Design Ideas and Design Process

Previoiusly, I had limited knowledge of using Photoshop. However, through this task, I explored the use of layers to see how stacking the layers in different orders helped with the layout of the whole design. This encouraged me to explore tools in Photoshop that I have not used previously. As a result, my software skills have developed to include the use of layers, drawing using the pen tools, etc. I discovered that the curvature pen tool allows you to draw curved lines without having to use anchor points to curve out lines. This led to me using this tool in one of my designs.

Before starting off with any of my designs, I went onto Behance for inspiration and to help develop ideas for my own covers, and also kind of visualise how I wanted the layout of my covers.

 

Then, I went to Colourhunt to look for colour palettes  and one helpful tip was that every colour had the code included making it easy to use them in the colour swatch tool in Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

 

I sketched out my designs on paper, since I believed that it would be better to sketch out my ideas first before diving straight into Photoshop; and also, to have a clear vision of what I want to produce.

 

 

 

Design 1

I decided to do a background with random shapes drawn around the edges with text left-aligned. I experimented with the different pen tools and decided using the curvature pen tool, which helped me to draw the shapes with smooth curves. I used colour palette 1 for the cover design. For the text, I used the typeface ‘Lust Script’ for the title and ‘American Typewriter’ for the subheading. At the end, I did a colour fill over the top, set at soft light with 70% opacity.

 

Design 2

I did a radial gradient using the ellipse tool and drawing a circle in the middle. Then I used the Gaussian blur tool to blur out the circle and blend it out with the background colour. I repeated the same process to create another gradient on top. For text, I did separate layers and converted them into smart objects to fill them in with black. For the background text, I extended the canvas size and created a text box and continuously typed out ‘typography and graphic communication’ in the typeface ‘Montserrat’ covering the whole page. I finished it by cropping the design. I had used colour palette 2 for this design.

Design 3

I decided to challenge myself and wanted to create a pattern as the background with the text having long shadows. I had also warped the text using the ‘warp option’ and drew some doodles using the curvature pen tool. For the background, I used the line tool to draw diagonal lines across one way. After saving the file and opening it, I deleted all the layers except for the pattern layer and rotated it 90° clockwise and defined it as a pattern and applied it to my original design, resulting in a checker pattern for my background.

Software Tutorials

Previoiusly, I had limited knowledge of using Photoshop. However, through this task and reading the article of working with layers, I explored the use of layers to see how stacking the layers in different orders helped with the layout of the whole design. This encouraged me to explore tools in Photoshop that I have not used previously. As a result, my software skills have developed to include the use of layers, drawing using the pen tools, etc. I discovered that the curvature pen tool allows you to draw curved lines without having to use anchor points to curve out lines. This led to me using this tool in one of my designs.

In my first design, I had created a radial gradient and I had looked up an Youtube video to help me with this. Watching this tutorial allowed me to learn creating radial gradients in two different ways, however I only applied the first way of doing so, as I believed it was pretty quick and straightforward to understand. However, I believe that the second way of creating these gradients was much more in depth but nonetheless, I was able to achieve what I wanted.

I had used long shadows for my text in the third design. I followed the YouTube tutorial in creating the long shadows. This tutorial was a bit hard to follow, despite it being titled ‘easy’, but that might have been due to my lack of experience and therefore, this was a challenge for me. At the end, I was able to create the desired length of the long shadows and I was satisfied with the results.

Overall, these tutorials helped me learn new skills which I believe I will continue to use in my future upcoming projects.

Photoshop Tutorial | EASY Long Shadow Effect: https://youtu.be/f_2ab8j7CEg

How To use Radial Gradient | Photoshop tutorial: https://youtu.be/ZZ2AwSsM7ak

Design Resources and Articles

Reading the article of How to design a podcast cover by Matthew Price, helped me in designing my own podcast covers as it highlighted the important elements of creating covers and how to grab the attention of the audience. This article was also the push I needed to create my own cover without being too anxious about it and explore the different tools that Photoshop had to offer.

In my third design, I had warped the text and I was able to do so with the help of reading and following this additional article titled ‘Three Ways to Curve Text in Photoshop‘. I had followed method 1 to wrap my text and it went pretty smoothly. Reading this article made me realise just how many possibilities there are in Photoshop to create one effect, making it user friendly for any level of professionalism.

Three Ways to Curve Text in Photoshop: https://medialoot.com/blog/three-ways-to-curve-text-in-photoshop/