was what I was looking for.

To begin with, I decided to use the Elliptical Marquee Tool which allowed me to draw and select around the rear wheel. With the impression of motion being portrayed it was important that the effect was continued to the wheel itself, so by selecting the wheel I was then able to navigate to Filter -> Blur -> Radial Blur and then select Spin Blur. By selecting this, this allowed for the wheel to be blurred in a circular motion from the centre and due to the wheel being circular this meant it gave the impression of speed and motion and if it was spinning. 

Completed Effects added to the Capri on the Rear Cover

Once this had been completed, I was ready to move onto the actual smoke elements. To begin with, the main smoke file was duplicated into the New Document whereas the Capri had been exported to. Once the smoke had been duplicated into this document, the Blending Mode was changed to Screen which allowed for a better looking effect as opposed to some smoke that was too thick and would not look natural at all. Next, the Move Tool was used to move and resize the smoke so that it was correctly in place around the wheel too. Once again using the Shift Key mean that the aspect ratio was kept as to not skew the image. Once it was in place, the smoke layer was duplicated again on top of the other smoke layer and that was because I wanted to add more smoke around the tyres to increase the effect. However, I did not want there to be more smoke around the back of the car so a Layer Mask was going to be used. Once added, by using the Brush Tool with black selected and hardness to this allowed me to remove this extra layer of smoke that was not needed. The use of the Layer Mask meant that I could accurately select what areas I did and also did not want to be included of the smoke that I had duplicated. Once this had been completed, this was actually all that was needed to be completed for this effect, and then I headed back to my DVDAmarayCover Photoshop File and added a new Layer Group called TyreSmoke under the Rear Cover Layer Group. Then, I duplicated all four layers into the DVDAmarayCover which allowed the swiftest movement of the layers into my file and added them to the TyreSmoke group. Finally, the Move Tool was used including the shift key to ensure that the aspect ratio of the image was kept when moving and resizing the Capri to the location that I wanted. The penultimate part to the Ford Capri was firstly adding a filter which I decided to add some Motion Blur to the car itself to make it look like it was starting to move as opposed to sitting still, and some effects in the form of a Drop Shadow. Finally, linked into the Drop Shadow, I also I utilised the Burn Tool on the Background, which was set to 75 Point Size with a Exposure of 50% - this is so that I could subtly darken the areas underneath the Capri (in the form of shadows) as to make it look as realistic as possible.

With the effects added to the Capri and it added to the Rear Cover this meant that I could now move onto the DVD Summary Information.

Blog Post 23 - Stage 1 - Completed Design: Rear Cover - Gene Hunt

My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Cover

As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the third and final element of the DVD Case Wrap that I will be explaining and evaluating is that of the Rear Cover. In a similar vain to that of the Front Cover, the Rear Cover also features a large range of elements which when brought together will form the finished Rear Cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the Rear Cover, these include the following which will be discussed e and explained: Background; DVD Information; Gene Hunt; Ford Capri; DVD Summary Information; Actors and Music Information. Having already added the Background and the DVD Information, the next element is that of Gene Hunt.

Gene Hunt

Whilst I had already included Gene Hunt on the front cover I had the idea that I would also like to have a cast photo on the Rear Cover too. With this in mind I once again decided to head onto Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) to try to find an image that was going to be revelent and fit in with the rest of the design. After a short amount of time I managed to come across a still image from one of the series' of Ashes to Ashes whereas Gene was shooting a gun. Personally I thought this would give a nice piece of action to the cover and also give a taste of what the DVD could be like, too. 

Base Image for that of Gene Hunt

However, I was not too happy with orientation of Gene, and ideally wanted him facing the other way in light of what else I had planned for the rest of the Rear Cover, namely that of the Ford Capri. Thus, you can see pictured here the original image that I used. The first task, however, was to remove the background from around that of Gene as I only wanted to add Gene and the Gun into my DVDAmarayCover Photoshop file. Once  downloaded and opened into Photoshop, I started to select the majority of Gene using the Quick Selection Tool with the hardness set to 100% and a Point Size of 50, which allowed for the swift selection of Gene. With Gene mostly selected, I could then fine tune this selection by utilising the Polygonal Lasso Tool. By changing between the Add and Subtract to Selection Tools, I was able to carefully draw around Gene so that I had the areas that I exactly wanted. By utilising both the Quick Selection Tool and the Polygonal Lasso Tool this meant that the end result was exactly what I wanted of just Gene being selected. Once Gene had been successfully selected, Refine Edge, was used whereby a few settings were tweaked. 

Gene Hunt added to the Rear Cover

Firstly, the Smooth Edge setting was set to 2 and this is because this would give less of harsh "cut out" look, and make it more natural. Also, the selection was also outputted to a New Document, which I could then Duplicate the Layer into my DVDAmarayCover. However, prior to duplicating it was important for me to flip the canvas horizontally which meant that Gene would be flipped around and then be facing the way that I wanted him to face which I felt would benefit my design the most. Once duplicated in the DVDAmaray Cover, the Move Tool allowed me to move and resize the portrait of Gene to the place that I wanted. Once in place, I decided to go to the Effects button just below the layers pallete. Once in here, I decided to add a Drop Shadow, and also an Outer Glow. By adding these I felt that this gave an attractive effect and appearance to that of the outside of Gene and also added to the motion of Gene with the gun too. Also, once imported into my DVDAmarayCover file this meant that I also created a New Layer Group of Gene Back Cover within the Rear Cover Layer Group which would aid organisation too.

Having added Gene to the Rear Cover, this meant that the next element that I would be progressing with was that of the Ford Capri.