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October 26, 2006
DVD Cover Design for Paintball Club
DVD cover design is a lot of fun for us. Here's a slip cover design we completed recently for a recreational paintball club. The footage documents a year of paintball highlights culminating in a scenario game themed "The Coalition" with over 200 players. The client wanted something that was similar to the promotional designs for the movie "Road to Perdition", mixed with an overall old war/strategy feel. We used the style from the movie as a starting point for our title graphic, selecting a more formal decorative typeface, then using stars and decorative borders to enhance the military look.
The client provided a handful of digital photos, with the idea of the two team captains facing forward on the cover, then facing backward on the back cover. We isolated the subjects from their original photos to blend them onto a civil war-like parchment background. Cast shadows were painted in to give the figures depth and a more natural look. We then distressed the background further with black marks that suggest disintegration or burn holes. It was looking good at this point but too bland, so we painted in some textured areas of green and yellow.
The group of players was added to the top of the cover as a visual representation of the title. It also helped balance the overall cover design. The last element was the ancient map for the back. It subtly enhanced the strategic concept - the two captains seemingly facing the map in planning.
That was the dvd cover design strategy in a nutshell. In the end - happy client.
October 10, 2006
Free Audio CD Mastering Program
Audio CD mastering is final step before going into the cd duplication process. Mastering optimizes your audio, making it sound full through expert use of equalization and compression. It also raises the overall level of your songs to radio and commercial release standards. But how do you know if it's worth spending the money?
One way is by taking advantage of DiscMasters free cd mastering program. They will master one of your songs for free and send you a disc of your original and the mastered version so you can easily hear the difference. It's win/win - you can hear how much mastering will do for your cd, and the engineers can determine which mastering options are best suited to your release. You are under no obligation to go through with the mastering and there is no cost for the test master.
