Design ideas and design process
I developed my designs using video examples from YouTube on how to create different effects on photoshop. I demonstrated this by using the pen tool on photoshop to create different colour strokes in blue, green and white. The pen size was a little big too. I then went on to using the liquify tool. This tool allows you to blend the different colour pen strokes. I used this and blended the different colours to create a marble effect. I got this marbled effect inspiration from TikTok the app. I was on TikTok where I saw this candle making video which was made with a marbled effect. Then later on during the day when I was starting my photoshop task I remembered this and then the idea was created. I first searched some video tutorials on how to do this. I then found a video which was helpful for me because I was new to photoshop I didn’t want to do something that went wrong so this video linked below was very helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouviTuZUB4E. For the text I wanted something simple yet effective. I changed the position of the text to warp to create a curved effect for Typography because this was the main text focus here. I created a tagline/slogan for the podcast and added a headphone icon to show it is a podcast because after doing research I saw that most podcast covers have a microphone or headphones an an icon.
For design 2 I went for geometric shapes. I outlined them with a dotted stroke line, and also using inspiration from design 1 to change the position of the text again too wavy. This wave effect really goes well with the curved circle edges.
For design three I focused more on the text and the microphone as the icon. I incorporated the letter ‘I’ from the ‘communication’ text to microphone. I felt this made it look better and combining it makes it aesthetical to look at.
Software tutorials
I watched the video on how to use layers on photoshop and how to create different ones for the different elements on the page. Adding layers helped me organise my work and helped me lock the layers for the ones I was not using. With layers I was able to separate the images I used and edit them without affecting other parts of texts.I converted the image layer to a Smart Object. this allowed me move the new object around on the page, edit and resize it without affecting other things on the page and the resolution of the image. The quality was not affected. The video on linking images was very helpful. However, I watched this video after creating my design. I didn’t want to fall a week behind so I didn’t make changes.This led to me not having an effective podcast cover. If I was to do this again I would be able to do it much better.
Design resources and articles
An additional software tutorial I used was the liquify video linked above. This video helped me develop creative skills because the liquify tool allows you to create a marbled effect and you can use this and position it anywhere on the page. I also researched into how to create a text background for design 3. The first time I did this the text was not aligned because I copy and pasted the text several times. It went all wrong. However, after doing some research I was able to create a uniform background with the text ‘typography and graphic communication’. I feel to improve maybe not having it in all caps would make it look better because in all caps can make it distracting from the original text which is the podcast title.
https://99designs.co.uk/blog/design-other/how-to-design-a-podcast-cover-the-ultimate-guide/
I also researched using the above link into what makes a good podcast cover and i used this to help me chose the colours I ended up using. I used analogous colours which were blue and green shades. I like the idea of using analogous colours because despite lacking in contrast the colours actually do go well together and make the final outline look quite serene to look at.
30-creative-examples-of-podcast-cover-art-and-branding
This was another website I used to take design inspiration from because it had great podcast cover ideas.
overall, I found this task very interesting. I learnt new things.