The Dead Stray// 1st Print Session

For the innersleeve I tried to print it on tracing paper put in the end i wasn't happy with the print. It was too faded and it was impossible to cut. I'm not sure how I am going to solve this problem during my print slot on Friday. Ideally I want to print on a matt but that will be too thick. In the picture above you can see after doing just 1/4 of the circle I decided to stop 

I've decided not to use the text on the front of the cover. Instead I am going to get hold of the band and get them to send their logo to me. I will then put that logo onto a sticker and print it. Once it is on the cover I am going to laminate over the top to give it a nice glossy finish. I need to get the logo for this Friday

I am really happy with the outcome of the centre labelling, nice that at least one thing went right today. The purple record I bought for £6 off ebay and postage was free, quite a fee to pay but I think for the limited edition version this will make the mock up stand up massively. For friday I need to free do the innersleeve and print more stickers for the font of the record. I hope I will have more luck than today. Considering I went into print not knowing what stock I would print on there is only myself to blame.

The Dead Stray// Center Labelling

Very simple but this will look awesome on both the purple and black records. Thats one thing I need to hurry up and get involved with. Buy theres records. Despite doing much research I can't seem to find any. There are loads on the internet but they cost a lot. I am looking for a dummy record. One with nothing on it. A fake record basically. Hopefully something like this will cross my path over the weekend.

The Dead Stray// Leaflet Re-Visit

The leaflet has been the only problem I've faced over the last week and a bit. The text is very hard to get right, as well as the photo. So I've decided to give it another go and see what happens when I mix two together. Very similar to to my innersleeve.

This looks good, however white and black text is no at all legible on it which is very frustrating. Above are the two images bought from ShutterStock merged together. 

A few new examples. 

This example above could work but I need the orginal photo from the band or a bigger sized photo than the one I have got now. I want the 'Dead Stray' on the drum kit to be sharp and clear and not pixilated. 

The Dead Stray// Inner Sleeve// Photos

Unfortunately, because the Discovery Museum isn't going to get back to me after waiting around so I've gone to ShutterStock to download this image. Knowing that I could have taken a very similar photo to this makes me feel a bit better about it. Now all the photos used on this packing will not be mine! Not to worry though, the exact same thing would happen in the real world of design.

Applying it to illustrator was easy. Resized it on Photoshop and then opened it up on Illustrator.

Here are two photo merged together and the outcome is really effective. I love the change in colour caused by the two photos blending together.

I'm very happy with the outcome of the Inner sleeve. I feel this is most effective. This will hopefully be brought into the CD design too. When it come to printing the white lines will be made very subtle so their very hard to see but I still can cut confidently. In terms of information I can put on these I'm not too sure! In fact do I need to have circles cut out the middle to reveal the centre labelling? Might make sense and make the design overall more legit.

The Dead Stray// Buying the Licence of the Font for Commercial Use.

If you are planning to use a font in any profit making context (advertising, logos, slogans, on products etc.) you will need the full license offered on this site, in most cases for $59/font. It includes the full font, all styles and a commercial license. It’s a one-time fee, and the license does not expire.

After my crit it was made very clear that the font had to be bought. I thought I would be able to get away with it but i've realised this is something that must happen before the cover is uploaded to places like iTunes. And when it comes to printing up to 10,000 leaflets the font must be fully licneced.

The Dead Stray// Photos for Inner Sleeve and CD.

These photos were sent to me from the band and if we plan to make the CD cover in to a concertina booklet these will be used. However, I want to start talking about my 7" inner sleeve. Using two of the photos above, most probably 2 & 3 so you have the whole band. 

I have recently called the Leeds Discovery Centre in hope of booking a slot to look round. I am looking for a certain type of rock. Sounds odd but the inside of these rocks are truly fascinating and all I need is a couple of photos. Below is an example of my friends photo she took at the National History Museum in London. Considering London is a long and rather expensive journey I am going to try my luck in Leeds. 

This photo above was taken by Phoebe Baskett at the National History Museum. MY IDEA is to take my own photos like the one above and cross fade them with the photos of the band. I think this will be most effective and I beleive it will look sensational. If this works this could even me something we use in the interior CD design. 

The Dead Stray// Leaflet Inspiration

Mamela

I like the white boarder that is used in this leaflet. This is actually something I tried to add into my leaflet i decided it didn't work that well. This however has made me think twice and think that I could maybe give it another go. I could try to make the line thiner perhaps.

LINK: designspiration

Leaf

I had a problem with how my white text was against the photo when it came to legibility, however after stumbling over this design here on Pinterest its given mt food fo thought. Maybe a dark blue will work well against the photo? At the moment I am experimenting with a block colour behind the text with the saturatoin turned right down 

LINK: pinterest

Galt Toys

This has made me think that I could interpret shapes into my leaflet. Could make the leaflet more visually interesting and this could solve the problem of having type that isn't that legible at the moment. 

