The document provides details about the process of creating various promotional materials for a retro 1980s-themed band called Blue Thunder. It describes designing an album cover featuring a grid, space background, mountain, and lightning effects. It also outlines designing a band t-shirt with the same space background and lightning bolts, as well as a poster advertising the band's tour from London to NYC featuring grids, text, and duplicated fonts for continuity across projects. The goal was to create cohesive designs capturing the retro 80s theme and attracting audiences.

1. Production Reflection
Chris law

2. Process - Album cover
For my first project I wanted it to have particular
theme because the whole project is based on
retro 80s. I have included a grid that is
commonly featured in most media products
during the 80s like movies and TV shows. I also
used the eraser tool but on a low flow to make
the top of the grid blend in with the background
it gave this fading appearance which looks
pretty cool. This tool has been invaluable to me
on this project and I oversighted its potential,
and how I could use it.
For the background I wanted something that
stood out and was mesmerizing to look at, I
decided I wanted a deep space image. It had to
be blue as well so it could match the Grid and
the common colour scheme. Referring back to
my audience because the most popular colour
was Blue out of the other common colours like
red green etc. I found the image on Pinterest
and was a royalty free image so I could use it
without any legal issues.

3. Process - Album cover
The next thing I added was the mountain which was
originally a volcano but I cut most of the top to make it
appear as the top of a mountain. I then added lightning
affects which was a wise choice because it helped me to
make my album just as cool with lightning appearing to be
in space. I used the color chart to change the lighting from
a white to a bright blue I absolutely love this change
because it goes with the background as well, because areas
that are brighter the lighting is also bright. This shadow
effect is really cool to look at, because on the other side of
the background its dark and the lighting is coherent with
that environment.
I also started on the main title of the album and figured
Blue thunder would honor my old band name. The font
that I chose wasn’t traditionally retro but I went with it to
see how it would look when I had added the other details
into the product, if it didn't look right then I would change
it but I would keep it if it looked perfect.
I did some alterations to the mountain as well, by lowering
the opacity the background image was visible and made
the image even more awesome and spectacular to look at.
The space cloud cluster on the bottom right of the
mountain was just perfect and was an accident at first but I
decided to keep it that way just because it looks great and
really detailed.
In this section I added the thunder which I think this is the
most important part of this product. I would’t want to do
this product If I knew I could’t do the thunder. I replaced
and rebranded the entire band because of this and I think
it was a good decision to make this change. And I believe
my target audience would agree.

4. Process - Album cover
In this section I added a few extra details to make it look like an
authentic album cover made by a record company, so for that reason I
added two record companies sponsoring the album. By adding these
minor detail it just adds to the overall authenticity of the album cover
and makes the image just realistic to look at. And that was one of the
goals because if it doesn't look realistic then its not a good product.
I also included a copyright symbol since practically all albums include
one of these so people cant take royalties from this product, and it
belongs to the record companies that produced it and the band.
The second thing I did was add a title for the album so I went with
‘aggression’ because it’s meant to symbolize the thunder as an attack
and form of aggression. The font for both the band and album cover has
changed. I thought that the previous fonts weren't good enough so I
downloaded some free fonts and I chose the same for both texts. I
duplicated both and changed the color of the duplicate to a purple,
blue and purple are commonly found in retro products. Plus they go
together really well. I also altered the size of the record labels because
before they were too big. Now they look perfect when compared to
another album cover. I think I made a good decision with the font and
the colors, although now thinking about it I should of edited and
experimented with different colors, maybe if I did this I could have a
brighter or more neon based color for my font. This new font looks a lot
more retro then my previous one, it looked to Asian for a retro font
because most retro fonts are bulky and kind of metallically. Where as
Asian font is more free hand drawn and is used with a brush for rough
edges. It’s a cool font but not what I want for my product.

5. Process - T-shirt
I started on the T-shirt design which was
interesting to produce, to begin with I needed a
jpg of a plain white T-shirt on a black
background I then added a background of my
choosing from a website, the image was the
same one I used on my album cover to keep the
continuity intact for my band. I edited out the
color area so it can still remain to look like an
actual t-shirt and not just a cut out of the space
layer. The was pretty easy to cut and make into
the shape of the shirt, I remembered from a
video tutorial for my experiment how to cut an
image in the shape of another layer, and just
reused that skill acquired to help me in this
project.
Thankfully I was using Photoshop and I could use
tools like the eraser to show the inside of the T-
shirt and the outside of it to show the color
because most T-shirts don’t have the image on
the shirt printed on the color so it will be left
blank. These two images are comparing the
original to the masked.

