You are to create a cover design for a make believe musical artist in a music genre of your choice. You can use Photoshop, Illustrator, or a combination of both software to create your design. You want to communicate who the band and music style is about through the use of color, composition, and elements used. I want to see the use of good logotype design that follows the 7 contrasts.

Procedures:

1. Create a new folder and name it Album Cover.

2. Research and sketch two designs to choose from for your cover. Due Tuesday, December 6th (10 pts.).

3. Download the templates below to your folder. Open the CD front cover/booklet template in Photoshop/Illustrator. Make sure to lock the layers so that you will not accidentally grab the template while you work.

4. It is best to start collecting any textures or brushes you might need for your design. Bittbox is a great place for free textures. Brusheezy and Vectoreezy are great websites for brushes.

5. Unless the text is an integral part of the design, it is important to focus on how you are going to use different elements to create a balanced design. Make sure that you decided what is going to be your focal point. Is it going to be the text, the way color is used, or some object? Look at the covers below and think about how they show a focal point.

Resources:

Here are some websites that show different cover designs and some cover design tutorials.

http://abduzeedo.com/20-awesome-unknown-cd-covers

http://inspiredology.com/99-best-designed-album-covers/

http://www.denisdesigns.com/blog/2010/04/amazing-album-cover-art/

http://wegraphics.net/blog/tutorials/photoshop/design-an-indie-rock-cd-cover-in-photoshop/

http://designm.ag/resources/photoshop-tutorials-for-creating-album-covers/

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing-tutorials/album-cover/

Logotype