Joe's Evaluation

My strengths in Unit 3 were research and design, I was able to find multiple suitable photos of the artist during my research which was valuable when it came to the actual piece. My main weakness in this unit was my rate of work, I spent too long working on some parts and didn’t have time to complete others, this meant I took longer than Will to finish. Will and I worked well together and I think that we produced good work. I worked quite well independently however I found it harder to work alone as I had no-one to help decide if my ideas worked well or give me advice about work. I worked very well at the start of the production in the design stage as we worked together to do our best work.

Our final product was a complete CD package, an album front cover, back cover and CD. Firstly we listened the songs and got a feel for the style of music and the meaning of the lyrics, with this in mind we then started by drawing up a draft of what we wanted the album cover to look like. We took into consideration the how dark the music is and reflected this in the draft. After the initial drawn draft we began to research images of the artist that we could use in the final piece, we looked for high-res images of the artist as these would be most suitable to use. We discussed possible background images for the album cover, we came to the conclusion that Spaceghostpurrp’s music is chilled out and calm. After the images that were going to be used were decided, we started work on various digital drafts, experimenting with different filters, fonts and effects. I personally took some time to find a font that fitted our theme, was easy enough to read and most importantly looked good. We compared digital drafts and decided on our favourite. We then continued to improve on this draft until it was at the point which we were happy with. I then began work on the back of the album while Will worked on a CD art. Overall I am happy with how the production went but if we were to do it again I think we would change how much time we spent on the final piece as I feel it was a bit rushed.

These images show the use of space imagery in the final piece. We used a variety of techniques to create our final piece, such as cropping images to make them fit and keep the focus on the artist. You can see the use of cropping in the image on the right, we cropped out the rest of the artist’s body to draw complete focus to his face. This is important because the focus is on the artist and his image. We added filters and adjustment layers in Photoshop to highlight the edges and define his facial features and take focus away from the less-defined background. We used one font throughout the piece and kept the size of the titles consistent. The font is Sans Serif and bold to stand out against the rather busy background. We kept the text central on the front to make the cover look simple but professional. The rectangle on the rear of the piece is opaque enough to make the text stand out but transparent enough to let the background image be seen, we did not do this in some of the drafts however we decided that a completely opaque box took away from the impact of the background and obstructed it too much.

Will's Evaluation

Unit 3 Evaluation

1) Describe your strengths and weaknesses in detail. Talk about working as
part of a team and independently.

Working in a group allowed each person to work stress free, with no extra work built on top. Each person was assigned a role with an equal amounts of work involved, this allowed each person to work in their own space & freely. As an individual I have a great knowledge of Photoshop & how to make a product look authentic & like a real product, these set of skills helped greatly in the final product and throughout the project. Joe also carried a similar set of skills & also assisted in inspiration as well as most written work. This side of work could be looked at as ‘not as fun’, which is true, but it helped complete the project fully, quickly & efficiently. In the team I contributed the graphics & some written work, Joe contributed written work & some graphics, this is an even spread. If we both worked lots on the graphics but little on the written work the product wouldn’t have been completed as it had been. Some weaknesses would have to be I am only comfortable with working with people I know.


2) Provide a detailed review of your finished product giving information
about research, planning, filming and editing.

Our final product was a full design & plan of a CD, which includes a front & back cover, an inside booklet (fold out poster) and an actual design for the CD. The first step for our product was to collect images that could be used. I collected; Fractal Packs off DeviantArt for effects, depth & flow; some pictures of city streets & night lights as well as pictures of the sky & a few Photoshop brushes also for effects & depth. Then we started to draft our ideas using pencil & paper as well as using Photoshop, using Photoshop helped as we could get the idea out more clearer with a better knowledge of what was needed. Then we looked at other album covers, mainly from the 90’s and looked for characteristics that defined the cover, such as a dark, muddy looking surround of the focal. After all our drafts & planning was done, we proceeded to work on the final product: a CD front & back cover, an inside booklet & a design for the CD. The booklet was planned to be a poster, but if we were to do it again we’d include something like the lyrics on the flip. When we finished, about a week later, we organised the posts in order of appearance and posted them on the blog. One problem was the macs fault, when I tried saving a project (the inside booklet), it froze and I hadn’t saved it so I had to redo it all over again, which didn’t turn out as good. This is a screenshot of what it looked like.




3) Next identify a range of techniques that you used and give a clear explanation of why you used them.

