DesignAssignments – DS106 on the couch

Category: DesignAssignments

DS106 tales is up and running….scared. An assignment went…

August 23, 2015 / DS106 on the couch

DS106 tales is up and running….scared.

An assignment went up about DS106 as a Stine book and I had never heard of Goosebumps! I confess I love horror as a genre, for reasons to explain another time. So, I went to mother google for answers.

As I think this may be an assignment UMW students do when course formally starts at the university, I am outlining my process in detail in this post. I personally prefer how-I-did-it-posts that offer clear bullets (bullet points that is), so I am doing that here. As bullets in this case imply an order, below is a numbered list of what I did and another one about what I would change. Start self-assessing your work early, boys and ghouls, best way to learn. If I could press rewind and redo: What would I change? Makes it easier for others to make improvement suggestions too!

What I did

1. Find out what these books are on Wikepedia

2. Google ‘Goosebumps book covers’ to get an idea of design assignment is after. I was taken by the notion of ‘creating an appropriate title’. I have not read the books so had to go with parsing lots of titles to get feel for it

3. I learnt there are many series to choose from, that Stine book covers are a thing and many people collect them and love them

4. Found a cover that suited my purposes. Now, find a high resolution file. This took some searching but Neil came through! A true fan

5. Find font. Here one could go mad as clearly fonts had to be extreme horror. I was also searching for legibility as my purpose was to use the cover as a poster for an actual radio show. I settled for Gypsy Curse but there are so many free fonts to choose from. Just google ‘horror free font’ and be damned

6. Install font in your editor.

7. Load up all the images you want to use for the creative edit as layers in one file in your editor. I use Photoshop. #EZPZ here: File

8. Make sure you know where files come from for correct attribution: My main image came from Neil, the bullets came from jjgifs in his other blog.

9. Now time to play boys and ghouls!

10. This is where the screencast would be if I was doing a tutorial. I played for a long time with Photoshop. Main tools used: Clone stamp tool to clear from original image what I did not want. Healing brush tool to tidy up. Blending option multiply to blend bullets into main background. Skew tool (used badly) to make bullet stack blend more into image. And a word of advise: always find you pink guides! Guides to align everything exist in most editor, find them. They are a life saver.

11. Now play with fonts. I used Gypsy Curse but applied several options using the cmdT option with text selected. I also used blending options to highlight text like the time for the show. For legibility I decided to use Village plain (homage to a previous DS106 run) on URL and times. Little squiggle that divides names did not exist in Village plain. Copy/paste hopefully blended the fonts a little better when added to time information.

12. Bob is your uncle

What I would do differently

1. I need to learn how to use that Skew tool properly – I cannot get the bullets to appear as if they are lying on the rock

2. Multiply was okay to blend but there must be a way to make the bullets show up more clearly

3. I spent a long time thinking about the title. The curse of DS106 Horror Show got me last night and I lost all my work. I thought of a title this morning, but I am convinced the one last night was better…the serious design point is that it mattered that in the assignment we are pointed to think about that – it is the thing that pulls the cover together

4. I decided early on not to do the back cover, I think it should be possible to create a poster with both sides of cover and I would have more space to say what is coming in the new season of the show….this has taken long enough for now

Update!

I did another version trying to improve visibility DS106 Bullets, the wording of the poster with accurate hashtag at the top and a better book title.

Finally, our new season of #106spell starts on September 6th, make sure you listen!

“A reasonable alternative is to complete a piece that…

July 24, 2015 / DS106 on the couch

“A reasonable alternative is to complete a piece that incorporates two different assignments for a sum total of 4 or more Credit Units.”

So I did the ‘I can read movies assignment’ and ‘the one story 4 icons’ assignment in one cover. The electricity in my tree house is on for another week as I am clocking 6 Credit units and another 2 for the extra hard work to combine two assignments into one. Although to be fair, I took this on thinking it would be easier than doing two. The new number two is clever with words. A reasonable alternative, indeed. I think I should get an extra 2 Credit Units for doing the whole thing rather than just one episode, but that might be pushing it a bit.

Behind the scenes

I wish I had used my notebook as I intended to keep up with all that I tried. A little like our resident artist futzing was a key ingredient.

I started with the idea that I wanted the cover to embody the sense of ambiguity that is the hallmark of the series. I read an amazing blog post today that spoke about the series as it “constantly offering us a seeming chance for escape, then pulling the rug out from under us.” Nothing is as it appears.

The post explores a Prisoner computer game that never tells you that you can escape the game by pressing the ESC key! The tag line of my cover comes from the end of this game. You win and it tells you: To win is to lose. Sheer genius.

The 4 icons are from our friends at the Noun Project. How awesome are they? I bought them all ‘cause I love supporting their artists.

I have been using their icons in my Prisoner posters series as comas and full stops since this run of DS106 started. It occurred to me that may be the ones I had chosen over time would embody key themes. I was right.

Birds singing seem happy and free, and yet the noise may attract attention when it is not wanted.

A prisoner in jail might seem a negative icon, yet prison is not always a bad thing. (I will not explain the photo below to avoid spoiler for participants still watching episodes).

The fish escapes the fish bowl and is free then it dies as it lands.

The sad ghost represents death and suffering and yet, if ‘to win is to lose’ may be to lose is to win?

The cover is for book 1 and it contains the story of 6. Hence 6 is 1.

I used Photoshop as usual. Started with one of the covers from the I can read movies series that was cleanest to get a clean black background with the clone tool. I started with a lot more text which disappeared as the 6/1 tension shaped my thinking. I discovered you can search google by ‘type’ of image as well as usage rights and this can find you components to use in a creative edit. The lapels from the jacket came to me that way. I pulled them out of original image roughly with quick selection tool and then added it in with screen blending option to blend in with the grainy black background. My little friend the colour dropper did its job to blend all the colours well. A little blur tool helped me along.

For the first time ever I grouped some layers so that I could line them up properly. The little icons and its background were a group. I used the Emboss Texture blending option to create a rough look to the background.

I feel I have got as close as I can to the essence of what makes this my favourite series of all time. It is to do with the ‘nothing is at it seems nature’ of it. The kind of story that destroys mechanisation by remembering that what makes us human are non-googlable questions such as why. Awesome.

This constant tension is even shown in the way the prisoner dresses. The lapels of the blazer showing that we have a prisoner dressed in a suit, highlighting perhaps that we cannot tell from external cues who is the prisoner and who is the guardian.

Total time spent: several days to get the bits and this afternoon pulling it together. I wanted to challenge myself so I did my best to attend to small details I might ignore in the usual run of things. Cool challenge, Number 2.

Be seeing you.