album cover & poster (practice) step by-step

ALBUM COVER & POSTER (PRACTICE) STEP-BY-STEPBy Anthony Richards

ORIGINAL PHOTOS

Poster Album Cover

FINAL PRODUCT

Poster Album Cover

POSTER• To create the poster I used the ‘Glowing Edges’ tool to create a neon effect.

POSTER• I then adjusted the ‘Edge Brightness’, ‘Edge Width’ and the ‘Smoothness’ to darken the image and create the ‘night sky’ effect on the wall and the model’s face.

POSTER• I wrote the artist’s name in ‘Bauhaus 93’ and coloured it purple so it would still fit it

with the colour palette of the poster but would also be clearly readable.

POSTERI also added a thicker version of ‘Bauhaus 93’ to differentiate the artists name from the album and song titles and then placed them in a position that highlighted the model’s face to show their centrality to the project. I also added a release date in the same font to keep verisimilitude.

I placed a picture of the record label logo from Google Images and then converted the file into a JPEG.

ALBUM COVER• I first applied ‘Glowing Edges’ to the picture which gave me a starting point from which

I could further develop the style.

ALBUM COVER• Using this I coloured another layer blue using the ‘Colour’ tab which gave it a

conceptual effect that I liked.

ALBUM COVER• From there, I reduced the opacity of the top (non-blue) layer and I used the ‘Polygonal

Lasso Tool’ to cut out the shape of the model.

ALBUM COVER• After the lasso tool was used I then overlayed the original model’s picture using the

‘Polygonal Lasso Tool’ which outlined the model against the background, making his outline clearer and therefore making him more central to the picture.

ALBUM COVER• I then added the ‘Halftone Pattern’ filter to give the image a more ‘painted’ look which

softened the lines of the image while also maintaining the colour scheme. This allowed the figure to be more clearly identified and unified the two layers, creating a comprehensive aesthetic.

ALBUM COVER• After this, I added the artist’s name, album title and the ‘featuring the hit singles’ text in

‘Showcard Gothic’. I did this because the font stood out from the image while also being clearly legible. The curves of the font also connoted the album’s ‘Snake Juice’ title. I then coloured the font white to allow it to become even clearer from the text as opposed to the previous red which was darker and clashed more.

ALBUM COVER• I then inputted the names of the album’s two lead singles (‘The Pit’ and ‘Snake Juice’)

in two different fonts – ‘Stencil’ for ‘The Pit’ and ‘Gill Sans MS Bold’. This allowed the song titles to stand out and also because the singles would be marketed separately and so would have their own fonts. I also added the record label logo to give the album cover a more realistic look.

The single titles

The record label logo

WHAT I LEARNED• By creating the poster and album cover, I have learned to use multiple filters for a

stronger effect as well as the ‘Polygonal Lasso Tool’ to composite images together and thereby use good elements from different pictures to enhance the effect of a piece.