An Album Cover — DS106 Assignment here

So here’s something fun for everyone to do, should be quick and easy, but try to make it pretty. First, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomThe title of the article is now the name of your band.

Swiss Emigration to Russia is my band name

Next, go here: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 Go to the bottom of the page. The last four to five words of the last quote are the title of your first album

“Contemplate What Is Happening” is my album title.  [Appropriately enough for a digital media course, it’s from a line by Marshall McLuhan.]

Lastly, go here: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Select the 3rd image. It is the picture for your album cover.

I had several great images, but none of them were creative commons licensed.  Given that I was going to be changing it around, I decided I wanted to have something with some clearer copyright.  So I thought of the Flickr Commons, the partnership Flickr started with the Library of Congress (though its promise is mostly unrealized still).  There I found this image (3rd in the random Commons Sampler). Given my band’s name and album title, it seemed perfect.

Views in Sydney and New South Wales, 1930-40 / by Charles F. Walton

Manipulate the picture, resize it, add some other color, whatever. Do the same with the band name and album title, put them over top. However you wanna do it. Make it look cool.

 

Then I dumped it into Photoshop, cropped it to a square, and used the Sun Faded Photo style to make it a little more yellow so that I could more easily put text on it.  I did some new layers with the text of the band name, which I changed to red.  I had initially thought I would try to place the title of the album on the hanging clothes, but “contemplate” and “happening” are awfully long words.  So, instead I went with this, which I like better in terms of spacing.  I also like the way “happening” ends up highlighting the two people just visible at the edge of the album cover.  Contemplating what is happening is exactly what I hope this design causes people to do.

Swiss Emigration to Russia (2012)