CD cover ideas

On Monday the lecture on printing artwork was redo, it was good to go over the lecture again as it is better to understand some thing new when it as been repeated and you have had time to take it in.

Last week my seminar group started researching pre flight documents. I couldn’t find many examples last week but this week I search something different in Google and I got a whole range of pre flight documents. We put the example together and showed each other what we had collected.

Monday I didn’t feel well so I went home at dinner, but the group carried on with the pre-flight document work. They e-mailed me thought out the afternoon to keep me up to dates on the progress of the document and so I could add any input. The version that was completed Monday was a good first copy, it just needs a few details added. This includes a sentence about checking the images used are 300dpi and to add contact details to the document. After those few details are added the pre flight document should be completed.

For the seminar meetings this week two groups were mixed together. I wasn’t sure about this idea, as I didn’t real want to say my ideas in front of a larger group, in case people thought my ideas were rubbish. When we got in the seminar meeting we were asked to put our work on the wall. I put my logos up and my CD cover images. I would have liked to had more work to put up, but I have been finding it hard to settle on an idea for the CD cover design. Now I have come up with the idea using dancers on the front and back cover, I thought of this idea because with the music been described as the next generation of dance music, the dance theme seem to fit. Showing my work to larger group wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and I got some good feedback from the meeting.

My logo is now complete, I printed out my logo with the different typefaces and colours so that in the seminar meeting this week I could get feedback on the logos. The feedback I got was that, the logo should be kept in black and white as a colour didn’t seem to suit the logo. Also I was told that on the CD cover if I use a black background I could make the logo white so the logos doesn’t mix in with the background. This is a good idea, as I am planning to use a night/space background, which is mainly black.

Today we had a discussion about the second year. The talk was about what kind of assignments we would be doing in the second year. After the talk some people went out of the class room to talk to Steve about going on to the second year. This is a good chance for Steve to tell us what he thinks to how we are doing and tell us what he thinks about us progressing on to the second year.

Logo feedback

Monday we started with a lecture on printing artwork, which I thought was very useful as I am up to the stage of doing the CD cover designs. After the lecture the rest of the day was a get on with it day, apart from when we got feedback for A5, the builder web site. I wasn’t sure what feedback I would get about the web site. I was happy with the complete site but I still think it could have looked better. The feedback I did get was to compress my images, and change the backgrounds of the images, from cream to white to make them stand out more and to make the images not mix into the page as much.

With the feedback I got for my presentation, which was to spell check. I noticed quite a lot of errors in my spelling. This has learnt me to spell check my work more, using word’s spell checks or any other spell checks because I don’t always pick up on my own spelling errors. Spelling is one of the main things I need to improve on and I am trying different way to try and be better at spelling words correctly.

On Monday I spent most the day looking for inspiration for my CD cover. My music doesn’t really have a certain theme or thing that I can associate it with, so I have been looking at a range of different images to try and get inspiration. At the moment I have ideas for futuristic themes, nature theme like beaches and woods and season themes. None the designs I have done so far I like so I am going to keep trying different designs till I find some I think will suit the music.

My logo is coming long ok, I have to finalise the shape of the logo and I have uploaded the different shaped so any feedback would be good. The typeface that I have is not the final typeface, so I also will be posting the typefaces and colours that have been chosen to suit the logo soon.

Starting the CD cover designs

For self study this week I have been working on my logos. I have been doing my logos in Illustrator and having a play about with different parts of the logo. I have used a range of different colours starting with the basics and this week I am going to try other colours. When I have finished experimenting with all the different ways of changing logo, I am going to printing them all out so I can see all the logos laid out together, which will make the changes more noticeable.

The other thing that I have been having a look at is typefaces, I looked at a few last week but I carried on looking at more. The type of typefaces I have been looking for is bold but modern, this suits the type of music that the record company sells and plus the bolder it is the easier it is to read/see.For making the different shapes, I have been trying different sizes and thickness for lines. Without seeing the logo it’s hard to see what I mean.