One of the techniques I used were fractals as effects. I downloaded some packs of fractals off DeviantArt, and placed them in the project. I set the layer to either Screen or Lighten, this took out the shadows in the layer & only showed the highlights, which allowed me to create depth and keep the design from looking too empty. I also downloaded several Photoshop brushes, as well as using fonts from dafont, this helped me to create an authentic looking product, with easy to access tools. I also used several Photoshop effects & filters such as Gradient Maps, High Pass, Contrast, Exposure, Sharpen & Blur. I used these filters/effects to make it look better, if a background image was too in focus I could darken & blur it out. Having the focal the only thing un-blurred created depth.

Legal & Ethical

The only legal problem we could come across would be the stock photo of SpaceGhostPurrp’s face. This would affect the whole project, we would have to create a vector of the stock image, or use a copyright free image (which would have to be of a high quality) Also some fonts would have to have permission from the creator to use.

Final Product

 

Front

Back

Inside Booklet (Poster)

CD

Risk Assessment

Meeting 3

Meeting Proforma
Production Meeting No: 3
Date : 8th October 2012
Group members present: Will,  Joe
Agenda:
1. Blog Posts
2. Final Piece
3. Posts

Minutes from meeting

1. We have Uploaded everything to our blog apart from the Legal & Ethical Piece, we’re going to do this tomorrow.

2. We finished the final piece, we decided to not do our extension task due to time restraints however we have done a booklet to go along with the front and back of the CD.

3. We need to order our blog posts as we uploaded a couple pieces, such as the risk assessment along with other pieces meaning they are in the wrong order. We will sort this out.

Production Schedule

Equipment Booking

Meeting 2

Meeting Proforma

Production Meeting No : 2
Date : 15th July 2012
Group members present: Will,  Joe
Agenda:
1. The Group
2. Production
3. Research
Minutes from meeting:

1. We have each-others mobile numbers and E-mail addresses so there is no chance of not being able to contact each other. This is important in the event that one of us is sick and unable to attend, they will still have input into how we carry out work on the final piece.

2. Production is going slowly so we plan on spending time at home to make sure we meet our schedule. We have also decided to dedicate some of our lunch breaks at school to making sure all of the work is completed on time and up to a high standard.

3. We are going to do a lot of research into finding good images to use of the artist, this will take up a lot of our time however we realize that this is one of the most important parts of the production. We are going to use a camera to take pictures for use as the background for the front and back

CD Draft 3

  

Before

 

After

 

CD Draft 2

CD Draft 1

Drawn Pencil Draft

Meeting 1

Meeting Proforma

Production Meeting Number 1
Date : 9th July 2012
Group members present: Will, Joe
Agenda
Meeting number 1
1.Blog Access
2. Production Schedule
3. Share of Work

Minutes from meeting:

1. We both couldn’t log into the blog previously but we have decided to change the password to one that we both know and will remember. We also set up a recovery account to make sure we don't lose our login details. We also made sure that posts on our blog could be read easily as we had a problem with text not appearing on the black background of the blog, we soon realized that this was due to our text being black.

2. We are going to stick to our original production schedule and plan on completing our extension task. (Actual CD) We are currently on track and plan to complete within the next two weeks.We decided that if we don't finish within the time we will come back after school to complete it.

3. We are going to do the same amount of work each as we believe this is the most fair way. Will is going to be working on the front because of the reasons stated in our plan. This is the same for Joe. Work has been going smoothly and neither of us has any complaints about the work load.

CD Cover Plan

CD Cover for SpaceGhostPurrp - “Wrath of a Raider” Single

We will be making a CD Cover for SpaceGhostPurrp’s single “Wrath of a Raider”, it will be relatively gritty, grimey dark just like the music featured. The artist is trying to bring back 90’s hip hop music with a very 90’s old school style beats & lyrics, so we will be also featuring the kind of album covers that were around then, technology wasn’t as complex as it is now so we will be trying to incorporate that into our work as well as other 90’s hip hop stars such as: Nas; Notorious B.I.G; 2Pac; Big L & Outkast. The album covers used by these artists were simple and to the point, usually a picture of their face along with a minimal amount of text, our cover will try to replicate this simple style.

Will will be working on the front cover of the single & Joe will be working on the back of the single, we are doing this so that we have a fair share of work. If we have time one of us will work on a design for the actual CD, this will probably be Will as he has more experience using Photoshop and could produce a more professional looking product, this is important because the front of the album attracts people the most. Joe will work on the back because he has more experience with titles and making text look attractive and professional, this is important for the back of the single as this is where most of text will appear.

We will be using Photoshop & possibly Illustrator on a Mac, we may also use the scanner to scan in an image such as a picture of SpaceGhostPurrp or a dark street. We will need a camera in order to take pictures for the background of our cover. We don’t need any materials except our brains for thinking and other covers for inspiration. We will be working in the classroom for all of our work unless we want to carry it on at home.