CD Font

I decided that for my CD case i wanted to have a hand written scrawly font. I experimented with trying out a few different writing styles but i didn't really like them that much. After giving it a thought I decided to try out writing the album name without taking the pen off the page and I really liked how it turned out so I decided to stick with this hand written style of font. 

Final album cover design experimentation

I have decided on the final design of my album cover. I decided to change my mind slightly from the original sketches because when i started to assemble the final image it looked like the Fred Perry logo and it didn't look dark enough to fit Agnes Obels style of music. I decided, after doing some artist research, that to change the mood I had to darken the colours to more dark red, brown and orange tones and change the composition slightly to make it look a bit more sinister. I also added some shadows to make the image a but more moody.  and I removed the tail from the woman as I was struggling with it compositionally and colour wise. Here is my new basic design, I will keep experimenting with it a bit longer and will also experiment with text placement. Also I would like to note that the final image will look slightly different as it will hopefully be printed on brown recycled card. 

After finishing the final design i decided to experiment with the image to see what it would look like with a bit more going on. I created a few different marks and shapes and scanned them in to layer into the image. After doing this I decided that it worked better with the original design because it looked a bit too messy with all of the other things going on in the image. I also tried out the image using only one of the textures that I created but didn't really like that either. 

Artist research Sandra Dieckmann

Sandra Dieckmann is an illustrator From Germany she creates beautiful artwork using what looks like pencil and watercolour. Her images often revolve around nature and wildlife but they always have an extra magical touch to them.  
I decided to research into this artist in particular because I was strugling with making my image more dark and this illustrator likes to show the darkness in folktales which is what i am aiming to do with this project. 

"The best folktales have a dark edge. Conversely, the best folk art pops with colour - perhaps as a visual way of whistling in the dark, perhaps a celebration of the richness of northern Europe's storytelling tradition. Sandra Dieckmann's nature inspired illustration has got that elusive, comfortable yet disquieting quality in spades."(Digital Artist Magazine)

The thing that I think works best within her work is the delicate lines, colours and patterns that she uses. I also really like the compositions used within her work, I feel like they are really considered and  really add to the mood of the image. I will look at the compositions and colours of her work and try and improve the mood in my own work.

Rough Album Designs

I have came up with a few different design ideas for my CD design, I just sat and sketched out a few different thumbnails to get more of an idea of what i think worked the best. Here are the drawings that I came up with. 

This is the first design, it is a more refined version of a thumbnail idea that I drew when I thought of my initial ideas. I think this design works well because the composition looks very calm and simple. This matches the vibe and sound of the music. I decided to use the music and the forest for my concept so I put leaves all around the character in the middle as if the leaves are from an enchanted forest and they are protecting her. The central character is curled up in a ball and looks quite innocent but then she also had a cow tail, this adds a bit more of a dark twist to the image. I think the imagery in this design fits the sound and feel of the music quite well. 

The second idea that I had for the CD design was to elaborate more on the central character and focus it more on her. I stuck with the layout of the first sketch as I think it works quite well. After I had drawn this I decided that I do like it but after some consideration I decided that it looks a bit childish. I think this design might work for another purpose for example a children's book or CD but maybe not so much for this album. For now I have decided not to take this design any further.   

For my Third design I thought it would be good to make it more clear what is happening within the image, in this design it is easier to see that the leaves are actually enchanted and are moving towards the character to protect her. I wasn't sure about the typography placement but if I decide to go with this design I will develop that further. After trying out this layout I really liked it because I feel like it makes the image look more interesting. Because I like this design and the first design I though why not make this into the poster design, I feel like if this was the poster then the CD and poster would work really wall together because you might look at the album and wonder what is going on then when you see the poster it sort of adds another element to the story and it tells more of what is happening in the image. 

I will now start to develop the final CD image and develop it further. I will also plan my poster design based off the third CD idea that i had. 

More CD packaging ideas

I wanted to gather more ideas about how i could package my CD so i decided to collect a few different images and put them in a post so i can look back and see what ideas that i like. Here are some of the most interesting ones that i found. 

CD Cover by Hannah Leonard.

CD Case by Lauren Harvill 

CD Design research

There are so many things that can be done with a cd case so I decided to do some research on some really interesting CD case designs as I would like to create something a bit unique if it is possible. 

The case below is very pretty and when opened it has 2 different compartments for booklets and extra things that are included with the album I really like the amount of space that this case has for illustrations. This would be great if I wanted to create extra content to include with the cd.

The case below is very simple as it is just two pieces of card put together and sown around the edges. Although this design is undoubtedly simple i really like it as i think the seams are a lovely effective little detail. this album cover wouldn't be too good if i wanted to include a booklet but if I decided against the idea of a booklet I would definitely consider this option. 

This house shaped album casing is an absolutely bizarre idea for a CD case and iv'e seen nothing like it before. I love this idea but i think its a bit over the top and decadent, although it would definitely make me want to go and buy the album if I liked the artist rather than downloading the music. I think if this idea fit the concept of an illustration it would be amazing to create an idea similar to this although I don't think I will be.   

These are just of the few of the many things that can be done with the packaging of a CD when I create my CD cover I will think about all of the different things that I can do to make the case more interesting so someone would be more likely to buy it, because that is an important factor within the music industry at the moment. 

CD or Vinyl?

In the brief it states that we can either design a CD cover or a vinyl cover so i have decided to weigh up my options before making a decision by collection information on both of these options.

Vinyl

With the option of Vinyl there is a considerable amount of blank space to fill compared to CD so I would have to consider how big I would like my illustration to. I would also have to consider if I wanted  my cover to have any holes or slots cut out of the middle which a few vinyl covers do have to show off the art work that is on the actual record. Looking at the dimension diagram of a record cover I would have to remember to include  the tabs to assemble the record cover together so it would function correctly. The last thing that I can think of that might raise a problem is creating the physical product, as vinyl covers are quite large and the printing might be quite hard if I couldn't find somewhere with a printer large enough to print the cover. 

Tubelord Single vinyl Covers Artwork, by Jack Teagle

CD

When thinking about creating a CD there is lots of things to consider for example the small size because you couldn't put something too detailed on a small CD cover because the smaller details would get lost in the image. There is also the spine of the CD case to remember because vinyl does not have this but Cd's have a spine that usually has the artists name and the record label printed on to it and it will occasionally have a tiny piece of art on it that links to the front cover. I think that CD's are are also a lot more versatile than vinyl covers as a lot more can be done with them, for example you could create a cardboard wrap around protector for your CD. You could also include a booklet with the CD case. 

Overall I feel like there is a lot more that you could do with a CD case to make it a lot more interesting and visually more exiting than a vinyl case so I am going to decide on the option of creating a CD case.