Also for self study I have been thinking of ideas for CD covers. I created some mind maps, to help me make some decide of what I could sketch. I have done a range of different designs, as the music on the CD I was giving had random songs. I could not get any ideas of the music or the song titles. Most of the song titles were foreign, so I am going to try and translate the words and see what they mean and maybe if they are suitable, I could use them to base a design round.

Today in my groups seminar meeting we started off by talking about our logo design, what they are like now and what improves we could make this week. The main topic for this week in the seminar meeting was the CD cover designs. We mainly talked about the designs and we will be showing them next week. I am going to try and get as much of the CD cover design work done and even start trying to get the designs on the computer in self study time.

On Monday we got our presentation/timed tasks feedback. I wasn’t sure how I did for the assignment, I thought maybe my presentation wasn’t good enough. The feedback I got was to change the position of some text on one of the time tasks and check my spelling in my presentation visual aid. I was pretty happy with the feedback as there wasn’t anything major wrong with my work.

Logo designs

This week I have been carrying on creating logos. I have got over 60 designs, each one as different as possible so I have a range of logos. I have enjoyed doing the logo designs because I like going the sketches and its some thing a bit different from what we have been doing before. Yesterday I chose some of the logo designs which I thought would best suit the company and redrew them also adding colour. Some of the colour I choose didn’t suit the logos and made the logos look rubbish. When I have got the logos on the computer it will be better to start experimenting with colours, typefaces and shapes. For now though I am looking at colours that would best suit the company, and the type of company it is.

Today I went on a font web site and choose a range of font that I could use for the logo. I also got an example of what the logo would look like by getting a sample of the font saying ‘Emit’. I got the typeface in a range of sizes so I can if it is still readable at a smaller size. For this week self study I am going to go though all the fonts I have collected and see which I think would be best for the logo.

In the seminar meeting this week we looked our logos and chose the ones we should develop. I didn’t have a favourite logo design and I didn’t really know which logo design to chose. So the seminar meeting was good this week as it help me decide which logo to develop.

Now I know what logo design I am going to develop it using different colours, typefaces and shapes/lines. When I get my complete logo which I am happy with I am going to test it in different size, to check it is visible when really small. Also this week I have been thinking of ideas for the CD cover. I have been collecting inspiration, like other bands/artists CD covers and photographs.

Mondays lecture was about how to use Free Hand, I found this lecture really useful, as I have not used Free Hand before. Even though we have only been shown how to use Free Hand, I am going to have a go at using Illustrator so I can use a range of programs. Been learnt now to use Free Hand will make it easier to use Illustrator, as the programs do the same thing, but I do expect there will be some differences between the programs.

Starting Assignment 7

It as been the first week back from the Easter holidays, we started by having a lecture on what the new assignment consisted of. It was good to go through what we needed to do, so I can make a check list which will be useful for when I need check what I need to do for the tasks. For A7 we have to create a logo, CD cover, pre-flight document and conclude with an evaluation. I am looking forward to doing this assignment as I get to be more creative and so far I have started doing some logo designs, which I have really liked doing, the only thing is that I can’t always think of new idea when I want to, which makes me see why the logos and inspiration I have collected is so important.

We then had lectures on designing logos, from the lecture I learnt rules to making a good logo and the different type of logos. I noticed there were different types but I didn’t know there was a type called New generation. New generation logos look more appealing, but when the new generation logos are just in black and white they don’t look that good and can sometimes be hard to recognized.

At about 2 o’clock yesterday a former student, Jonny Haynes from Technophobia came in to talk to use about what his job is now. It was good to listen to him and see some of his work what he had done his self and in a team. He also give me a good idea of what the industry is like, some of things he said me thing about what I want to do after the course, I prefer not to work for someone else and just have my own business but I can now see the good things about working for someone else, and that is that I will learn new skill, for example learn things from people who have different skills to me.

The class did a case study on CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) logo, we had to create a redesign for the logo, I liked this task as we got to work in groups which helped for getting feedback and choosing the final design. The only thing we could have improved on is presenting the logo. I thought only one person in the group was going to have to explain about why we had chosen the final design, but it was meant to be the whole group and only 2 people in our group really talked.

Below I have added some of my logo designs, any feedback would be good.