CD Assignment

The Crooks

Lethal Menace Molson

The style I went for was an underground scene. My artist as I have stated is an underground rapper. This corresponds with my style and images. I used graffiti as them tagging their names as publicity. This is their form of communication and to mark their territory. The blue hue I used throughout was an underground perspective I came up with in the beginning of the design process. I wanted something to feel cool as if you are on the streets at night. My ideas were an outstanding process of work on Photoshop and illustrator. I used Photoshop first to create my ideas, in a bigger format than we needed as a rough draft. I then used illustrator with the templates I downloaded and resized my images to that size. Which I then printed it and created the full CD.

My ideas were original for this artwork. On the streets you will find graffiti, many of which are excellent pieces of art. I decided to go with the quick tag look and like a marker drip. This adds to his personality of being quick and to go with the flow. So the cover I took an image of a street wall, changed the color, brightness and contrast. Turning it into a cool bluish gray look. Put my Album Name and Artist Name in the graffiti font and made the opacity a bit lower so it looks like it’s dried up and that it isn’t just brand new. As well I added a parental advisory logo in the stone to show that he has explicit lyrics. Found one that was a spray paint stencil so it completely fit into my design, which was a plus.

Moving on to the next part which was the inside booklet. I incorporated the TTC map of the GTA and took out all the names. Its more of a subliminal message, now of graffiti locations. You can think of a lot of things for it, so it could be many messages in one. I as well added custom graffiti work in the background to create variety and visual contrast. It creates a sense of direction to since its arrows and question marks, basically stating “Where Next”. With a smoky overlay to cause a look of over spray of a clear coat. Used a blue color hue to create the look to flow together.

The back of the booklet was the simplest work made. I used a black background and used a paintbrush and used a splatter brush. Used a few versions and used different sizes of splatters to create a splatter feel that wasn’t too much. Added a hue to it and made everything blue to make it flow with everything that’s in the booklet.

For the inside tray card I took a tunnel and added lots of light streaks to cause movement for when the CD is placed in and out of the CD case. It’s a very eye popping and eye catchy part of the CD case. The blue really stands out due to the brightness of lights.

The last part would be the outside tray or the back. I ended up using another subway tunnel this time of it by the tracks. I took out the big sign on the wall and used the clone tool and slowly re created the wall. As you see it looks perfectly normal but you wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t tell you. I as well stretched it out so the front of the train in the tunnel disappears. I ended up using the same text style of a dripping marker. This added a good effect since it’s on a wall that curves. I distorted the text so the perspective would be that it is on the wall, as you see I did a very good job. I kept the text black so it stands out in the corner compared to the bluish cool gray background.

It came out better than I had expected at first. I didn’t know how I would’ve captured his image at first besides a street idea. When I came up with the process of graffiti I just let my mind take action and create a few ideas. Through this I found a way to incorporate the whole CD to flow together. By adding a hue to every picture of blue so the color, contrast all matched each other. As well to make sure it was a street style graffiti look. Overall a great looking underground CD I made that surprised me throughout the design process.