The group created a DVD cover following conventions of professional covers, aiming for simplicity with one font, one image, and three colors. They experimented with different shots but found a close-up of the artist's face worked best. An original idea to depict the artist as an angel was developed but not used as it did not effectively represent the music video. Feedback on the final cover was mostly positive.
2. From the finished DVD Cover we feel that we have done a successful job by looking at and
following codes and conventions of official DVD covers. We looked at some amateur DVD
cover and we realised that seemed to have too much to look at in a tight space and seemed
too ‘in your face’ so to say. So for this reason we aimed to capture simplicity that looks
effective, so the target audience would be drawn, and looking at our finished DVD cover we
feel we have achieved this. On our DVD cover you can see that one simple font is used and
is on a plain grey background. Also there is only one image so each area and it is easy for the
target audience to decipher with this simplicity. What is more, only three colours are used
on the whole DVD cover including: grey, black and orange. We used these colours because
they seemed to compliment each other but were still contrasting enough to stand out and
make the DVD cover look overall more effective and simple.
It became apparent, when looking at many recent DVD cover of mainstream artists, that
many images were close-ups so we decided to use a close-up of the main artists face.
Although when brainstorming at first we wanted to try something different and, as you can
see from the flat plans on our blog, we had ideas to use a long shot or mid-shot but when
we implemented these ideas they did not seem to look profession and fit with our theme of
simplicity. Another idea we originally had was to have the artist represented as an angel
because it would look unique and would encapsulate what we were trying to represent.
Many people associate angels with faith, courage and perseverance and our music video is
about an artist and fighter persevering and carrying on in the face of adversary. We went
forward with this plan and used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign to bring our idea to
life and when shown to our target audience feedback was positive. However even after all
this work we decided to not go through with his idea because it did not effectively link to
3. the music video and did not seem professional enough. In hindsight it was a wise decision
but at that time it seemed like hours of work were wasted. So after more research and
analysis of professional DVD we came up with more ideas and started to implement them
eventually ending up with our final product.
When we asked our target audience to look at our DVD Cover feedback was majority
positive. The only constructive criticism given was things such as to have more text on the
back such as quotes from the artist to entice the audience even more.
Overall we feel that our DVD Cover is successful in what we wanted to achieve and in
targeting the audience. We have also gained skills such as using Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe InDesign more competently. We first learnt how to use these programs for our AS
preliminary and used them again for our main task. Yet for A2 we feel that we have learnt
how to use these programs to an even greater level of skill. What is more even without a
large budget we feel that our DVD cover looks effective and has a level of professionalism like
real products and I feel proud that we have put in enough time and effort to produce a
successful DVD cover.
