Midpoint Draft

Experiment 3- Intaglio Printing

This is the image of Pinterest that I tried to recreate. I used Intaglio Printing in order to give it a rustic look.

I started by drawing the image in my book with ordinary pencil as a practice, so I can then transfer the technique used to draw this as accurately as possible onto the silver card, without any mistakes, because they would irreversible if made.

This is my final, finished product, after doing Intaglio Printing and Photoshop Editing. 

On the right is the drawing, engraved in the foil card. I used a pair of compasses to engrave the drawing first. I  then used a piece of cloth and thick black ink to wipe of the drawing on the foil, until all the ridges within the engraving were filled with black ink. I then used the printing press to print the image onto paper, which is on the left. I lay the foil card on top of a piece of paper. I then rolled it through the press and the ink from the drawing, pressed into the paper, leaving an imprint on the paper in the shape of the drawing on the card.  

I then scanned the print into Photoshop where I increased the threshold in order to highlight the rustic looks of the drawing and effects of the print.  

Word Tree (Ink and Transparent) Experiment

Above is the 'Word Tree' that I drew after I had scanned it into my documents and uploaded it to Photoshop. In this photo I am cropping it down to keep the image straight. Below is the image I found on  Pinterest, which inspired my 'Word Tree' which includes lyrics of the artist I am making the album for.  

Above I am adding in the ink affect to the image, to make it stand out compared to the original pencil sketch.  i have done this by changing the threshold to become darker.

Here it I am preparing to clear the white from behind the tree, in order to leave a transparent background so when I add the tree to my album cover there isn't a white background behind it. But first to be able to clear the white I have to unlock the layer, which you can see I have already done in the picture if you look at the layers panel. 

Next I have selected the magic and tool, which will clear the white away. I have disabled contiguous, which means the whole of the background will be selected, as above, instead of just areas. 

Then once it was all selected I pressed Backspace on the keyboard and this cleared the background. The result was the above image.

Then I had to put the tree onto another PS document in order to change the colour. So I opened a new document of a similar size and then used the selection square to select the tree. I then copied the image and pasted it into the new document as you can see I am doing so below. 

Next I selected the layer so I could colour the image. Once selected you can se that it surrounded by marching ants.

Next to add colour I selected the fx at the bottom on the layers panel. I selected colour overlay and changed the settings to normal and then changed the colour to brown using the colour. As you can see the outline of the tree turned to this colour.

This is the final product of this experiment.

Ink Drips and Marbling Combination (Night Sky) Experiment

This is the image I found on Pinterest that i decided to recreate digitally but without photography.

I began the project by making these ink drips, using Indian ink. I dripped ink from the top of the paper in the sink. I turned the paper to different angles, until the drips took shape to form what looked like trees. Above it shows what I did after I  scanned it into the computer, which was to first crop the picture.

Secondly I used he magic wand tool to take out the white between the black ink markings. 

Magic wand tool in progress. You see the difference before and after the use of the magic wand clearly now.

The black ink markings after the use of the magic wand tool.

Next I scanned in what I am going to use for the basis of my background.  I created this using an effect similar to ink marbling. I splattered ink the sink and then put paper that had been pre-soaked in water of the top of the ink. When i took the paper the ink had imprinted and spread across the paper to create this effect. Above it shows me cropping the image down to get rid of any white edges around the edge of the paper. 

Next I dragged the marbling effect image across onto the document of the ink drips and then adjusted the layers to have the ink drips as the top layer.

Here I have split the layer of the ink drips in half and adjusted each side using free transform to tilt them at an angle to make them look similar to the shape the trees take in the image to the right.

Next I adjusted the saturation and lightness using the Hue/Saturation tool to make the colour on the under layer brighter and more vibrant like the are in the picture to the right.

Next I selected the layer and added an effect using the fx button at the bottom of the layers panel and selected gradient overlay. Here I adjusted what colours could be seen and in what order going down the page. This would go over the top of this layer and wouldn't effect the colours in the original picture.  

Finally I needed to add in the stars,  so I used the brush tool. I set the brush to white and 0% softness and then from time to time changed it's size to give different sized stars.

This is the finished piece.

Sketchbook Samples

Designers' Copy

This is the top half of the design I attempted to copy.

This is the bottom of the design I attempted to copy.

I began by drawing the girl in the picture. I drew the outline, I shaded her in using a felt tip in the dark areas. I then uploaded the image into onto photoshop where I edited the photo by first getting rid of the background with the magic wand tool. I then continued by adding a colour overlay effect to the image, in order for it to blend in with the overall final copy I  made her a similar colour as the background in the original design. I multiplied the overlay in order for it to blend in over the top of the drawing. The second effect I used was a pattern overlay. This gave the image that textured look that can be seen in the original design, however in my version it looks slightly like she has been drawn onto fine, squared paper.  Below is proof that I have applied these effects to the image. 

I also used ink splatters to create my final designers' copy. I created these by dripping, squeezing and collecting ink onto paper. I then uploaded them into photoshop, where I increased the saturation of each one, sometimes keeping the original colour, while with others as-well as increasing the saturation, I also changed the hue, therefore this caused the colour of the drips to change altogether, this is so i could achieve similar colours as to the ones found in the original image. above is an examples of one of the ink drips that I did.   

