OUGD603 MUNA - Further Development - Competition Brief (Brief Five)

To develop this idea further, I decided to focus solely on the image to begin with. The main aim of this experimentation was to try to incorporate the colours purple and black into the design as these are the most relevant colours that echo themes within the song. 

Firstly I tried to simply overlay the colour purple. This was unsuccessful as a lot of the detail of the image was lost, and it was also still to happy to represent the song.

I played with the blending methods of the colours to try to make part of the image darker. This is more successful than the previous attempt, however it still isn't really what I'm aiming for.

I made this quick blend of purples on black using the brush tool on Photoshop and then played around with the settings. 

I played around with the settings some more and this is what it looked like. It's definitely on its way to the final outcome however I still think there is room for improvement. This still wasn't what I was going for, however. I feel the colours are coming through too much in blocks.

For this reason I used the liquify tool and played with the blend of the colours.

This is what the image looked like after I had applied a layer setting to this.

At this point, however, I have changed my mind. I think i actually prefer the blended colours together on their own without the image in the background; it keeps the brightness of the colour scheme and it also echoes the concept more without the image - it is all based on colour psychology. 

For this reason I am going to experiment with just the colours and blending them together with the liquify tool.

After experimenting with the background for a good hour this is the final design I have chosen. I think it's really successful; it shows the colour psychology and echoes the themes of depression and suicide. I used quite a smooth blend to show that suicide and depression are subjects that need to be talked about, however it's a gentle subject so the blend between each colour is very gentle.

I am now going to add type to the image. I am going to use the lines:

This is not what you signed up for

I could pray to God

But I'm not invested

And you get what you pay for

These are my favourite lines in the song; they reflect the fact that a lot of queer people aren't invested in religion because of the way they speak about the LGBTQ+ community.

This is the first attempt I had at adding the text. I decided that I would keep the lyrics all in capital letters, as this is the correct way of writing the bands name MUNA. I'm not particularly focusing on the placement of the text currently, more on which typeface fits the design. I don't think this typeface fits very well as it's very distracting from the imagery. 

The same applies for this typeface; its a title font and it's very difficult to read when the image is smaller - this is good to note as I'm unsure what size the zine will be printed at.

I have decided on the typeface below after trying numerous other typefaces. I chose DIN Condensed as it is condensed similar to MUNA's branding, however the typeface represents me more than a serif would - Sans serifs are my favourite typefaces and I never really use serif typefaces in my work.