Studio Brief 01 - Evaluation

The feedback received during this brief played the most important role in shaping the final cover design, more so than any other brief thus far. Since Secret 7" is a live brief, the opinion of the public is a definite deciding factor on whether a design is successful or not. Gaining feedback on what idea, design and composition works during the process of the brief helps get an idea of what would to appeal to the general public.

Therefore despite not pursuing the idea of creating a character based on the characters of Studio Films, the feedback given on the main two ideas suggests that the concept would have been too implicit to reflect Dream 3. People favour the more reserved designs of the photo manipulations as compared to the colourful abstract expressionist designs. And because the character idea would have followed a similar colour scheme, it may have been less successful than once thought. This shows that within the nature of this competition, the more explicit the idea/mood/atmosphere that is reflected in the design, the more successful it is in appealing to the songs audience.

After reviewing the feedback and criticisms, another aspect which is important for this brief and any other is the ability to effectively communicate ideas through design. The fact that people thought of different songs whilst looking at the designs meant I did not effectively reflect the song. This is important in the context of Secret 7" as the public do not know what record they will be buying. It would be unfavourable to suggest a song such as Tame Impala's The Less I Know The Better when the design is meant for Dream 3. 

As a result the final design of the cover sleeve is one that is appropriate and fitting to represent Dream 3’s mood and Max Richter’s aims of the song. The dark tones within the image are reflective of not only the atmosphere created by the song, but of the night which connotes dreaming and the act of sleeping. The surrealistic landscape created by mirroring the landscape and the inverted colour scheme represent the unrealistic nature of dreams.