Unit 2 Evaluation

The Brief

The brief for this unit of work was 'Covert and Obscured', meaning hidden, subtle and secret. I approached this theme with the idea of using doors and houses as my main subject matter because doors obscure what is hidden behind them. I brainstormed some ideas for my final piece. eventually landing on a chosen for of zines with the idea to create a zine of different doors. I began with my research into different variations of my subject matter and collecting them on to a board in Pinterest. From these images, I could then draw some of my subject matter to practice the shapes and styles I would be using for my final piece.

I soon decided to change my chosen form of zines to CD covers/digipacks. I made this decision because zines proved difficult and awkward to research due to their wide variety of variations and lack of conventions. I decided to go with digipacks because I have access to a collection containing a very large variety of them at home. However, I found that I could still implement my chosen subject matter of doors and houses very well onto a digipack. After making this decision, I went on to draft a number of ideas for my digipack for different musicians so that I could play around with their existing styles. I decided on my design for The Lumineers, a folk/indie band. I experimented with different forms of text, patterns and print. I created a final draft in Photoshop, using techniques and processes similar to the kind I planned to use in the making of my final piece. I used hand-drawn items scanned in and edited in Photoshop.

For my final piece, I redrew my hand-drawn items and then created the whole piece on a digipack template in Photoshop. I used some of my own photography for the images of the band, hand-written text and even my own painted background.

A Piece Influenced By Another Artist

I studied this cover for Sigur Ros's album "Takk..." in one of my case studies, researching the band, the artists who made the cover and the process taken to create the artwork. After carefully studying this piece, I was influenced by the design and decided to recreate it as one of my copies. I chose to do it because it has a very rustic look that seemed like it would be interesting to recreate. I found in my research during my case study that the drawing in black was created using charcoal. I created mine differently for my copy and decided to use a form of printing using polystyrene to gain a similar grainy look to the drawing. I cut out a stencil from a thin piece of polystyrene and rolled blank ink onto it. I then pressed the stencil onto my painted background design. I created my background by mixing together colours to gain the right shade of parchment brown.

From doing this piece of work, I have gained an understanding of the effort that goes into creating album art. Also, that some pieces require multiple artists to work on them. This album cover has 3 artists working on it. I gained the experience of making a stencil out of polystyrene and using it to print a design with.

A Piece Where I Have Experimented With Different Processes

I experimented with some forms of typography to give me some ideas of fonts and typography that I could use in my final piece. I began this experiment without much planning with the intention of taking some risks and trying new things and just went straight in to draw an alphabet. I used ink and a paintbrush to do this.

After scanning it in to Photoshop, I used a number of techniques of change and add to it. I used features such as the satin effect, overlaying a pattern, , overlaying colour, adding a stroke, changing opacity and copying the alphabet to create a shadow behind. This experiment helped to experience using some new techniques available in Photoshop so that I am now able to further expand my knowledge of creating typography in Photoshop and apply it in projects such as my final piece for this unit.

A Piece I Have Refined Over Time

For one of my experimental pieces, I used a birdcage as my subject because it was one of my planned subject matters for one of my digipack drafts, my Florence + the Machine one. I chose birdcages because it is a well-known piece of iconography associated with her. I first drew the birdcage in pencil and then painted over it using Gouache paint, sticking to a pastel colour palette of pinks, blues and purples. Once I had finished painting it, I was happy with the look of the outcome.

After a while, I decided to go back to this experiment and refine it by carrying it on digitally. The painted birdcage itself was quite plain and uninteresting, so I scanned it in and added to it in Photoshop. I ended up changing the threshold of the scan to change it to black and then created a pattern out of it. I overalyed this pattern onto the background of a pale green colour. I then copied the original black birdcage and added some very transparent copies onto the background, adding another layer to the pattern. On top of the pattern, I added images of birds, another piece of iconography associated with Florence + the Machine. I used bright, colourful birds to stand out and edited them using filters in Photoshop.
I am pleased with the final outcome of this experiment and I a glad that I decided to go back and improve it. From the process of improving it, I learnt more Photoshop techniques such as using filters to alter colour/look and how to change the threshold of a shape's colour.

My Final Piece

My final piece is my digipack for the band The Lumineers. Before choosing to create an digipack for this band, I came up with ideas for two other bands and drafted them. This proved to be very useful because it allowed me to see what other potential ideas could look like before deciding on the design for my final piece, ensuring that I chose my best idea. I created a hand-drawn mock-up of The Lumineers digipack for a clearer idea of what I wanted it to look like, and then recreated this in Photoshop as a practice. For this practice piece, I drew quick sketches of my hand-drawn items, of which I would later re-draw to go on my final piece. Practising a basic version of my design was very useful and helped me know what works and what doesn't. I found that for my final piece, I would need to draw the window panes thicker and draw my titles thicker, to make them stand out more.

In my final piece, I used a mixture of hand-drawn items and digital techniques. One feature of my album I liked is my background. I created the blue background by painting onto a sheet of paper in a similar blue to what I wanted, ensuring that the brush strokes could still be seen to give it texture, and then scanned it in once the paint had dried. I then edited the colour slightly in Photoshop before using it on my digipack. I used the same painted sheet for the brown background on the inside of my digipack, and changed the colour from blue to brown in Photoshop. I think this worked well and gave the digipack a rustic, hand-made look, sticking with the band's folk style.

From my drafts, I'd found that I needed to make my hand-drawn items and text thicker so when I drew them again for my final piece I used a thick black liner pen. The outcome of this looked much better and bolder on the digipack. I edited the hand-drawn titles on the cover of my digipack, using a stroke ti give it a white outline, making it stand out more against the dark blue background. Also, to create the paint swipes behind the song titles on the back cover of my digipack, I used ink swipes that I had accidentally painted while inking my text experiments. I scanned and edited the ink swipe in photoshop to make it white and copied it behind each song. I like the look of this as it carries on the hand-made, rugged folky look. It also helps to make the song titles more legible.

I ended up veering away from my original drafting of my digipack because once I had made it as I had designed it, it looked quite plain and uninteresting. To fix this, I came up with a new idea for the inside pieces of my digipack. I decided to fill one page with band photos in quirky hand-drawn photo frames and the other page with one large photo of all three band members. I edited the photographs in photoshop to make them look more stencil/cut-out like, to better match the simple look of my digipack. I added colour to the background of the photo frames and transparent coloured shapes infront of the band photo on the other page. When I added the colour I stuck to just three colours: yellow, pale green and pale red. I then decided to add the same transparent colour pattern over the houses that go along the bottom of the front of the digipack for continuity in my design.

Original design of inside of my digipack (with placeholder band photographs)

Final design of inside of my digipack (with my own edited band photographs)

Original design of the outside of my digipack (with my old hand-drawn houses and text, song titles are not hand-written)

Final design of the outside of my digipack (with redrawn houses and all hand-written text)

I am very glad I veered away from my original design as I like the adjusted outcome much more. I looks a lot mor interesting, colourful and eye-catching.

Overall, from this project I have had a great deal more experience in using Photoshop and was able to design and create my own digipack from scratch using a range of techniques both by hand and digitally. I was able to take the risk in changing a large part of my original draft, veering away from it and finding a new way to improve my final piece of which I think the outcome was very successful and would definitely catch someone's eye on the shelf in a CD store.