Front Cover Progression

For our front cover, we decided to use a woodland image with vibrant colours, influenced by the style of Radiohead's Supercollider/Butcher B-Side Cover, and we thought this image was perfect as it also contained the 'twisted branch' concept which not only was inspired by Radiohead conventions but also the contortions could represent the distorted and quirky feel to the album, and also adheres to the 'You And Whose Army' narrative.

Once we had chosen our front cover image, we then cut the image down into a 12cm by 12cm square, and then adjusted the hue and contrast, as well as adding a 'Warming Filter' of the colour orange. Next, using Adobe Photoshop CS4 we used the 'Filter' option, and then clicked 'Render' and then the 'Stained Glass' effect, which changed our original image into a 'mosaic tile' effect, which was another feature we wanted to include after being inspired by other existing album covers. We made sure that the tile size was rather small in order to retain the original image as otherwise it would be difficult to see what the image originally was. Here it is still clear that the image is of woodland/branches/leaves, which is a theme that will continue throughout the digipak.

We also needed to then add text to the front cover, and effectively display the name of the band. We chose 'Polarize' as it is bold, and again adheres to the whole concept of opposites/distortion, which is a theme that continues throughout our digipak and music video, to symbolise mental 'distortion'. We chose the colour red as it is warm bold colour, as well as the orange lines on either side of the band title to emphasise the represention of polar opposites, as well as drawing attention to the title in the middle of the front cover image. We also used a drop shadow to lift the text off the page, as well as using a lighting effect behind it to draw attention to the centre of the image further. We felt that this overall front cover had a professional feel and finish to it, and we would continue this 'theme' onto the back cover too.