Criterion DVD Cover Design Project

Medium: Photoshop

For this project, we were assigned to choose one film from the Criterion collection then design a DVD cover based on that film, while maintaining the feel, colors, and look of it. For example, since I chose the film "Lord of the Flies" by Peter Brook (1963), I had to keep the subjects purely representational, and keep the overall color scheme black and white with a hint of sepia, just as how the film utilized said color scheme. 

The subject placement was difficult at first, as I had rearranged both the boar head and title type to effectively make the cover more visually intriguing, and to make the type more visible, respectively. The boar head was enlarged then set to pop out from the top right corner, with some flies flying around it. It was then arranged to stare right down at the three boys seen on the shore, to provide a slightly eerie feeling, amidst the calmness of the beach. Since the boar and plants of the forest needed to invoke a sense of mystery, I made them much darker than the beach. The types were custom made by me. 

As for the medium, 90% of the piece was done in Photoshop, since I needed traditional media (in this case, a brush pen) ONLY for the outlines of the drawings. I scanned each drawn subject in, then placed each one in different layers. Then I adjusted the levels and contrast of the lines to make them solid black on Photoshop. Next, I set up a color palette with greys, black, and white to work with for painting. I used a variety of the existing brushes on Photoshop. No paint bucket tool was used. As for the slightly sepia color overlay, I used the photo filter tool on the right and set it to "maintain luminosity" to prevent it from fading the already existing coloring.

As for the finalization of the piece, I had to attain a transparent (clear) DVD case in order for the interior design to be displayed as well. A black DVD case would prevent the interior from being seen.