Conclusion

In conclusion, when I first found out the subject of the brief I was worried because I couldn’t imagine my illustrations complying with many music styles but after considering all of the music choices from the list of options I began to see how my illustrations could work. Agnes Obel in particular stood out for me because of her calming but dark sound and her Scandinavian background. I decided to look into the stories of Scandinavian folk tales as Obel stated that they inspire her music. After reading a few of these tales one in particular, the story of Huldra, made me think of really strong imagery of a woman hiding in an enchanted forest with leaves protecting her . To fit in with this concept I decided to look at Scandinavian artists to get inspiration for my colour palettes. I began to find it hard with such a drastic change in colour use, as I had never attempted anything like this before plus at this point I was finding it difficult to work with the imagery that I was creating as it was a bit to light and happy to fit in with Agnes Obels music style. At this point I had to re evaluate what I was doing and go back and do more artist research into Scandinavian artists and illustrators that create darker work and that use colour palettes that I can relate to more. This helped me out a lot with my final image and after this research I had a clear idea and vision of the final image and the colours and I felt a lot more confident in what I was creating.  Overall I am really pleased with the final outcome of this module because I feel as though I created a well-rounded body of work that is finished to a high standard. I am very proud of the finish of my work because that is usually the area that I struggle with most but throughout this module I was a lot more prepared and determined to get a more professional finish to my work and it’s the first time that I feel like I have been able to present work that I am really proud of.  If I was to complete this module again I would have thought about the target audience a lot more in the beginning then I would have avoided having to re think my idea half way through and it would have saved a lot of time, although I am glad, in a way that this happened because it really helped me to push my ideas further to create a stronger image.  I think that I would have also done a lot more artist research to help me to refine my ideas further.

Evaluation

Once I had chosen the album that I was going to base my project on (Aventine by Agnes Obel) it was time to think of a concept that was fit for the purpose, to help me narrow down and refine my ideas. I feel that the concept that I chose was fitting for the album choice because of the artist’s influences and heritage, it helped me a lot with thinking of an idea for the album cover.  The concept gave me a point of reference that I could always go back to if I got stuck with what image I wanted to create.

I then moved onto artist research, this helped me greatly because it helped me realise what I am capable of stylistically and helped me to understand how I work. Throughout this project I realised that I am not much of a graphical illustrator like most Scandinavian artists, because of this I looked at a broader range of artists so that my influences would work for my style and me.  

After researching a large range of subjects surrounding the album I decided to go ahead and start creating my images. This is the point where I realised that I would find the colours of Scandinavian art hard to work with, I also noticed that the art I was creating [fig.1&2] looked to innocent and happy to fit in with the themes of Agnes Obels slightly dark album. This forced me to take a few days to stop and re evaluate what I was doing and I’m so glad I did that  because I came out with much stronger art work in the end. The colours that I decided to use in the end reflect the autumnal feel of an enchanted forrest. I feel as though the deep reds and oranges [fig.3] help to darken the image a lot fitting the album a lot more, the same stands for my poster design. I used water colour and digital art to complete the piece, this is different to most scandinavian art but it is a medium that i am more confident in using so i am pleased that i stuck with my instinct because the piece came out really nice. 

For the product that I decided to screen print the material, this allowed me to learn and try out new techniques. I am really happy that I used this technique because I think the final outcome of my product works really well. I found the process of screen-printing hand and complicated because my memory was really tested with trying to get all of the correct and I made a few mistakes a long the way but overall I enjoyed the process.  

I feel as though i completed the editorial piece [fig 4] in a very fitting style and it fit in with the editorial research that i did. I was pleased with the outcome of the editorial because i had never really tried out this style before but i really enjoyed it and it came out exactly how i imagined it in my head.  

The positives of this project for me were how I presented my final body of work because I feel it is the most professionally presented project that I have ever done. The presentation is usually where I fall down and that greatly effects the overall project, this time is the first time I have been proud to present my work. I also think that I have managed to do branding well throughout this project as all of the items I have created are cohesive with each other and look like they are part of the same family.

