Final CD art

CD artwork usually included the band logo + album title once again, with, in some cases, the track-listing, all of which are included here. Again, to increase the visual appeal of the artwork, I included the mascot. Also included is copyright information, expanded from the back cover
After designing this CD artwork, I added in the middle part to see how it would like, were it to actually be published.

Final back cover

Much like my initial back cover, the same tracklisting is included as well as the list of band members and their roles. This time around, I paid much more attention to the conventions of existing album covers, and included a barcode as well as a copyright notice. I also included spine artwork for the digipak. This is so that the consumer can identify the album were it to be placed in a pile with other digipaks/regular CD cases.
Again, for consistency reasons, I added white and red glow effects around the track titles and band personnel, respectively. I also filled up some space by adding in the mascot from the front cover, but here, it is much smaller.

Final front cover

As you can see, the cover is a radical change from my initial drafts. In place of Dan is the mascot, previously discussed on earlier blog posts, and fonts taken from the website cooltext.com as opposed to relying on the fonts provided by Photoshop. I am particularly pleased with the glowing effect around the mascot.

I recieved feedback from a fellow Media student, Pete Holderness, who told me that the cover seemed a little void. In response to this, I did add a glow around the album title, but I felt that adding anything else seemed to take away from the strength of the artwork.

Ancillary texts - the mascot

As far back as December, I was planning to feature a mascot in my artwork, following in the vein of popular metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Disturbed. However, for a while I was unsure of how I would go about doing this. While most people would start gaining ideas from hand drawn efforts, I decided against doing this, as drawing is not my strong point. I initially thought of taking a photo of Dan, who appears in my music video, and manipulating and distorting the image in PhotoShop, and using that as my mascot. This was featured on my first two album cover drafts. However, those who looked at the artwork did not find my edits appealing. The potentially eye-searing red background did not help either.

I decided that I would redo my album cover completely. My initial idea was to take some more photos of Dan that were of better quality. I took a series of photos all featuring different expressions:

I felt that this photo had potential; it shows Dan with a neutral facial expression, which some metal musicians as shown on album artwork have. I would not have to manipulate the photo to the extent that his expression would become unrecognisable.

This was taken before the photo above. The idea was the same. The obvious problem, however, is that it wasn't taken against a plain background, and could therefore pose many problems whilst trying to remove it in photoshop using the Quick Selection tool.

I started asking Dan to pull exaggerated facial expressions, in order to create a better image to work with to produce a menacing looking mascot. I felt this photo had potential

Dan's facial expression here is far too child-like for metal album artwork.

I was also unsure about this photo. The tongue looks like it has been forced out; as opposed to an expression he pulled himself.

I also felt this photo was not suitable for the genre. His smile looks much more innocent than it does menacing.

Follows in the same vein as the first two photos.

I then proceeded to take one of the photos and start experimenting with it to see if I could come out with something mascot worthy.

I started off by editing out the background, allowing me to focus on just the person. I started experimenting with colour tools and filter effects until I came out with this:

The colours are inverted and have been changed to grayscale, with a red brush tool also been used, giving the image of a blood-stained x-ray. However, I ultimately decided I was not satisfied with this as a mascot, and decided I would try and put something together on my own using image creating software.

The results came out like this. I put this together using Paint; I felt it was best to start out with the basics, further manipulating the image in photoshop, the results of which we can see below

I drew around the image with the colours red, orange and yellow, which represent fire. Photoshop allowed me to manipulate this to make it look like a ring of flames, which I was pleased with. I also applied filter effects to the face alone to make it look more complex and a little less cartoon-like. This is the image I am going to use in the artwork. The name I am going to give my mascot is: The Tri-beast, due to its triangular shape and evil appearance

Here is another idea I had for the mascot briefly. I ultimately decided it was more cartoony than the first effort, though it is not all bad; I like the shape of the eyes and the fiery colour scheme.

Ancillary texts - fonts I will use

In order to find some appealing fonts that are standard of the heavy metal genre, I searched the website cooltext.com, as it provides hundreds of unique fonts that are unavailable on highly used word processing software e.g. Microsoft Word.

Font name: Facelift

I chose this font due to its disjointed nature, with the letters differing in size and alternating between upper/lower case. This will be used for my album title.

Font name: Megadeth
I chose this font as it is very similar to the font of the logo for the thrash metal band Megadeth. This is therefore inevitably a very suitable font for this genre. It will be used for my band logo

Font name: ?
I chose this font because like the font Facelift, it is disjointed, but has more of a 'horror' appearance. This will therefore be used for my tracklisting.

Font name: Squealer
I decided that an additional font for the magazine advertisement would work well. This has an ancient looking appearance, but at the same time is appealing. This helps to positively promote the album as a timeless one, as well as the fictional positive reviews included.

Template for a digipak

As part of my digipak, I aim to produce a front cover, a back cover including an idea of how the spine of the case shall appear, artwork for the CD itself, as well as the inner sleeves. I shall take influence from existing pieces of artwork and therefore follow the conventions of CD packaging.

Scrapping my previous two front cover drafts

Following audience feedback, it has become clear that there are several things wrong with my front cover the way it currently is, such as the following:
*The red is eye-searing
*The choice of font could be better
*The image is poor/has been poorly edited

I may as well start it again from scratch. This time, I will browse the internet for alternative fonts rather than relying on the fonts that have already been provided on Photoshop. I will use take several photos of Dan that will help to form a more suitable cover. I will also consider the use of other colours. I hope to continue the next colour scheme I pursue in the other elements of my digipak.