Secret 7" Five Ideas

First Design Sheets with thumbnail sketches of ideas I had for the vinyl cover. 

Idea 1

I began with the lines looking like a vinyl record, I then wanted to vary the lines with a heartbeat that goes up and down because like the song things could go up or down.

I also tried to add a heart into the lines however I felt that this has been done before.

This is the vinyl shape  started with I looked at images on google to replicate the lines of a vinyl record. Which meant some of the circles where closer together than others.

I experimented with different coloured hearts

I chose a darker red as I felt it matched the artists vintage/ sophisticated style. 

This is what the final looked like I really liked it, but I did try some further experimentation.

I experimented with different sizes of the image.

However  liked the size the image had firstly been. 

I also looked the hearts just on their own after i had seen something in my research. however this did just look random.

I also tried a different colour variation however I didn't think that this was as successful.

I also tried different weights of the lines but I think that this was very distracting and the vinyl record aesthetic became lost. 

I did also try the whole design in just black but this made it slightly boring.

And so this was the final Idea. 

Idea 2

My next Idea was to create the idea of a broken heart and a full heart as a contrast. 

I initially used the heart I had created and on pathfinder I divided it into segments. I then used an opacity effect to contrast the two. 

I liked this design better when the hearts where central.

I then tried different colours. Black and white ... 

Red and White, which I preferred. 

Grey and White just looked dark and dim.

I liked the deep red background as it looked warmer and more interesting. I did then experiment with different opacities....

I found that this combination was the best and so I stuck with it as Idea 2.

Idea 3

I then experimented with origami hearts. I did this with different coloured paper. The idea behind the paper is a love note. And I felt that it would create an interesting geometric shape.

I also mixed the red and purple red together to make a contrast. 

I tried them slightly apart but parallel. Which I think separates the two. 

I also tried them together I found this less effective as there is no space or seperation between them.

I also tried to put one of the sides at angle as if it was coming away or breaking. However I think that this looks quite random.

And I then went back to my original variation but separated the gap, but there was too much space here and they look too separated.

I also then tried the idea of opening the heart at one side, to represent the idea of an open heart. However this looks like an arrow.

I also tried different backgrounds however there are too many different elements.

 I then tried putting the hearts opposite to each other, like one of my original sketches, however again I feel like there is too much going on.

And the detail of the white heart seems to of disappeared.

I did try it on the darker purple/red background but still the white heart is lost. But the colours do look better.

I then tried the contrasting heart all together, almost like a bouquet, black vs white, and light red vs dark red. But I think that they just cancel each other out and the message is lost.

I then also tried it where I ripped one side of the heart, again like it was a torn/broken heart. I really liked this concept.

I did try this idea with a separate colour for the other side of the heart but it was distracting and they didn't look like they where part of the same image.

And so I began to develop this heart on the computer. I experimented with a spotlight like effect. However in this image below the edges where too dark and distracting.

                                       

I also experimented with the colour of the heart.

Here I had made the heart a vivid pink but this doesn't match the artist or her music.

And so I made the heart this more purple red colour that was more desaturated. 

And so this became the final outcome, Idea 3. 

Idea 4

I did however find that I had to go back to the research stage to come up with an idea that was different to the ones I had already created. I began to research into the word still, which I also found meant calm, silent or dead. I then drew out thumbnails realting to this idea of still... 

I had also thought back to the actual music of the song which has a very percussion orientated beat, and the thought of a beat made me look up what a musical beat looks like and I found bars that contained different lines that where different weights. Almost like different sounds. And so I replicated this in the idea below. At the end I used a single long line to create the idea of silence, or no sound, no love.

However I felt that the bar second in was too tall and so I erased some of the top of it. 

I then tried the bars in red , stereotypical colour for love.
However the detail looks a little bit lost.

I also tried this in reverse like I had done in idea 1. However I didn't like this idea as much either.

I didn't like how the line continued of the page and so I moved the bars into the centre.

 I also tried to make some of the lines into a series of hearts. However from a distance they look like triangles.

I also then felt the image should be central, and so I had to erase one of the bars and move them into the centre. And this made the single black line more effective.

 Idea 5

I also used the idea of the origami hearts to create geometric outlines . 
And I experimented with the idea of an open and closed heart, with a outline of a net and then the heart it makes. I did this by tracing the photographs of the heart and net I had created.

I did also experiment with a lower opacity net with a thicker weight so that it looked like more of a background piece.

I also experimented with different colours for the heart and its lines, but I think that this loses the idea of a geometric shape. 

In this variation I have filled the heart in red and the black outlines.

I did also try the heart on its own but it was too simplistic.

 I also then again tried a red heart but this looks flat and unappealing.

Like in my photographs  tried a combination of half and half to act as a contrast but this did not look right either.

I also tried the heart without the lines I think it looks okay but its slightly boring.

 Idea 6

Also when I had been experimenting with idea 4 and reflecting back on my development I'd played with the idea of a heart and a teardrop. And this is how it had looked in my experimentation.

And so I firstly traced the shapes and filled in the colours red and blue so that it would recognisably be a heart and teardrop. 

 I also felt that the shapes where too rigid and it may not be completly recognisable what each shape is meant to be. 

However I did feel that the colours looked slightly childish and so I removed them.

I did try experimenting with half colours to act almost as a double contrast. 

But I felt that they worked best very minimalistically. Idea 6

And so I decided upon these 5 ideas to take to my critique, so I could be more informed as to which idea people preferred and how I could develop these ideas further.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Typogateux

Photographs of making the cake, the cake itself and the design of the name of the cake. 

By me and Samantha.

We made 3 sponge cakes and 1 red velvet. 


Final cakes: 
We made a G and a D representing Graphic Design. The G represented a gothic letter  which was Helvetica, and the D was a roman letter, in the font Times New Roman. 
We felt these where probably the easiest to make in cake and the most typical of gothic, and roman letters.
We chose gothic and roman, out of a choice of four font styles; gothic,roman,block and script.
We chose these as we felt that we could make them actually gothic and roman in appearance. And so we looked online at generic gothic and roman images to gather inspiration for the cakes. 

After we had made the cakes I made a name tag, to label the cake that we had called 'gothic roman cakes'. I used the same fonts as we had used for the cakes. I think that the tag really shows the contrast of fonts. 

I also out our names in the two fonts too.