In the future I feel as though I could be more thorough with artist research because although I feel like the research that I did helped me out a lot, if I had completed more of it, I could have refined my ideas and style a lot more. I could have also created work that was more linked to the style of artist that I was looking at. I could have also improved my analysis of the album cover in the beginning and that would have saved me having to re evaluate my ideas half way through therefore saving me time overall.

Overall I am pleased with my work but areas of my research and development could have been improved. I feel as though I have improved greatly compared to previous projects but there is still room for further improvement.

Fig 1 

fig 2 

fig 3

fig 4

Final CD cover

After completing the artwork for the CD I scanned it in and put it into a template on photoshop then printed it out onto an A3 sheet of card. It took a while to print because I had to use the by pass tray but once it was printed I was really happy with the results because the colours printed out so vibrant and exactly how I wanted it to look. I am so glad that I was able to print onto this kind of card as it was my intention from the beginning and for a while I wasn't sure if it was going to be possible but I think that the card case really finishes the overall look of the album cover. Here are some images that I took of the completed case.

Front cover 

centre of cd case 

Back of CD case 

Song list

I decided to have a scrawly hand written font for my CD case to fit in with the recycled home made feel that I want it to have, I stuck with this style for the song list. I hand wrote all of the song names with a unique style of keeping the pen on the page to create a really nice style of type. I then scanned in the text and darkened it. I decided to add the leaf detail from the front of the cd case around the edge of the songs to make it look more interesting. I really like how this turned out because I think the text fits in really well with the overall style. 

Print tests

I printed out some tests using the same card that I plan on printing my final CD case on. I came across a few problems when printing out my album cover design so i'm not sure if ill stick with my original idea of printing it onto recycled card. I printed out a few different designs to see how that would look, The edges of the design all turned out quite well but the centre didn't work out at all and it looked really washed out and barely visible. I will now have to figure out what to do I think I might try using a more grey card rather than brown to see how that works out. 

CD Case Mock up

I am planning to make my CD case out of recycled card a bit like the material that cereal boxes are made out of.  I wanted to make a mock up to see how i will assemble the CD case and as I only have a few bits of this particular card I decided to just make it out of really rubbish paper. I have decided to create a simple folded card case for my base and to make the inside more interesting, I have decided to create an envelope style CD holder to keep the CD place so it won't fall out of the case.  The final design will look a lot better than this but it helped me to visualise how I will make the final product. 

CD packaging research

I have been thinking about how I am going to produce my actual album cover so I did some research into how I could get it printed. During my research I came across a company called Wewow that create and print your cd designs onto CD cases. They create a large range of different eco friendly CD cases that you can print onto. Their website also has a lot of information on things like designing a CD cover and all the different things to consider if you're thinking about creating one. The website is very helpful and informative so I suggest taking a look at it if anyone runs into any problems along the way. Find the website here

I e-mailed the company for some information on printing and found out that the minimum amount of cases that you can get printed is 50. The next step is for me to decided if I want to have that many printed and get a quote or think of an alternative way of printing my CD cases out.

Agnes Obels current albums

I decided that as a starting point it would help me out if i looked at Agnes Obels existing album covers to get some idea of her current style and see how i could change and add my own style to it. One thing that I have noticed with her album covers is they all feature photographs of her face, this seems very typical for singers to feature a photo of themselves rather than bands which usually have artwork for their covers. Obel's newest album (the one I am illustrating for) features her profile with very ambient, creepy red lighting all the way around it. The cover doesn't even feature a name or any other writing so all focus is on her and the image, I feel as though these CD cases are very boring and lifeless. She also released a box set style package with her album release featuring the CD, Vinyl, a book of some sort and a few other things. 

I think I want to change the stereotype of featuring the artists face on the album cover and instead create an illustrated scene that includes aspects from the lyrics in her music and elements of the artists background and inspirations. What I want to create is very different to what the artist already has on her CD covers.