This project was created for one of my Graphic Design classes, where we though-out the semester worked on creating branding for a re-release of a famous album. The artist chosen for this was Elton John, and in particular his album Too Low For Zero.
Before starting the project we had to make a few choices with regards to the album re-release. The main decision was what the cover song would be. We had the option to stick with “Too Low For Zero”, or we could choose another track. For my project I chose the song “Earn While You Learn” since I thought it would be interesting to make the cover song an instrumental track rather than one of the more traditional choices (like “Too Low For Zero again, or “I’m Still Standing).
Another factor that we had to consider was keeping everything consistant. So throughout the three main projects of this whole assignment, we had to make sure that they matched. In order to do that we needed to consider what symbols or photos we were to include for the graphics, and the fonts and colours that we used. Keeping this in mind, I stuck with a colour theme of black and white throughout, and tried to keep the fonts the same.
For images, I created an Elton John outline drawing, which looked like this:
I created this by sketching out the image in Photoshop using a drawing tablet, and then making a PNG out of the outline (so that I could work with just the line, and not the white background). That way, I could place this image over any background colour if I changed my mind about the black and white. This image will be found throughout my different projects, since it represents the artist himself.
The next type of images that appear thoughout my different work are sound waves. Since my title track “Earn While You Learn” does not have any lyrics, I decided I would represent that with the sound waves from the track itself. To get the sound waves from the track, I inserted the track in Garage Band, took screen-shots of the waves that that program shows, inserted them into Photoshop and then edited them so that only the sound wave line would appear. Below, you can see the garage band sound wave screen-shots, and how the sound waves look when they are all together or as separate un-edited cuts.
I will be talking about this process further in the CD booklet design, because that is when I took this concept and replaced the lyrics of the song with it.
The next few sections will discuss the creation process of this project, step by step. First, we will start with the poster.
Tour Poster:
To start this project, we looked at creating a tour poster for the tour that would go along with this CD re-release. I wanted my poster to remain simple and organized, so I used a grid format to keep everything together.
The main parts of the poster that we had to make sure to include are the tour dates, the album title/tour name, the artists name, and the logos and website. We had to make sure to make these things visible, and make sure that their placements made sense in the poster.
This was also one of the first times that I seriously used inDesign. I had used it briefly once before for a high-school assignment, but not to make anything like this. So this process was fun for me, since I got to learn more about how to use the program.
After some critiques, and different edits, this is what the poster ended up looking like:
Overall I am happy with how the poster turned out. I feel like I was able to accomplish my goal of including everything that I had to, using my selected images, and keeping it looking organized.
CD Booklet/Cover
The next stage, and the main stage of this project was creating the CD cover and CD booklet. We had to design 5 different areas that included, the title of the CD, the artist name, our album slogan. The back needed to have a track listing, and the logos provided, and a bar code. There needed to be text that would appear on the sides of the CD casing, and there needed to be a lyric sheet inside the booklet for the title track.
Looking at colour first, I decided to reverse what I did with the poster, and make the background black and the text white. I felt like this would add some contrast, but it would still fit with my overall colour theme.
Then with organization, I continued with using boxes to keep everything contained. These boxes added a framing element to some of the areas in the booklet.
For images of Elton John, I again used my sketch as discussed earlier, but I inverted it so that the outline would be white instead of black. Then for another image, I edited a different image of Elton John Playing the piano to black and white, and increased the contrast so that it would fit more with the style of my design. My sketched version appeared by the CD when you first open the case, and then the photo version appeared when you open the booklet, beside the song lyric sheet. Here are those two designs:
As you can see, the sound-waves also make appearances within these two images. This was also the case for the cover of the album, and the back of the album. These waves tied the design together, and it also was a different way of showcasing the actual music being played on the album itself. Here is my album cover, and the back cover of my CD. (the back cover also includes the text that appears on the sides of the album)
The biggest part of this CD booklet project was the lyric sheet. Since my song did not have any lyrics, I decided to represent those lyrics with the sound waves. With my sound wave graphics before, it was just including little bits of what the song was. But for this, I went through the process, and created the sound waves for the whole song. This process took the most work, however, I feel like it turned out well. It fully represents the song that I choose, and puts emphasis on the sound wave theme throughout.
T-Shirt Design
For a bonus project we had the option of creating some sort of promotion, or merchandise for our tour and CD. For mine, I decided to create a t-shirt design that followed my theme. For this, I used my Elton John Sketch again, and included the sound waves as well. It is the same design used as my CD cover insert, so they tied together well. Then the back of the t-shirt included the tour dates and tour name inside a box. Here is that design:
Overall this project was challenging, but it allowed me to develop different skills. I learned a lot about the program InDesign and how to use it properly. I also learned a lot about the elements of design and how to make a design look good. I learned as well, that sometimes you need to let go of an idea because it really is not as good as you think it is. That is why critiques in assignments like these are so valuable, since you get those second, third opinions about your design choices.