Album titles

1) Come Follow Me
This is a line from the song I made the music video for. It connotes the love theme that suits the genre characteristics.
2) No Lies, Just Love
This title also connotes love: it too suits the characteristics of the genre. I prefer this title because has a better rhythm when said aloud due to the alliteration with the Ls and each word being one syllable. I'm going to use this title for my print productions.

Final Album Cover

Feedback:

The class said the enjoyed both the light streak effect and the image itself. They agreed that the close up image is evocative and affective, and the light streak adds interest without drawing attention away from the artist's face.

Kirstie suggested trying the image with the same theme/colour scheme as the inner panels and back panel so that the theme runs all the way through the panels.

Album artwork experiments - continued

I chose this image for the front cover of my album because it's striking and eye-catching, drawing audiences to the artist efficiently therefore advertising him and his songs. 

I tried adding a glow effect to the writing, so that it matches the light streak effect on the image. This only worked well with the larger letters. The "No lies, just love" was too small and the glow was too dominant.It also distracted the eye from the artist's face, which I do not want to do.

Feedback:

I showed the photos to my classmates, who are within the age range of my target audience (teenagers, young adults, 15-26).

The response was good, they particularly liked the light streak which they said was eye catching and added interest to the image. They preferred the titles without the added glow, for the same reasons I listed above. 

They thought the title "No Lies Just Love" was catchy and relative to the genre and types of song. 

They, however, suggested that there should be no comma in the title, and that the layout of the name could be adjusted. Dan Nash suggested centring the name, and maybe stretching the "Daniel" and the "Cope" so that each word fits in the gap completely. 

The class agreed that where I'd placed "No Lies, Just Love" was the best place.

Below is the result of changes suggested by my classmates:

Different Endings (3:14 onwards)

Here are two different endings, beginning at 3:14. They are different because of the time at which the black and white dissolves to colour image.

This is the first version:



The dissolve into colour is when the girl, 'Paige', walks onto the bridge. This indicates that Dan's day dream (the colour shots) restarts when Paige is there.


This is the second version:




In this version, the dissolve into colour starts slightly later, at the precise moment when Dan walks past Paige on the bridge. This suggests his reality, being black and white, brightens and excites when Paige walks past him.


I've decided, after gaining some feedback, to go with the first version. From the feedback it appears that the earlier fade is more aesthetically pleasing, and the later fade in the second version was too late in the video.

Experiments with photos

I tried adding writing to one of my images. I chose to use white writing but I found that the background was too bright, making the writing too difficult to read.

 I combatted this by adding a black square to the image where I wanted my title.

 I then selected Filter > Blue > Gaussian Blur...

 I then adjusted the blur level to about 45, so that the black square turned opaque and blurry.

 This, when I put the writing above the blur, made the writing stand out against the image and somewhat framed it.



The resulting image



I cropped the photo even more to make it square, to fit the CD size.



A problem with the positioning of the titles is that it interferes with the eye line of 'Dan', so I repositioned them in the below image, which works better.



This is another experiment I've done for inner panels of the digipak. I used the pen tool to create paths, and then, using the brush tool and "Stroke path" created the streak. I then used outer and inner glow to make the streaks glow, and added a lens flare for extra impact. Finally, I used a "vignette" effect to darken the edges of the frame.

This is where I could add titles if I use this image as the album cover. I chose to not place the writing over the subject, 'Dan' and keep it away from his line of sight.