Graphic Design
Spring Semester 2019
Final Examination

FINAL FOR TOSHEA MARTINEZ

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. 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 • Attach Text to Path • 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: Rock
Artist: The Subdudes
Album Title: "Street Symphony"
Short Review:

Despite the title of the New Orleans-based Subdudes' previous album, Behind the Levee was recorded pre-Katrina. A lot of water has passed under the bridge--literally and figuratively--since then, which impacts the sound of the band's first post-hurricane release. Although the reformed group's approach has always tempered upbeat material with a darker, more soulful edge, their sixth studio release, Street Symphony, exudes a heightened mood of bittersweet melancholy. Even Steve Amedee's ever-present tambourine seems to be less frisky as the disc unwinds at its own rather subdued (no pun intended) pace. Lead vocalist/songwriter Tommy Malone has seldom sounded more committed, wrapping his dusky voice around a vibrant set of originals with lyrics that occasionally reference New Orleans' most horrific experience.

Songs such as "I'm Your Town" ("who's going to save me?") and the deceptively jaunty melody of "Poor Man's Paradise"--the story of an impoverished, homeless man whose appreciation of life's little things, like the music of Fats Domino, gets him through impossibly difficult times--impart a solemn but hopeful acceptance. The "her" in "Thorn in Her Side" refers to the Statue of Liberty, as John Magnie's accordion adds unusual sorrow to Malone's controlled anger. The beautifully bluesy "No Man" is arguably Malone's most revelatory and touching love song, performed with the proud resignation that courses through every track of this heartfelt, thought-provoking, and emotionally moving set. --Hal Horowitz
Sound clips from your album:

-Clip #1: Poor Man's Paradise

-Clip #2: Street Symphony
Song Listing:

1. Fountain Of Youth
2. Poor Man's Paradise
3. Stranger
4. Thorn In Her Side
5. No Man
6. Fair Weather Friend
7. Brother Man
8. Half Of The Story
9. Work Clothes
10. Absolutely
11. I'm Your Town
12. Street Symphony
Production Company: ©2007, Back Porch 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.