LINK: pinterest

The Dead Stray// Packaging 7"

 Outer Sleeve

Using a 7" I have a measured it to get an good idea for what the actual size will be. Last year when doing secret 7 I decided to go ahead and print it. I didn't exactly measure it properly and there where some issues when it came to putting everything together.

Height: 18.1 cm
Length: 13.3 cm

Inner Sleeve

18cm x 18cm

Center Labeling

8.5cm x 8.5cm

I know exactly what I want to do for the inner sleeve and center labelling, its just getting the photograph which is the main issue. I want to take pictures of the inside of rocks, not any rocks. Some rocks have incredible interiors which look like marbling on paper but much sharper. A friend of mine took some amazing photos in London but I can't exactly get to London. She said to try the Discover Centre in Leeds. So I am going to give them a call tomorrow, not today as they are closed. Hopefully they will have what I am looking for.

Working on Illustrator here is just a quick example of what the outer sleeve for the 7"could look like. I just need to add text to the back and then see what the limited edition could look like. The folds can't be left white as I fear the the white will show slightly. I'll find out the side of the two fold on photoshop and crop the photo to that size.

Considering once printed I will cut the packaging out I can just leave it like this. When it comes to printing I will get rid of the black lines APART for the fold lines. i will also have rulers applied to the page which will make my cut clean and accurate.

The back will be this simple, just the track names for side 1 and 2. PLEASE NOTE this is just for my 7" designs. We are in the process of talking about the cd single, weather to have two cds with just one song or one cd with both.

Limited 7" 

7"

Things to do now:

• Return to Leaflet.
• Take photos for innersleeve 
• Design innersleeve
• Design centre labelling 
• Buy old 7" records to but center labeling on (Purple and black) 
• Book Print Slot to print everything out. 
• GET FEEDBACK.

The Dead Stray// Possible Final Cover and Feedback

Normal

Limited Edition

Because for my own practise I am going to create an 7 inch I want to make a limited edition version that will have a purple record instead of the normal black. Both will have the same inner sleeve which I am currently thinking about. The centre labelling might be different I'm not to sure I will cross that bridge when I get to it. The back will be very simple. The track names in the middle on a colour. No imagery will be used.

Boarder

After talking with Brad he said he wasn't sure weather or not he wanted a boarder on the cover so I have done another example here. Himself and the band are going to discuss the next stages tomorrow and then get back to me. Personally I'm the same, I can't decide weather the boarder is the best option, it does give the cover something else and actually looks quite good. This would probably mean the back will be white though which I'm not too happy about if I'm honest!

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The band got back to me and they are very happy with the outcome of the cover and want to go ahead and use it. The only thing that they would like me to change is simple and I will have a couple of goes at doing so. Quite rightly they think the text is slightly ineligible on the normal edition cover and would like me to have a go at blurring the photo behind the text. They said they prefer the example without the boarder but would also like to see what that looks like with the blurred photo behind the text. 

This is the design they likes from my first examples. The next thing to do it blur the back ground which is actually really complicated. Well it probaly isn't but I want to find the best way to do it. Because you can't blur parts of a photograph in InDesign (which I am working in) I have to go to where the original photo is which is in Photoshop and blur it from there. 

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1)

The colour is slightly different on this one but for good reason. I experimented a lot with blurring the background but couldn't make it look in anyway good. It was either not effective or way to dominate. So I changed the colour and made it darker so the white was more effective and then only subtly blurred the background. 

2)

Another example of a slightly different colour

BOARDER with example TWO 

3)

4)

Here are the new 'blurred' designs. Feedback will be given and I want to know how thick they want the boarder to be. I much prefer the example without the boarder as it looks much more simplistic and in my opinion more effective. The boarder I feel is in some ways unnecessary like I am just adding something to it that isn't that relevant. Then again I do like the 4th example...

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New Limited Edition 7"

I've added the blurred affect across and made the colour darker, much similar to what I did with the main cover design. I very much like this example. The text comes through and the colours are my psychedelic compared to the simple blue of the first single cover. I guess when you see the fish you immediately associate them with the ocean...which happens to be blue, like the colour of the cover. 

The Dead Stray// Album Front Cover for iTunes

The cover is needed to be done for tomorrow because they have to send it earlier. So here are some examples I have come up with that I will send to the band, they will give me feedback for them and then I change what they like.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

These examples I like, Much prefer the font too compared to the ones used on the Leaflets which I really need to sort our soon.