CD Cover

[Evil]

Well, Phil Reed is starting a "Free Music Movement". It's an CD collection of 100% free music. You can read into it on his website. Anyway, he asked me to create a CD design and gave me a lot of room for interpretation. I kicked a few ideas around and roughly scratched this up.



I had some idea of what I wanted to do, but really developed most of it along the way. I wanted to have pieces of the string cut and hanging from her mouth, but am stumped when it comes to making it look real.

When it comes down to it, its Phil's choice. I still want to buff up my PS skills anyhow. I'm sure I'll do another design. All input and C&C is more then welcome.

Larger size.

[2ma2]

Well the symbolism is rather clear, but I wonder more how it ties with the window. Giving appearance, the window shapes and colors is very emo, pain and suburban hell - if it constitutes of presenting the unseen voices of society or connect to the riots of France, fine, but as far as I can see, the free music project is not about that, and thus the design misses out on other pieces of the scene.

The face is great on it's own, you could easily make a flat color or some graphic trash to spice up the composition instead of the window. I like how you cut away the eyes, they always steal the attention otherwise

The wounds are a bit generic, the pure black value is rather unappropriate, you could work with dark reds and blues for a punction effect. The current values are good on the shadowy side, but less appropriate where it is highlighted. Bear in mind that a stitch like that would not be a hole but rather a mark in the flesh as it will close as soon as the thread has been removed. You could also vary the wounds, they can not be all neat. Also, the thread does not follow the shapes of the lips, try to use the defined shapes and distort them such as the lips are tightly strung together. This is not easy, infact it is hard as hell, but if you pull it off, you can definatly assume you
ve buffed up your PS skills!

[vict0r]

I think the text is too... well... unfinished maybe. Try some other, possibly smoother, font. Someone else could probably explain it better than me

[Ozzie]

Has the font to be so pixelated? It`s a too hard contrast in comparison to the rest of the picture, everything else seems so smooth, it just sticks out. The colorization of the text also is strange somehow. I think it would better if you alone change the direction of the gradient, so that it starts left with orange and flows into blue.

The thing with the points/wounds explained 2ma2 already pretty good, but I like it that it reminds me so much about Abe.

[DanClarke]

The font is...erm...really bad lol. Which program are you using for fonts? I'd suggest a serif typeface to better portray the image and the values of the CD. I think the image in the background is unnessecary, and you could postion the text bettwer if it was removed. Also consider changing the mouth image to black and white, it would take the emphasis off the 'graphic' nature of the image and lean more on the actual symbolism of it.

[LGM]

I took the picture used in the background, btw

[Evil]

No wonder everyone hates it. 

[LGM]

THey only hate it because it doesn't fit

[TheYak]

The font looks like it's meant to be a pixelated old-school font.  However, the blending towards the edges and some of the thinner lines of it make it a little less obvious than it's meant to.   Overall, I don't think it goes with the concept too well and would be better suited for an 80's compilation or CD's worth of retro arcade games. 

As for the background, it doesn't seem to fit the them and distracts from the foreground.  I'd either go with 1) Absolutely nothing, 2) Random design or 3) more high-concept art, like a color-filled room peering on a black-and-white cityscape or commercial symbolism or somesuch. 

For the foreground, some subtlety to the punctures and, preferably, some reference material used for the design of the holes (all previously mentioned).  They look okay on the shadowed side, but I'd almost rather see nothing on the left than the out-of-place holes.  A quick fix would just be to give them less contrast and saturation.  It all depends on what you're going for.  I quite like the idea of the foreground as accompanies the title of the compilation.

[stu]

The picture is nice.
But that font really doesn't work.

Never use a pixel font if it's going to be that large, that only works in a retro style.

[Pet Terry]

When designing stuff that will be printed, it's good to remember to make it big enough. CD covers are 12cm x 12cm and to make sure it will be good quality when printed, resolution 300 pixels/inch is enough. But you probably knew that already.

As for the design, I kinda agree with 2ma2. I realise the gradient follows your current colour scheme, but it doesn't look very good. And yes, definately change the font.

[Nikolas]

About the mouth: Since it is half tied it should have "forces" pushing both lips towards each other. You have not touched the lips. I hope it makes sense. And of course what everybody says about the font, but you got the idea already didn't you?