Design and Creation of DVD Label

DVD Disc Label Design

The next step in the assignment was to create the DVD disc label using Adobe Illustrator. To get an idea of layout and inspiration for my design I looked at some examples of Xbox 360 game discs. Here are a couple I looked at.

They show that the Xbox branding is compulsory across the top along with an esrb or pegi rating along with the game studio logos and any other relevant logos. Then the background is made up from images relating to the game/ theme of the game.

I also used a dvd template in order to measure out the correct size for the image.

With this in mind I came up with the following design.

Now I was ready to start creating the image in illustrator

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Creating the Disc Label

To start with I had to set up the correct artboard in illustrator with the correct size, colour and ppi so it would be printed to a good quality. I made the artboard slightly larger than the size of the disc as this would not affect the end result. Here is a shot of the settings used.

Now that my artboard had been created I needed to set out some guide lines. These included the bleed edge, the edge of the disc and the two inner circles of the disc. To do this I used the ellipse tool, with stroke set to black, then by double clicking I was able to specify the exact size of circle I would need. Once I had created each circle I aligned them all with the central point then clicked each one individually and selected make guide in order to turn them all into guides.

Next I need to create the main background image of the whole disc and I would do this using a picture of a bowl which turned out to be quite useful as it was a nice rounded shape.

I started with the below stock image of some bowls that got from the internet.

Once this was loaded onto a new artboard in illustrator I got to work on it. To start with I did not want to use a plain image of these bowls so I used the image trace tool to add an effect to the image, I having tried the 3 colour, 6 colour and 16 colour image trace I preferred the 16 colour trace so applied this to the image as you can still see quite a bit of detail of the bowl but it gives it a cartoon effect which I thought looked good.

Next the image needed vectoring in order to edit and work with properly, so I then clicked the expand tool in order to separate the image out into it’s individual elements.

At this point each individual item was still grouped together so the whole image still acted as one to to be able to remove individual elements I ungrouped the selected items through the object menu, then I deleted out all the bits I did not want leaving me with just one bowl.

This gave me a good round image that could be imposed over my DVD outline. I was not worried about the blue at the top of the image as this would be covered by the Xbox branding. So I once again grouped it all together through the object menu, so it could be moved easily and placed it onto the main artboard.

Once placed into the centre of the guide circles I was able to resize the image to fit within them better. I did this whilst holding shift and alt in order to retain the quality and aspect ratio of the image.

Then I used the ellipse tool, with fill set to white, to cut out the central hole of the disc. I did this by lining up with the central point on the artboard then holding shift and alt drew a circle to fit the inner guide.

Next I needed to add on the Xbox disc logo. And I did this using an Xbox disc image I found on the internet.

Once loaded on a separate artboard in illustrator I use the pen tool to create a selection area around the the part of the image I needed. I had the fill and stroke set to transparent so I could see what I was doing and also so there was no outline around my selection. I drew a triangle with the pen tool then whilst holding shift I curved the lines to fit the edge of the image. Once this was done I used a clipping mask to make a cut out of the Xbox logo I wanted.

This method work OK for me however the edges were not perfect.

Once this was done I placed the image onto the main artboard and resized it to fit the top of the disc label (again holding shift and alt).

I then used the ellipse tool to draw a transparent circle around the edge of the image, not the bleeding edge. I the created a clipping mask in order to tidy the image up where it had crept into the bleeding edge, this gave it a more refined look.

Next I added the pegi 18 logo to the image. I did this by using the image I had previously used on my amaray cover and loaded it in illustrator. I did this by directly placing the image onto the artboard and rezising it whilst holding shift and alt.

Then I went on to create the logo for the fictional game studio that my game was produced by. My idea was to call it Potato Games so that it was in keeping with the humorous side of the project. So naturally I started with an image of a potato I found on the internet.

I loaded this onto a new artboard in illustrator and set to work. I started with the image trace tool, and again used the 16 colour image trace as this was an effect that I liked and thought looked good.

Once done I was able to expand the image to separate it out into individual items, which meant I was able to then delete the white background, once I had ungrouped the selection, leaving me with an image of just the potato.

Next I added the text. I did this using the type tool so I clicked an area outside of the image of the potato and typed the text out onto 2 lines. Once done I played around with the font styles until I found one that I liked. This done I moved the text over the image of the potato then changed the font size until it fit nicely. Then I grouped it together with the image of the potato.

This was now my completed logo for my fictional game studio, so I dragged and dropped it onto my main image and resized it to fit.

Unfortunately when I did this the software created 2 extra symbols next to the text on my game studio logo which I was unable to get rid of which was rather frustrating.

All that was left to do was add the title, so using the type tool I added it in just below the xbox branding. I set the fill to black and the stroke to blue then changed the font until I found one I liked.

And there you have it, below is the final render of my dvd disc label for space bowls.