For my final image, I began by adding a coloured background, which was basically a square, drawn to the same size as the document, sing the shape tool. I then coloured it with my desired colour, which was a creamy yellow. I then uploaded the image of the girl. I found that she didn't blend in with the background as much as I wanted her to, so I increased the threshold on the image in order to soften out the pen strokes from the felt tip pen I used. I then copied the image of the girl and added a normal colour overlay using the same colour as the background. I emptied out the white in the image of the girl using the magic wand tool, just leaving the black shaded areas. I put the duplicate layer, that had the colour overlay on it, underneath the original image. The duplicate layer could be seen through the spaces I had emptied out with the magic wand tool on the the original image. The pattern overlay applied to the the original image had been lost, so applied that again. I then finished off by adding in the ink drips. Some drips I didn't use, others I did use more than once. I arranged them to make them look as if they were falling onto the umbrella and splattering off it. After I had finished this the whole product was finished. Above is the final piece.           

Badge Designs

Print Analysis PART 2

Section 2

Intro

This album belongs to the band Muse, who are a popular alternative band who create their music electronically, so could also be classed as an electronic band. I can tell this from the album cover because it’s design is very unique, it includes images and designs that aren’t used by other bands and aren’t very commonly seen; it doesn’t use the average album design for a band, which might usually include photos of the band or something related to their genre. Also the cover also gives a sense that they produce electronic style music because you can tell that the design has been produced graphically because the photo used on the front cover looks animated, it doesn’t look real and so this gives it a modern or electronic feel.

Layout

The layout of the whole cover is very sparse. A lot of white space has been used. I think that this may be because the designer wants the image on the front to act as a centerpiece that helps the product to stand out on the shelf, and so by using a lot of whitespace it helps to make the image that. It also means that other things on the cover can also stand out, such as the band name or the album name, this cover may have been designed with the customer in mind and so by making such conventions stand out it might help the customer find the CD if they are look for the band name or album name, more that the design. Also the white space, is just a plain black block of colour, which means that brighter objects can contrast it and also can stand out more easily, therefore making the album more recognisable or attractive.

Typography

The typography used for this album cover is a san serif type. Because it is sans serif, it look more modern because serif typefaces can often look traditional, however by using very basic- looking, sans serif type it can make something look a lot more modern. By using this typeface to make the album look modern it adds to the modern feel of the album. When you look at the album you can tell that it the artist does very modern music, and many will associate Muse’s music as being modern. A serif typeface might be used for more traditional artists such as folk, artists or may just be used to suit the artists taste.

Hierarchy

The biggest object on this album cover is the large colourful graphic in the centre of the front cover. The bright colours used and the size of the graphic against the dark, block of colour, that is the cover’s whitespace, stand out, which may help from a sales point of view, because it can help the product to ‘catch the eye’. Also from my point of view, the fact that this image is so large means you can also see the graphic detail- you can tell that it has been electronically produced. This may also works from a sales point of view, because from this image you can tell that the music is going to be modern, due to the modernity of the design and aos if people see that they may buy the album due to liking the genre, which they have decided belongs to this album.

Grid

You see from the way that the text is positioned on the album cover, that the designer has used a form of grid or alignment tool. In section one of this analysis I noticed that text, such as the album name and the band logo, had been aligned to be exactly in line to each other, also you can see that they have also been aligned left, to stay on the left hand side on the page exactly. By using a grid or alignment tool it adds to the modernity of the pack. It doesn’t look organic (placed naturally) it is exactly in line, which shows that some sort of computerised software has been used to align them and so therefore looks slightly more modern, due to the apparent use of more modern materials to make the product. Also in terms of other conventions being ordered using a grid, you can tell that such a tool has been used because things such as the picture on the front cover are evenly centered, the information on the spine is aligned exactly and so have the numbers and names of tracks on the tracklist on the back.

Photography/Ornamentation and Photo package

The album doesn’t really use any form of photography, instead it uses a vector graphic, which is more  ornamentation than it is photography. Once again it adds to the modernity of the pack and the electronic feel, displaying the fact that it is the album of an electronic artist, as you wouldn’t see something such as this on a record from the 40’s. But also this certain use of ornamentation is very vibrant in colour and in display, and so it makes the product stand out against other products. But also because it uses, what I think is a vector graphic it looks more professionally produced, and so therefore the sense that the band is also professional. There is only one, large image used on this digipack, which means that the photo package isn’t very big at all and by using this simplistic photo package, it makes everything look a lot more sleek and ‘cool’ which is what most electronic artist what to represent their music as, however different packs look different due to different artists having a different definition of ‘cool’.

Colour scheme

The product uses a very vibrant colour scheme, where colour can be seen. The most vibrant of colours can be seen on the graphic used on the front. Colour is also used on the products typeface. You can see that the typeface uses a sort of spectrum, where the colour at the top starts of being unsaturated and then gradually it  it uses a graphic effect which causes vibrant, heavily saturated colour to fade into the bottom, an nice example of this is seen within the track list. This bright, vibrant colour usage makes the product look alive and attractive and also the fact that it uses these graphic effects and such vibrant colour also adds to the modernity of the product, because an older album probably wouldn’t be able to bring such vibrancy to the eye. Also the colours make the product look lively, which may present  the mood brought across by the music, and being electronic music, it can usually be the case that it can be a lively sounding genre.

Institutional Information  

There is very little institutional informational but this may be because it is a CD and there isn’t much need to use institutional information with a CD. Also the institutional information is very small on this digipack cover because it isn’t needed to sell the product to the customer, it is important, so it must be there, however in terms of selling the CD to the public, they won’t be interested in the institutional information and even if it is huge, they won’t however it will also just make the product look unattractive.   

   

  

C.R.A.P Analysis

Extra Type Experiments (Digital)