Random CD Cover Design Game

Design Something Every Day 8/ 365

I read about this along time ago on the Facebook Group: Create your Own CD Cover. I like to call it the “Random CD Cover Game.” By harnessing the power of the internet, it is a way for designers to practice designing something everyday.

I like to imagine when playing this game that a client gives me his favorite photo and some text and then asks you to try to make something interesting out of it. That’s also why the other name I give this game is the “Difficult Client CD Cover Game.” Join in and let me see some of the things you’ve created!

Here are the rules:

1. Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. I actually prefer to use compfight.com and search for images with a random word generated from #1, just so I can find images covered under the Creative Commons Share & Share Alike license.
4. Use Photoshop, Gimp or even Microsoft Paint to put it together, who cares what you use, so long as you have fun and learn.

Design Something Everyday 8/ 365

Source: Original photo by: Don Solo

Design Something Everyday: Day 5: Bali Hai

I’ve been working on stuff everyday, but I haven’t been posting daily, so I’ve got a bunch of stuff to put up.

The first of these is a digital doodle of a song from the wonderful 1949 Rogers and Hammerstein play South Pacific, Bali Hai. I was inspired by the production I saw last weekend at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theatre. Of course, I was familiar with the song and the play mostly through the 1958 film version, but seeing it live was a thrill. Bali Hai is a mythical and mystical island that represents an unattainable paradise. That image of a hazy double volcano island has formed a core of the Tiki and Polynesian Pop mythos.

The song is a classic in American Musical theater, and for me the best part is very influential in the world of Tiki and P0lynesian Pop Culture. Below you can see the wonderful scene and listen to the song Bali Hai from the 1958 film, do you hear it? It calls to you..

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Links:

• Bali Hai: Mythical and mystical island, if you listen it will call to you…
• 5th Avenue Theatre
• Rogers & Hammerstein
• South Pacific (1958 film)
• Tales of the South Pacific, the 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning  book by James Michener, source for the film and musical productions.