Micheal Nyman – The Scarifice Study and creation of the CD Sleeve Chiara Bullo - Graphic Design BTEC diploma Lev 3

The piano lessons... such a beautiful film… and the soundtrack: fantastic. I used to listen the CD way back in the At that time I was working in an architects' studio in my home town, Livorno. It has been my background music during the gloomy autumn. I was quite confused about this sleeve, because I was influenced by the film. The very first inspiration come from this picture. I was looking for a landscape that would have depict a kind of sweet bitterness.

Importing the file in Photoshop, I played with the adjustment layer in order to change mainly the colour. In the first one I kept the original image and in the second one I modified dramatically the colour using gradient map to get a “post atomic” effect. I also used a very simple and essential font such as “Eurostyle”. I wasn’t happy with my cover because in my mind I always had the idea of something related to the sea. thanks for the photo to

I tried a couple of different versions using the most predictable thing: the piano. I chose a series of piano picture from flickr. I tried to combine them in order to create a nice background. I added a couple of yellow waves and, finally, I changed the opacity to let the background stand out. I immediately understood that the cover as it was, didn’t work. Thanks fot the picturehttp://

I tried another way: having hands playing the keyboard. Starting from a nice hand’s photo I created on it a “tattoo” effect using Photoshop > Adjustment Layer > Blending Options > Multiply. I added a Keyboard and I distorted it using > Warp effect. Using Treshold and extending the piano keys with a simple square brush I recreated the keyboard. To be honest the idea of the sea was still in my mind and since I wasn’t happy of what I got I decided to make another version. Thanks for the pattern to for the hand’s picture

Starting from a Jellyfish picture, I traced a couple of them in Illustrator. After placing them in the centre of my document, I immedediately understood that I could use them as eyes. Using a dummy’s picture that i found on Flickr, I roughly traced the face to get the result on a side. thanks for the dummy / / and fot jellyfish /codyhanson/ /

I made a sort of human face simply putting the jellyfishes where eyes are supposted to be. I tried with different layout and font to get a satisfying result and in the end I decided for a simple and center aligned “Helvetica Light”. I removed the face’s contour because in my opinion it was disturbing. I was very happy with my front cover because I think it creates a nice effect and can bring to different interpretations. I also think it matches quite good with the music.

For the back I decided to use again the jellyfish: I made a symbol of each of them and I reduced the opacity and changed rotation trough Symbol spinner tool. In the next page you can see the final result

I searched only content with a Creative Commons license. All the images can be modified, adapted, or built upon according to Creative Commons License.