Album cover experimentation

 

Album cover design one.

1st Design Idea.

For my first album cover design I wanted to use an Elk as the inspiration for my design due to the fact that it is symbolic of what Enter Shikari are about, and what their songs stand for. I first cut out the shape of the dear from a white background and then altered the styles to achieve an inverted colour with an embossed finish, this added a slight raised affect which helps to define it as the centre piece of the design.

After this I then wanted to layer up the image onto a silk weave design that I created, I feel like this element of the design compliments the white Elk in the centre and also the genre of music that Enter Shikari make.

After I'd added the appropriate layers I then worked with different gradients and styles to achieve a variation of designs, for this particular design I used a gradient to change the design to a black and white finish, I like the outcome but I would prefer to use colour in my final design to resemble the genre of music I'm advertising.

Once I'd experimented with manipulating both of the layers, I then decided to only change the Elk in the centre to see if there were anymore variations of colour that would compliment the background, I used difference, which displayed a boheimien style design, I liked the print but I didn't like how the two worked together.

For my final design I decided to stick with the white/pastel colours as they were more appealing the other experiments, to achieve my final take on the first layer I've used the Bevel and Emboss tool which added a 3D edge to the animal and made it stand out from the background despite the bright colours. I also used an inner glow to enhance the centre of the Elk and firther enhance the 3D  aspect of my design, I feel like this works well because it doesn't distract from the shape of the Elk like and outer glow would. Finally I used a colour grandient to add a subtle blue tint around the edge of the layer, I feel this compliments the colours in the foreground and it adds a sharpness and a real definition of shape over all.

To finish the design I added the bands name vertically down the left and right hand side, I decided to use block bold and squared lettering to work alongside the centre of the CD cover too. I wanted to use the same affects on the wording as I did the centrepiece so I repeated the earlier steps and used Belevel and Emboss, Inner glow and colour overlay.