Preflight Check

This week has been rather stressful, mainly because this is the last week where we could have a face to face with Steve about major tweaks to our work, so the past 2 days have been about getting as much as the CD covers done as I can.

Monday because with Steve offering to go over last week’s Lecture on “Artwork for Print”, this was mainly for the people who had missed it but it was also good to have it fresh in our memory.

This lasted for the first part of the morning, during this lecture I had an epiphany, the back of my CD cover had been bugging me all week, I knew it needed changing but I didn’t know what to do with it, the idea was to have a silhouette of the earth with a sort of Nebula above it emitting light. I made a quick sketch of it so I could develop it after the lecture.

For the rest of the morning I set a target of getting a rough version of the CD back artwork done, I was searching SXC for a good hour and had found a few images; the one I decided to use was initially an image of the earth with a sunburst next to it.

I cropped the image down to size that fitted the CD cover, after that I decided to do a nebula effect but I realised that the front cover had one too and I wanted each side to have something different, so instead I created a star effect using noise,

The rest of the afternoon consisted of research into the pre-flight plan, I searched high and low for some example, and I placed some of these examples in my sketchbook for future reference.

Today, instead of a lecture, Steve asked us if there was anything we wanted to know about the Second year tasks, he first told us the names of the units and what they consisted of doing, he also went over some of the activities that will be included in the summer assignment, most questions that were asked were aim at how some of the units would be marked.

The seminar groups were also different today, we (Gamma Group) were teamed up with Beta Group, we were asked to place our work upon the wall, I then realised that he wanted us to speak about it and give feedback to others.

Unfortunately my work had been measured wrong and there are a lot of things to be tweaked, so I’m keeping with the idea of a space theme but I’ve decided to start for scratch. I’m going to read up on more tutorials and try to do some “Spacey” effects for the CD cover.

I will be posting my new designs on here and on DasForum later on this week. I hope you will all give feedback.

Tasks for the rest of the week:

• Photoshop tutorials
• Complete CD Cover
• Edit logo Design
• Begin Evaluation

Un Earthly

This week has all been about developing the CD Cover, the past week I had been developing my ideas in my sketchbook, and I had finally come up with the design, unfortunately, I had to format my laptop on Monday night due to irreparable system files, (Not My Fault) which took my almost a day to sort out.

I began today by challenging the front cover of the CD That I had designed on Sunday, I have stayed with the Space idea, but instead of creating an earth-like planet from scratch, I decided to go on a free stock image site (SXC) and find an image of the earth, the one I chose was basically the earth with a reflection, problem was I didn’t want a reflection on the CD Cover.

I had anticipated that it would take a long time to get the image just right, but funnily enough it was just a 5 minute job with the magic wand tool. The initial idea I had in my head was to had a dead, crumbling earth with a massive chunk broke out of it, this was fairly simple to do, I used the Lasso tool to select the chunk I wanted and just dragged it way.

Next I had to create a space like background, to do this I clone the background layer and made the background black, then I selected the new layer and used the “Add Noise” tool and set it to had a nice amount. I then change the opacity levels so it would blend in nicely with the black background.

The last task I did today was to try to create a starry nebula, this is still an ongoing task but it was basically mad by adding clouds to a new layer, using the transparency tool and using the Dodge tool to make it thicker and the Burn tool to make it thinner.

I have had to develop more on my A1 sketch blog assignment, I feel that I just don’t have enough inspiration, I need roughly a third more to have the minimum that is needed but I need to obtain more, it will be useful for the second year.

I also had to complete my A6 referral work, so yesterday afternoon Steve went over the work and helped me edit some errors that I had missed, the rest I did last night and it is now handed in completely.

Unfortunately I now have to complete referral work for the A5 – Builder assignment, there is quite a bit to do, I would say about a day’s work, so my plan is to get this out of the way by Thursday and ask Steve for some feedback and then for the rest of the week I will crack on with both A7 and A1.

My tasks for the rest of the week:

• A5 Referral work
• A7 CD designs
• A1 Inspiration

Covering it

First of all I would like to say that I did not upload my images last week because the text kept disappearing off the page when the document was converted to an image, just thought I would let you all know.


This week has been a get on with it week, and I must say it’s been a very productive week too.


On Monday I mainly got on with my logo designs, I developed 2 sheets one was full of picture and text logos, the other was full of just image logos, these can be seen below:

I feel that these we not my best designs, I was just mainly playing about with the shapes, trying to get a unique look.


