Adobe Indesign practise/ CD Covers/ Reid Miles inspired

In this session we  again discussed Reid Miles album covers. We had to explore the basic methods he uses in his designs.  In his work you can find fundamental principles which repeat in a lot of his designs. For example using coloured letters as well as a range of different typefaces. With the different type faces he would alter and mutate them to take on their own identity, often overlapping them or enlarging them to take up more space. In his style he typically uses small pictures that take up a  small amount of space or incorporated them in to one of the larger letters or shapes. Another part of his identity is adding an effect to the pictures on the album covers. He would often take the pictures himself or use the work of Francis Wolff. Apart from the effect he would often play around with the perspective of the picture for added effect. Although there are many colours and effect within the design, the actual background is almost always a plain colour, something neutral as not to take away from the design itself but to compliment what he has already done.
In this session we had to try and replicate his style and the techniques he used:

Home practise on making Reid Miles inspired CD Covers. Here i tried to accent the typeface, overlapping the letter.  The pictures and text were chosen at random. I edited the picture  in photoshop in the style of Reid Miles. To achieve this effect  I chose a bold typeface which is too big for the album and overlapped the letters. I have changed the kerning and the tracking of the letters.

This is the 1st finished design.

I changed the placement of the text to give the design more balance, so this is the final finished design.I would change some things like the text as it could be more readable, but this was my first attempt.

This was the inspiration for my design.

This is another take on  one his design. I tried to replicate the use of pictures in shapes. I decided to use triangles instead of stripes.

This is the finished design

This was the inspiration for my second design

In this design I decided to use numbers instead of letters. I created the numbers in illustrator using different typefaces. I used the pathfinder tool to cut them in the way that I needed. After i sent the file to indesign and finished the design with random names.

This is the finished design. In this design I would have liked to change the position of ''Us Three''.

First I built the Numbers in Illustrator 

This is the original that inspired my design.

Photoshop/ practice on different effects and adjustments

In this session we were shown how to invert a colour photo into black and white photo and some other effects using Photoshop.
There are two ways of inverting a colour photo into a black and white photo. First is by Selecting the image -> Image -> Mode -> Gray scale 

the original photo 

Inverted into Black & White photo 

OR Select -> Adjustment -> Black and White 

We were shown how to bring colour to black and white image by Duplicating the layer with the original photo, changing it to an Black and White image and then playing with the ''Opacity'' - by this way we bring back colour to the image.

the original coloured photo

The photo after inverted it into a Black & White photo, and then bringing back colour with the ''Opacity'' tool 

We were show how to put a different colour to the image. We had to create a new layer, fill it with the colour we want and then click on ''Multiply''.  That blends the original photo with the colour. Then we can play around with the opacity to change the intensity of the colour.

We were shown how to put a photo over another photo.
Choose a photo. Create a new document with a photo we want to place above. Then go to  Edit-> Copy. Go back to the document with the original photo - Edit -> Paste special - Paste into, then play with the ''Opacity''  to reveal the photo under.

The first ''Document'' with the photo I chose 

The second ''Document'' with the photo I want to place above the photo from Document 1 

Back to Document 1

Playing with ''Opacity'' to reveal the photo under 

We were also shown how to make image in typeface:

Type text with  ''Horizontal  type mast tool'' -> Select -> Inverse -> Make new layer -> Fill the new layer with colour -> Press "Enter" 

Typing mask

Fill the new layer with colour

We looked at different Effects in Photoshop, such as adding to a photo a ''Newspaper'' effect

We tried different effects from the ''Filter Gallery"

Adobe Indesign/ CD Cover

In this session we were introduced to Adobe InDesign program. We had to make a design for a CD cover. We were ask to choose a random Wikipedia articles and use the title as a Band name, then we had to pick a random quote and use the last 3 word as album title, and after that we were told to open Flickr.com web site and use the third picture as the album cover. We did that several times with different quotes and pictures. After the exercise we looked in some of the works of Reid Miles - american graphic designer and photographer , who designed most of the CD Covers for the Blue Note Records - Jazz Record Studio. His works were a good example of using different Type faces, fonds, alignment, colours, and negative and positive space in his CD cover designs.

My home exercise 

Home exercise 

home exercise

Horace Parlan: Us Three   Label: Blue Note 4037   12" LP 1960
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff
 

Art Taylor: A.T.´s Delight   Label: Blue Note 4047   12" LP 1960
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

ackie McLean: Let Freedom Ring   Label: Blue Note 4106   12" LP 1962
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

 Dexter Gordon: Go   Label: Blue Note 4112   12" LP 1962
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

 Don Wilkerson: Shoutin'   Label: Blue Note 4145   12" LP 1963
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

 Joe Henderson: In ´n´ Out   Label: Blue Note 4166   12" LP 1964
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

 Jackie McLean: It´s Time   Label: Blue Note 4179   12" LP 1964
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

enny Dorham: Trompeta Toccata   Label: Blue Note 4181   12" LP 1964
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff
 

Hank Mobley: Dippin'   Label: Blue Note 4209   12" LP 1965
 Design: Reid Miles   Photo: Francis Wolff

 Larry Young: Unity   Label: Blue Note 4221   12" LP 1966
 Design: Reid Miles
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_Miles - Reid Miles

http://www.birkajazz.com/archive/bluenote4000.htm - Blue Note CD Covers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Note_Records - Blue Note Records