Graphic Design
FALL Semester 2019
Final Examination

FINAL FOR TRISTAN HICKS

Instructions: Please read all of the following information carefully:

Create a new folder on your network space, call it “lastname_final.” All of the work for this final will be saved into this folder and the folder will be submitted for grading. RIGHT CLICK>SAVE to download the file called "CD_Cover_Template.PSD" and save it into your Lastname_final folder. Open this file in Photoshop.

This final is a “mini project” which will allow you to demonstrate all of the skills that you have learned over the year. It is primarily a “Graphic Design Process” exercise, but please make sure to incorporate as much of your learning as you can into the project:

• Filters • Blending Options • Fills
• Layer Blends • Cutting Objects from Backgrounds
• Shapes • Strokes • Image Adjustments
• Patterns • Gradients • Transformations

In addition, I would like to see evidence of the various Visual Communications exercises which we did this year, such as the UNITY/EMPHASIS assignments.

THE MINI-PROJECT:

You are a graphic designer and you have been given the opportunity to create the CD graphics for a new album. Before you get started, you should review the following information regarding your album:

Genre: Country
Artist: Josh Grider
Album Title: "Million Miles to Go"
Short Review: Nearly a week ago Josh Grider charmed the audience gathered at Hill’s Cafe for the KVET Free Texas Music Series with his awry dance style and meticulous guitarmanship, but it was his scrupulously-crafted lyrics that won me over.

Whether it was the autobiographical “Stumbling On the Edge of Greatness” or the co-penned “Rusty Cowboy” you could feel the authenticity radiating through the night (or maybe that was the Hill Country humidity). Grider’s wife stood by his side, joining in on vocals when she had a part. She shuffled to the back of the stage for a sip of water sometime during “Crazy Like You”, a song that quips that everyone is crazy, so you might as well find someone that’s crazy like you. I felt like an outsider watching two lovers share a personal moment when Grider sang “so I found me a girl and she’s five foot four / and I’ve never found a girl that I adore more” and a lusturous smile crept over his wife’s face, still standing behind him just out of his view.

Fast foward to today, the release of "Million Miles To Go" allows anyone to enjoy the delightfulness of those lyrics and his live shows on a studio album.

He opens with the aforementioned “Stumbling On the Edge of Greatness”, a song that can apply to anyone taking a risk by chasing their dreams. He sings “taking a chance on a maybe / might be the next Johnny-come-lately / but you can’t never tell.” These same introspective musings permeate the album on songs like “Poorer Days”, “Travis Blues”, and “Million Miles to Go”, and provide a depth to his lyrics that’s absent in many of his Texas Country contemporaries.
Sound clips from your album:

-Clip #1: Crazy Like You

-Clip #2: Million Miles to Go
Song Listing:

1. Stumbling on the Edge of Greatness- 4:20
2. Poorer Days- 4:04
3. Crazy Like You- 3:22
4. Hand to Hold- 3:04
5. Rusty Cowboy- 4:22
6. Probably Will- 3:57
7. Travis Blues- 3:20
8. Emma- 3:31
9. Love Went Wrong- 3:51
10. Tragic Circumstance- 4:20
11. Broken on Broadway- 4:58
12. Million Miles to Go- 4:23
Production Company: ©2007, Bootstrap Records

PLEASE SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN!

NOTE: I HIGHLY recommend that you do not look up the actual graphics of this album, or if you are familiar with the album, put the graphics out of your mind, as preconceived notions will make this assignment MORE difficult, not easier.

To start, download this template file for your CD graphics and save it in to your “lastname_final” folder. You will be creating your CD cover on this Photoshop file.

You will be creating the following for your CD graphics:

  1. Graphics for the front cover of the CD (and possibly continuing onto the back cover, as well) which fit the mood and theme of the Album. This is where much of your Graphic talent with Photoshop will come in. Use your blending, cutout and filter skills here! Feel free to get images from the Internet, as needed, to bring about your graphic. Remember, the Template is the outside border of your CD, do not go over it!
  2. Text for the spine of the CD which includes the Group or Artist’s Name and the title of the CD.
  3. Graphics for the back of the CD which follow a similar theme to the CD. On the back of the album, you will include the Song Listing AND Track Times. Please put these in a PLEASING AND ARTISTIC manner! DO NOT SIMPLY copy and paste these words across the back of your CD cover, DESIGN THEM!
  4. Include the production company information on the back of the CD as well.
  5. A nice typographic representation of the Group or Artist’s name, as well as a typographic representation of the title of the Album (these SHOULD NOT look the same!) Create these two graphics and place them onto your CD TEMPLATE canvas.

When you have completed your design, please save the work as a .JPG file and place it into your “lastname_final” folder in your NETWORK DRIVE. THEN EMAIL YOUR COMPLETED JPG FILE TO pburkhard@weldre9.k12.co.us.