At the beginning of September we were taught how to use different photo editing software in order for us to accomplish the task set; we had until the 21st of November to create:
- Album cover
- Vinyl cover
- Promotional poster
- Bus shelter mock up
- Billboard mock up
Three of which were needed to be physically printed out to be presented; the album and vinyl cover as well as a promotional poster. Both the vinyl cover and poster had to be an A3 size whereas the album cover (front and back) were needed to be 4.75 inches.
To help us with gaining experience we were given different tasks on photoshop and illustrator in order for us to become familiar with them. I didn’t use illustrator after the tasks but photoshop was my go-to. It took me a while to think of a band name and then I slowly began to experiment with my own photography and trying out different techniques to see my options.
My ideas had changed drastically since first beginning the task. I wanted to use something such as double exposure to combine a mixture of images to create some powerful images since I wanted it to have some form of meaning, however I struggled finding things I felt went well with the album so I began experimenting with other artists and covers to find some other ideas.
Not all of our tasks were set digitally, we did many various workshops such as;
the dark room where we used a random item from our pocket and turned them into a negative image. We were shown the studio where we can book photoshoots and one lesson we did marbling using acrylic paints.
Personally, I really enjoyed doing some of the dark room stuff and the photoshoots as I had booked some other people and it went really well. The first one wasn’t very serious as we were getting used to how everything worked, but we still came out with some good images.
I mainly enjoyed doing research- not that I didn’t like doing the activities, I just enjoyed being able to research the bands and artists that I am passionate about as it can easily be seen in a piece of work if you are happy with what you are doing. My favorite post was the blog where I found the original images from album covers. It was quite tough to find at first but I did enjoy it nonetheless.
Although there were some skills that I struggled with, I gained experience in photoshop and have improved my research skills. I’ve also become more confident with participating with things such as photoshoots as you have no choice but to communicate since you have the idea in your head and it is up to you to get the model to do just that. However I still feel as though I could improve at it, but I am definitely more confident.
Overall, I feel like the project was quite successful. I had encountered a few errors but I was able to work around it and figure out a different solution- one which I am very happy with.
stevenson.snaps 