Creation of back cover + spine

This is our finished back cover.  We began the process of making it by opening up a photoshop document, cropping the size of it down to a CD like size and selecting the grey colour we used for the background on the front cover using the 'dropper' tool and then using the paint tool to make the background of the back cover the exact same.

From here, we went on to create the similar geometric pattern also featured on the front cover. Similarly to before, We copied and pasted a basic hexagon shape onto the document and then used the gradient filter which creates a fade in the colour - allowing for the mixture of colours to blend together seemlessly.  

Next, we inserted our song titles. If you look at my blog post named 'Song Selection' you will be able to gather our reasoning for the particular song names. We used the same text (Basic Title Font from DA Fonts) that we used on the front cover for our 'Fragments' title. We felt that this would be appropriate as it keeps an ongoing style throughout the entire album case which is something we feel is essential in order to create a professional looking piece of work.

Lastly, we inserted a bar code from Google images, our record label logo and the legal information that is required on all forms of media produce. By inserting these final touches we felt our album back cover looked finalised and realistic - everything apparent on our album cover are elements also featured on real published pieces of work.

In addition to our back cover, we felt it necessary to create a spine to bring the front and back covers together. To enable it to do this, we agreed that it should be a continuation of the geometric pattern featured on both the front and back covers. With this being said we literally copied and pasted elements of both covers onto the spine document we opened up in photoshop. We took the main title 'Nova' and the album title 'Fragments' from the front cover and made them smaller to fit the spine. Lastly, we took our album logo from the back cover and placed it on the bottom of the spine - we felt it needed to be included not only because we have seen it on other albums but also to reinforce the fact that 'Opal Records' is the supporting label behind our star, Nova. 

Song selection

Within this blog post I will be discussing our song names and the reasons as to why we selected them. 

We decided to go with a sort of transitional order with our song names, we wanted the album to be about finding yourself after suffering a heart break, so the album begins with songs about the breakup/heartbreak and ends with her finding herself and recovering. 

1) ' Without you' ; Obviously this is a real song by Lana Del Rey so we did not create the title personally however we feel it is an appropriate way to start the album as it explores the idea of Nova being unable to cope without her partner - she cannot see her life without him and continually thinks about what they had and what they could have been if their relationship didn't take a turn for the worst.

2) '1811' ; to the uninitiated this title is probably fairly difficult to try and extract its true meaning. However, we did this on purpose - we didn't want to give too much away about the songs just on looking at them, we wanted for fans to purchase Nova's album and listen too it for themselves, allowing them to make their own assumptions. The title is meant to reflect a time (18:11), which obviously leaves a lot of room for fans to decipher what they think it is about. The true meaning behind it is not very complex, it is simply the time at which it was written. However, it connotes the idea that it was just one of the many times throughout the day she was thinking of her ex - unable to think clearly following her heart break.

3) 'Infatuation' ; following on from the idea of Nova continuously thinking of her ex, this title is pretty self explanatory. She was and still is infatuated with her ex and the idea of him, she truly cared for him and finds it difficult to disregard the feelings she still has.

4) 'No Light' ; this title reflects a sort of turning point in the album, it is Nova at her lowest point - she cannot see how she will live without her ex, he was all she had and now she is left with nothing, there is 'no light' in her life, no guidance, no nothing.

5) 'We are human' ; This title marks the start of Novas heart break, she accepts it is ok to feel how she does for she is human and emotions are part of human nature.

6) 'Spectrum' ; Again, this title is fairly vague but simultaneously quite self explanatory. Obviously, a spectrum is a mass range of vibrant colours which is symbolic of Novas many personalities and emotions, she is letting it all out.

7) 'Recovery' ; This is the breakthrough of the album, Nova is finally getting over her heartbreak and becoming who she once was before her love.

8) 'For Me' ; This title represents Nova's concept of self love, she realises for anyone to love her she needs to love herself first. She made this album for herself, a way of understanding the way that she works and letting out bottled up emotion.

9) 'Afire Love' ; Afire love is a title we feel is suggestive of Nova's passion toward everything she does, her love for others, her love for herself and her love for her work. She is grateful for the opportuniry to live her dream.

10) 'Home' ; As the final song title, we wanted to express Novas full recovery and show she is content with the way her life is. With this being said, we felt the title home was a simple way to show this for a 'home' holds connotations of comfort, family and happiness.

Creation of front cover

Editing our chosen image

In order to start the process of creating our album cover we decided to photoshop the image we had selected. We wanted to airbrush Millie's face in order to give the image a more professional finish that we could then work from. The steps below are the ones we followed whilst airbrushing Millie's skin...

1) Change the colour mode to CMYK, copy and paste yellow channel + invert the layer. Then, change the mode back to RGB. Change layer to soft light.

2) Copy background layer, move it to the top and then use the spot healing tool to get rid of blemishes. After that, covert all layers to smart object.

3) Copy layer and select gaussian blur - move scales until you can barely make out the skin but the eyes are still visible.

4) Copy the original layer again, select high pass and more scales so that you can make out skin details. Then, change to linear light.

5) Group all layers and insert a layer mask - use the paint brush tool to apply the airbrush.

6) Merge layers then use dodge + burn tool to contour.

After airbrushing Millie's skin we made a few final touches such as filling in her eyebrows in sparse areas, brightening her eyes using the hue and saturation tool and using the same technique to brighten her lips.

When we had nearly completed the editing our teacher noted that a piece of Millie's hair looked oddly out of place. We agreed and so used the clone tool to remove it. Lastly, we made the image black and white.

Making the cover on photoshop

In the image above I am making the selected image black and white.

In the above image we have put the image onto a grey background by duplicating the layer. In addition, we cropped the picture both to make it a CD sized image and also to get rid of any unnecessary space and put all of the focus on Nova.

Here we have added the text for the main title 'Nova' - which was spoken about in my previous blog post named 'Creating our logo'  . In addition we added the album name 'Fragments'. We used a text called 'Basic Title Font' from DA Fonts for this title. We chose this font as it is sleek yet minimalistic and doesn't take away from the main title 'Nova'.

This was the last stage of creating our front cover and most probably the most complex. We started the process by finding a basic hexagon shape on google and copy and pasting it onto the photoshop document. We then used the gradient filter to create a fade in the colour, so from yellow up to blue without any definite lines that clearly show the transition of colour.

This is our final front cover. We are extremely pleased with the final outcome and think it looks very professional. If we were to do this again we would try out a wider range of colours to use for the hexagons to see if we could create an even more vibrant front cover.

Projection Testing

Within our music video we have decided that we would like to feature some projections. We are undecided as to wether we would like to project still images or videos as of yet and so we thought we should test both in order to get a sense of what both options would look like. 

We tested a range of images varying from sunsets to flowers and even water. All of the images we found were from google which we then opened within a photoshop document and changed the brightness. After we were happy with the final images we printed them on clear paper. The use of clear paper will enable us to use them in partner with the projector with no issues. 

After playing around with a variety of projected images we concluded that we liked the overall look of them. However, we felt that when the images were projected up against Millie's clothing, it was a little distracting. As a result of this we discussed wether the projections would look better if cast against a simple, bare back. By using a bare back we are almost giving the projector a blank canvas to work with, whereas with a T-shirt the colours did not always show up as well as we would have liked. Obviously, however, if we were to film a front facing projected scene we would use a white T-shirt as this tends to not take away from the colour as much as a black T-shirt does.

This exercise solidified our plans of using projection within our video and so we are going to continue searching for other images and videos that we can use within the video.