CD covers Photoshop - Yagmur

I decided to make some basic CD covers on photoshop by taking inspiration from the different CD covers I liked. I used our logo for 'Haze' and simply put them on each image I edited. I used mainly black and white, but I also tried some more greyish/faded effects. My main inspiration was from the Vampire Weekend CD cover I found as they usually have their band name over a simple photo.

This is my first cover I designed and it's probably my least favourite. Mainly because of the fact that I couldn't get the logo to look good at any part of the image. I tried different colours for the font like black and white but it still didn't work. I don't think we'll be using this image for the cover.

These are the next ones I designed. I prefer these a lot more to the first cover as the blurry lights and the lights from the building compliment the logo really well. I prefer the second one as the white background with the image reflecting through the letters stand out much more, as the first one the text is faded out.

This is my favourite CD cover that I designed. I really like that the black and white has a grainy effect over it, the image is also quite blurred and has a low quality, making it look quite hazy. At first I only put the logo over the image, but then I wanted to see how it would look with the song name. I really liked how it turned out to be, so I decided to edit the back cover too. I got a shot of a candle that we filmed for our video, and I did the exact same effects. I used The Neighbourhood's CD back cover text for mine to see how it would look, and I think it compliments the front cover really well, especially because it actually has the 'alleyways' track listed so it's much more realistic. It fits well with our indie/rock genre.

Inspiration from CD covers - Yagmur

I decided to do some quick research and I found some CD covers that I liked and that could be used as inspiration for my groups CD digipak and magazine advert.

Final Cut Pro Practice - Yagmur and Safwana

Once final cut pro was installed on the Macs, we decided to start experimenting with different tools and just practiced using it in general so it would be easier for us once we actually started editing. As The Neighbourhood videos have a letterbox/widescreen aspect ratio, we decided to see how it would look with our shots and it actually looked better than the original full screen aspect. We first tried to crop the actual footage but we found that it cropped out the majority of what we want to show to the audience. We searched further and found the letterbox option which made it easier.

We also started to experiment with different filters. We tried a lot of filters and we stuck to black and white. The neighbourhood videos tend to have a grey tone to them rather than a regular black and white which can have a really high exposure and dark contrast which can sometimes look quite strong and sharp, whereas we're going for a more faded look.

We haven't quite decided whether we want our entire video to be black and white with the letterbox frame, or if we want it to be full screen with coloured filters like more green/yellow tones or purple/blue tones with a grainy effect over it to give it a more nostalgic feel. We think that both effects can make our video look nostalgic. With the black and white, it expresses the darkness and depressing theme of the video a lot more, and with the coloured filters it can still show the dark theme behind it because the old film effect can bring memories of the past (in our case, the death of the friend). We will experiment further with the different footage to see if these effects suit the entire video, but first we need to make sure that all of our videos are in order and in place.

Pitch/Class presentation - Safwana and Yagmur

Song comments from Youtube - Yagmur

Example of our music video - Yagmur and Safwana

We used the footage we already filmed and decided to make a quick trailer/montage of some of our shots together. Our actual music video is going to be black and white so we decided this will give a an accurate representation of the official music video because we're going to be using the same shots. We will be experimenting with a lot more editing techniques such as slow motion, speeding shots up, quicker cuts etc. This briefly gives a glimpse of the entire 3-4 minute video.

Inspiration from existing magazines - Yagmur

This is just some research for when we start designing a CD cover and print ad.