CD Packaging Project Evaluation

For this project we had to design and create our very own CD packaging for an artist of our choice making sure that the design was suited and relevant to the artist but also practical for purpose. This project has definitely been the most challenging for me in terms of workload and organisation especially as I had to outsource some of materials and resources. For my outcome I chose the artist J Cole a american Hip Hop artist, I chose him because I identify with music and I thought this would make it easier to come with ideas on the theme of the CD packaging. My idea for how I was going to design my packaging did come easily and I had several very different ideas to choose from some entailed paper cutting,  modelling and paper construction. In the end I opted for a more simple approach so that I could focus more on the visual design and surface design.
My inspirations mostly were J Coles passed projects artwork which were closely related to basketball and the style was inspired by the way I feel street ball is depicted from images that I researched independently and that was the main basis for my design direction and the way I took my pictures. Martin Stasiuk, a fellow londoner is one graphic designer I stumbled across which heavily influenced and inspired the overall composition of my surface design. His piece called 'Basketball Dream' is a concept I tried to capture in my outcome, the combination of photography, imagination and photoshop is definitely something I aimed to convey in my own outcome and I think I managed to achieve it. I used some of my own photos; the background sky image and my basketball model as did Stasiuk and then imagination to make a living scene out of these elements.

I experimented with different background textures trying to keep them as mellow as possible because J Coles music is quite calm and I wanted to find a background which was fit for purpose. In the end I decided that I didn't need to have a traditional patterned background and wanted to capture the street feel of J Coles mix tapes so I used photos I took myself of the sky and combined them with my photo shoot pictures to make it look as if the model was playing street ball.
I am very happy with the way my outcome has turned out because I think it looks extremely professional which was not easy to accomplish at all and it took a lot of trial and error to achieve because of problems with printing settings in college and outside of college. using several different types of paper and card and different sizes to achieve the best result even using my own money to pay for professional printing. I think the thing that I feel was the biggest achievement is the actual application of effects on my images, the huge transformation from standard photos to a a new powerful image. Each picture took me approximately 2 hours all together to edit by the time it was ready I to print this was very time consuming as there were 5 images some of them presenting challenges that I had to be innovative to deal with.
There were a few things that I feel could have gone better mostly I am disappointed I did not get the opportunity to put all the effects I wanted to use on the photos because of time constraints. I had originally planned to add an dispersion or disintegration effect on to the model in my images and had prepared and practiced the technique ready to use it. I also did want to improve the finish of my product by paying for it to be professionally laminated for it to be more of a smooth finish.
To conclude, the project was something I enjoyed because it was a change, and creatively something that people can relate to because everyone can relate to music but also is an easy medium to be creative with. I really do enjoy making packaging because of the sense of freedom to do what you want with it. The personal project is something I think I could find interesting and something I am looking forward to because there are several stand out things about me I could put into it making this project all that much easier to tackle.