This document describes the various layers used in designing an album cover for Beyoncé. The designer used templates and guidelines to organize images, text, and other elements. Background images were chosen to match the theme of love from the song "Brown Eyes" and objectify the singer per theories of the Male Gaze. Font styles, text colors, and image placements were selected to suit Beyoncé's style and personality. Logos and other standard elements were included from existing Beyoncé albums. Layer names and organization aimed to keep the file navigable and each element editable separately.

1. Album cover analysis
Layer: Digipak outline
We used this template of a DigiPak as the background. This is because it would be useful as a guide as to where
we could place my images and texts and the relevant size. We felt that this was really useful as we had an outline
when starting, rather than completely starting from scratch.
To make our work more organised and to
make it easier for us to navigate around
Photoshop, we named the layers with the
relevant text or image which it held.
Therefore, we knew which layer to highlight
when editing a certain section of the digipak.
Also, we only placed one image or one piece
of texton a layer. This is because if we edited
that layer, it would be convenient as it only
affects one image/text.
We have used Photoshop before in GCSE Art
and ICT so the basics were known. However,
we had to experiment with certain things
which we didn’t know how to do, such as
editing the text style.

2. Layer: front cover background
This image of Hilary was chosen for the album cover because we felt that it suited the main song, brown
eyes. This is because it has an innocent and subtle look to it. The pose here is also similar to the image of
Beyonce, adjacent to that of Hilary. We made her look innocent and loving to reflect the meaning of the
song. Additionally, we made her wear red lip stick so that it objectifies her which goes with the Male Gaze
theory. Also, it symbolises love which is the theme of this song. We framed the shot so that her dress
cannot be seen. This way, it will objectify her further which complies with the Male Gaze theory.
Layer: Beyoncé TEXT
Neither of us had ever edited text before on Photoshop. Therefore, we experimented with the
different effects and styles. However, we finally decided only to apply ‘Drop Shadow’ as this suited
Beyoncé’s style best.We altered the angle, spread and size of the shadow and felt that how it looks
now looks most conventional with Beyoncé and her style. We placed it on top of the two layers:
‘Digipak outline’ and ‘front cover background’ as it needs to be placed on top of the image.
We chose the font ‘Brush Script Std’, size ‘26pt’ as we believed this fitted with Beyoncé’s personality.
The reason for that specific colour (e7094a) of text is because it matches the colour of her lipstick in
the image.

3. Layer: back cover background
This layer is the background of the back cover. It is a section of the front cover’s image as we wanted to have the
same colour so that the colours matched. The layer was placed at the bottom as it is a background and therefore
everything else has to go on top of it (e.g. text and images)
Layer: 1. Brown eyes 2. Love on… TEXT
Font: Lucida Handwriting, Size: 5pt
The reason for this font style was, again, the fact that it suited Beyoncé and her personality. Furthermore,
this colour text was chosen to match the colour of her lips but more importantly, to match the colour of
the text on the front cover (colour: e7094a).
The songs in this list were specifically chosen as they are all about love which is what our chosen song,
Brown eyes, is about. It is placed in this order because the shorter named songs are towards the top and
the longer phrased song titles at the bottom so that it looks more organised as opposed to having a mix of
lengths in terms of song titles. This make the back of the album cover look neat and organised.

4. Layer: Spine background
Initially, we had the idea to have the spine the same colour as the back cover background. However, when did the
spine this colour, we felt that it did not look attractive as there wasn’t a separation between the back cover
background and the spine. Therefore, we tried taking a sector of the front cover background (a grey area) and
putting it as the spine. We felt that this worked well and it still matched the rest of the album so we decided to
use this colour as the spine.
Layer: back cover image
We chose to use this image of Hilary as the
image for the back cover. This is because
upon research, we found that Beyoncé
always uses a close up image of herself on
the front cover and a long shot or mid shot
on the back cover. Therefore, we decided
to stick to this convention. We chose to
make her wear red lip stick in this image as
well as it symbolises love.
We used the eraser tool on Photoshop to
get rid of the background on the image (as
shown below).
Also, we cropped the image as we thought
that the bracelet would be too repetitive if
visible on both the front and the back
cover.
Additionally, we flipped the image
horizontally as we felt that the image
looked better placed on the left as
opposed to the right.
Original
imageImage used on
album cover
Image with
background
removed

5. Layer: Inside left background
This image was taken from a cropped version of the image
shown below. The opacity of the image was reduced
because the insides of albums covers tend to have the
image opacity reduced so we stuck to the norm.
The image was taken on set of the dinner scene which is
the last scene of the video video. We wanted to use this
image because it includes both characters as well as the
fact that it sums up their relationship and it is where there
relationship currently is, in terms of the narrative of the
music video.
We split Hilary and Hakan across the right and left,
respectively, so that when the album is opened, their arms
will be linked.
Carrying on from this point
(upwards)

6. Layer: Inside right background
This is the opposite half of the image used on the layer
named ‘Inside left background’.
We used this image on the right to complete the image
and make a full image across the inside album cover.
Layer: C&P Sony Music… TEXT
We copied the text from another
Beyoncé album which we had as we
didn’t know what to state here. We
made some small changes. For
example, we changed the “Made
in” to “UK” and we changed the
number of the bar code at the end
to match that of the one which we
used on our album cover.

7. Layer: parkwood logo
Layer: sony music logo
We included these two logos on the back of our album
cover because we saw that they had been used on one
of Beyoncé’s alums, ‘4’. We got them off the internet,
through the search engine ‘Google’ as ‘PNG’ files. This
meant that the canvas was invisible which was beneficial
as it meant that they didn’t have a background.
Layer: BEYONCE … BROWN EYES TEXT
The font style that we used for the text on the spine is the same
font as that which was used on the back cover for the song list
(Lucida Handwriting). This is because we thought that keeping
to a minimum variation of font styls would look better than
having many different types as this would look confusing and
make the album cover look unattractive. We chose the colour
white as it vibrantly stand out against the darker, grey
background colour.
The font size is the biggest it could be in order to fit the spine
and we decided to do it in capital letters as it would be clearer
for the audience to read when on a shelf as it would look bigger
than if it were not to be in capital letters.

8. Layer: 10906200102010 TEXT
The font style of the barcode number was
the same as that