Design Practise: OUGD503 - Responsive: Air Up & Withers Designing

I started sketching some ideas for the logo, which could be used both on the website banner and the EP cover:

Logo
Then I went onto Illustrator and started designing. I chose to do this style of typeface, because 'Air' reminds me of thin and uplifting, so I thought the thin aspect of the type works really well with this, and the thicker aspect suits the more serious tone of the music.

This A is the first letter I did, and I added a curved shape onto it when connecting the thin stroke to the thicker stroke to make it more friendly.

I had a bit of trouble designing the ampersand in the same style as the letters

I made sure the two circles appear like that meet up and are the same height as each other to look more natural. I tried different serifs at the end to see what looks more natural. I think the third one looks the best as the curve seems more natural.

I also tried this style of letter on the R which I really like, but doesn't suit this typeface.

Here is the typeface so far:

I tried two different versions of the T, and I prefer the first one because the second seems too top heavy.

I also tried different versions of the H, and I think the third one seems too thick, the second one seems too lopsided and the first one matches the A.

I also tried different types of S's which is also a hard letter to do.

I started working on the second part of the logo, and the W looked too big at first with the full letter, so I decided to take off the last stroke, so again it matches the A and the H. I think the only letter that looks out of place now is the S.

I then made the final logos in all their positions and made sure the kerning was right.

Album Cover

For the album cover, the client said I had full creative control as he had no vision for it and liked what I had done with the logo.

The first cover I did was one that the client had said he would like - the logo in the middle of a white background.

I made the logo smaller, central and higher up than the previous attempt to make it look more attractive visually. I also added a line above the album name and made it left aligned. This is what the client wanted, but now I am going to try some different examples to see if he prefers any of them.

I then tried repeating the logo and was going to have each one in a different colour but I think the logo is too harsh and it's quite hard to look at.

I then tried another idea, with overlapping letters but I discarded it because it's not very readable.

I then started another idea I had sketched where I wanted trees to have a reflection, and have sky above them to represent the Air, and for the top of the trees to be pointing Up. I also looked at the definition of level, and one of them was a horizontal line, so I wanted the trees next to each other horizontally to represent this.

I started by creating a tree shape, and made it quite geometric to fit in with the contemporary and digital aspect of the album. I also adde a film grain to it which I quite liked as it added a bit of texture. I started drawing branches on the tree using the Pen Tool and then adjusting the shape of it by using the Width tool.

I only added the branches on a few of the trees because I think it would be too overpowering with them on all of them.

I added the logo and title in the top left corner, and used Helvetica Light as the font.

I then copied and reflected the trees underneath to make a reflection but I think it looks too busy with all the trees starting at different heights.

I added a background to imitate the sky, but I added a gradient so that it looked softer but I think it looks to plain going to white.

I levelled up all the trees so that they looked neater, and changed the colour of the reflected trees to shades of blue for a bit of contrast which I think looks better.

I got rid of the gradient which I think looks better now as it's cleaner.

I also tried it without the reflection to see what that looked like, and I like that as well.

I changed the shade of the blues to make them more subdued which I think works better.

I then started trying a different idea which is completely typography based. I created the word Reflections with an elongated base and changed the opacity so that they overlap with each other. This means I can put white text over the top and it will stand out. I put the rest of the title in Helvetica Bold underneath, but I think it looks quite plain so I'm going to make it similar to Reflections. I added the logo in the bottom right corner which I think looks a bit out of place.

I changed the rest of the title to be similar to Reflections and I think this looks a lot better. I also made the logo central which I think works well. I also started changing the colours to see what looked best. I do like blue and green together, and think it lets the white letters stand out.

I also tried a bright red which looked pink and I think it stood out a lot but perhaps too much?

I also tried a burnt orange which I think works but reminds me of rust and builders, not quite the tone of voice I'm going for.

I also tried a red and I really like this combination as it lets the white stand out, but isn't too overpowering and the colours work well together.

After some feedback, a peer said that the N needs to be more obvious, so I changed it to have the gap in it again.

I tried changing the position of the letters to make them more readable.

I moved the I in front of the blue O so that it stood out more and made it more readable.

I moved 'On A Local Level' higher up so that it fit in more with the title and left a bigger gap between the title and the logo.

I made the letters more spread out to make it easier to read.

I tried changing the position of them so that it was easier to read.

I then added a background colour to the cover, and also changed the colour scheme to blue and red.

I then reversed the colours but I think I prefer the previous one.

I then started trying some different colours.

I think these are quite vibrant together and stand out a lot which I like.

I quite like these complimentary colours together because they are quite light due to the opacity change. I think they look quite old which is the kind of music the client likes.