6. Process - T-shirt
The second thing I added was the lightning
throughout the main torso of the shirt I used a
different method making these lightning bolts, in
summery I got an image of a quiet city with some
thunder in the background I then turned the image
black and white by doing so the lightning was more
clear. And easier to define, then I inverted it so most
of the image was white and the lightning was black,
this helped me a lot when It came to erasing the
surroundings since all wanted was the lightning and
not any buildings or any other light sources, I then
went and defined art brush so I could use it as a
copy and paste brush, the only altercation was that
one I had painted the image of lightning I would
need to make another layer because if I added two
lighting in the same layer it would move the same
way if I moved it. I also included a label badge of a
clothing brand around the neck color as that is the
most popular for labels. I tried to make the
positioning of the lighting as random as possible so
it looks unique but I wanted it all to be connected.

7. Process - T-shirt
The last stage of the creation of the T-shirt was
adding two more things, one of them was a label at
the bottom of the t-shirt, this is also common to see
a label at the bottom. I changed the font for blue
thunder, before it just looked to plain and simple so
I went and used the same font for the album cover,
this was a good choice. I also changed the color to a
bright blue. I then went and duplicated the text and
moved it slightly to the right the color for the
second layer was purple, I did this because I gave
the text a deeper feeling, and also to reinforce that
retro theme throughout the project. In this product
I changed the color of the first font and I think this
is loads better then my previous color for my album
cover. Its more eye catching and neon themed so
bright and kind of disco themed. I also think that I
should of improved the secondary font with a
brighter purple. Or I could of used a dark black this
would of represented a shadow casted by the text.

8. Process - Poster
My last and finale project is the poster for the band.
I started off with the retro grid taking up at least 50%
of the screen and I then went back to my album
cover and print screened the background image and
dragged that into the poster file, this makes for a
good background because I have used the same
space background in all my other products so it
easier to link them all together. The grid is different
from the original that I used, I figured that this grid
looked better and more vibrant and neon. Although I
don’t think I will change the others to match just to
make this product a little more unique to the others.
I also used the eraser to make shadows of the
mountain on the grid, I just used around 20% flow so
it wouldn't just completely erase the area I wanted
faded. This gives the poster a feeling of dynamical
importance and an overall retro identity.

9. Process - Poster
In the next step I included two different texts, one was
the title of the band and the other was of their slogan
London to NYC because those are where they first
preformed, I used the same style of text in both texts.
The bottom text is in a different font, I first wanted a
military font but I changed it to a bolder and traditional
font. I really do want to ilastraight how important the
font style with the second duplicate acting as the
deeper part of the text. Not only that but the 80s retro
theme is important throughout the project, so I had to
make it stand out and become obvious to everyone so
not only my target audience but other groups of people
are attracted and captured by their curiosity to look at
the poster. Just to make them look and wonder, even
just getting people intrigued and curious is a good start
to get fans interested in the band. A lot of other bands
and singers do this so there is a sense of individuality
among the thousands of artists that preform in the
same genre. Like Coldplay and imagine dragons, they
have similar songs and they are both indie, pop and
rock bands. But they have very different covers and
styles of Photography.

10. Process - PosterIn this finale stage I do a few things to make the product look
even better, the first thing I did was add a title that made it
clear that the poster is for a tour of the group going from
London to New York City. This would be the first poster
released to the western cultures aka U.S.A/U.K and Canada
etc. Then there would be other versions for foreign countries
like France, Spain, japan and brazil and so on world wide.
The very last thing I have added to this product is a layer that I
have use the paintbrush with colors like black and bright mid
blue, with a low flow and large area. I did this to certain parts
of the poster like around stars and bright cloud areas I added a
brighter glow, and in darker places I added a dark glare. This
just improved the overall quality and made it more unique and
less stock and ordinary. It really is an eye opener and will make
people give their full attention to read this poster. I think this
poster succeeds in representing power and aggression with
this poster the only thing I would of added to expand the
representation was change the color theme to red because
red is seen as a bad, evil and aggressive color where as blue is
good, peaceful, calming and vibrant. Even though the thunder
isn’t traditionally blue. Although the blue is a calming color,
the thunder looks so much better compared to when it was its
original color, grey/white. I changed these small features
hopefully to catch people’s eyes and their attention. By using
the color picker tool I could experiment with different colors
and I’m glad I chose the colors that I did.