The text and Picture logos were in my opinion the best of the bunch, there were 2 certain designs that I liked, top middle and bottom middle, here are the 2 main designs that I chose yesterday:

I also received my referral feedback for the timed tasks, I need to redesign the Main task and tweak the others.


Today I started to get on with my CD Cover designs, my initial design was a scene in space, with a planet and a nebula, my sketches were horrific but when I decided to put it on the computer I looked up some tutorials and in the morning developed a space scene, I’m not happy with it but I’m going to attempt it again.

During today’s seminar groups Steve told me the reality that the logos were not suitable for this assignment, he has told me to use the original E symbol and use different fonts for the Emit text, these are my first ideas, and feedback is appreciated.


Tasks for the rest of the week:

* Complete timed task referral
* More logo designs
* At least 2 cover designs
* Preflight plan Work
* Buy new sketchbook

EmiTing Designs

Monday began as always with a lecture, this lecture was based upon using Macromedia FreeHand, the presentation went through some of the basic editing tools, it also explained how to do effects like merging shapes and also which file format to save it for when it is imported into InDesign.

For the second half of the morning a former student named Mark Feather came in to tell us about his background, life in the industry and to show us his portfolio.

He works for Empire Direct, his job is to create banners and offers and update the website when needed. He also showed us his portfolio and some of the work he had done while he was on the course.

The beginning of the afternoon started off with the other half of the FreeHand Lecture. This part of the lecture basically covered everything about colour, inserting it into shapes and text, creating Swatches, Gamut Warning and the Pantone Library.

After this, John Munday came around the class going over our goals that we set ourselves at the beginning of the course and seeing if we were still going in the right direction, he then checked some of my logo ideas and gave me some feedback.

The rest of the day mainly consisted of sketching logos, trying to choose a certain few that I would create on Illustrator for final designs.

Today began with half of the class been given a lecture and the other half, including me, carried on with my final sketches, I originally planned to create 10 logo ideas, before break I only managed to get about 6 done, so after break I decided to make a start in illustrator. I managed to get one logo completed before lunch, Steve asked me to alter a few things so after lunch I did.

In seminar groups Steve looked at my logo designs and decided that he wanted me to create another one using a font that I had put in my sketchbook, so for the rest of the day I have been creating different versions of my final logo, below is an image of what I have created so far:

Tasks for the rest of the week:

• Finalise logo designs ready for feedback
• Put Logo on forum for feedback
• Sketchbook work
• Collect more photos
• Practice Illustrator

Sketchin' Logo's

3 Weeks have passed, the Easter break was good it gave me a change to relax and de-stress, so I felt good when I came back yesterday morning.

Monday morning started off with an introduction to the new assignment, “Wailing Whales”, my version of this assignment is split into 4 tasks, which are to

• · Re-design the ‘emit’ logo
• · Re-design the CD Cover for my artist
• · Create a pre-flight package of the project
• · Project evaluation

This may not sound like a lot to do over the next 6 weeks but as I have began to notice, there is a lot of sketch work involved.

After this Steve went on to another lecture concerning logos, we were shown a variety of different types of logos ranging from just text, juts an image and a combination of both. The logos were from major companies like Ford and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

After this lecture I began to create a production schedule, this consisted of the tasks I will do for the next few weeks, although I have put aside 1 week do some more work for the A1 Sketch blog task just so i can get up to speed with some inspirational artwork.

After that Steve began the second lecture on logos, it involved the main points of a good logo which are:

• · Shape – The shape of the logo
• · Contrast – make sure it looks good in gray scale
• · Weight – the logo doesn’t require thin lines
• · Presence – Making use all the white space

A former student named Johnny Haynes came in to speak of his job and the websites he has created, it was a god experience it seems that the work place isn’t anything like I thought it would be like. I expected Johnny to be in a suit, but he came in college in jeans and was very laid back.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of sketching logos for Emit; I had filled a page before I left.

Today began with a lecture form Steve, which was basically about the CND logo, also known as the ‘Peace’ symbol, the lecture was basically about the re-vamp of the logo, all the groups were asked to do the same, so ours, ‘Gamma’, decided to go our separate ways for 15 minutes and do some sketching, we ended up using one of Andrews Designs which was an eye with a globe as the pupil, after we presented it we were told that it is similar to the CBS logo, which it was.

In the afternoon ‘Gamma’ had a seminar group with Steve, we went over some of our logo sketches and once again went over the basics of A7.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of sketching more logos and collecting different fonts and experimenting with them.

My goals for the rest of the week are as follows:

• · Continue sketching in sketchbook
• . Gather more fonts
• · Collect one or two photos
• · A1 Sketchblog work