Secret7 - Photoshop and Refining Designs

I played around on Photoshop with the elements I had made and actually settled with some designs which I thought were working quite well. This happened earlier than I had expected because I usually get so caught up in all the options available on Photoshop that my ideas can get carried off into all sorts of directions which it is then hard to bring back down to earth. I think it is important at this stage to clarify the concepts for each of my designs. 

S729 - Clearest Blue

• The song is from the album 'Every Open Eye' and this is a line repeated in the song as well, this is where the eye image came from. 
• There is the idea of meeting 'more than half way' so I wanted to divide the space in half as if to show a line where crossing it would be more than half way. 
• The colour blue I have used obviously links to the title of the song and is also the way I am choosing to link the designs together. 
• The song feels playful and upbeat which is why the brush strokes are slightly off beat and imperfect. 
• The line 'you, were the perfect star but its not enough' drove me to have a star floating amongst other shapes and marks and not standing out and shining. It kind of links to the concept that perfect to one person is just normal to someone else. 

S731 - Worry

• The main idea for this stemmed from 'this moon only shines a half to make us feel whole' so I wanted to show this through a simple collection of shapes. 
• I added in the closed eye to link to the line ' and when my eyes are closed I can start to feel you staring at me'. I get the impression the lyrics are talking about things happening in his dreams so the moon and closed eyes are relevant here. 
• The sea is a personal worry of mine and I think the fear of the unknown is something a lot of people can relate to on some level. I wanted it to look like the character that is the moon is feeling ready to be immersed into the sea below starting to deal with problems and moving on with life. The song gets across the idea that he's starting to feel ok dealing with it by himself now so I wanted this to be a calming cover, almost like the calm after some kind of storm. 

S733 - Imagine

• I found this one really hard because there is a lot of clichés that have been done many times before as this is such a famous song. I wanted to use 'above us only sky' and the main concept for this, using a circle to represent the world wrapped in a layer of sky. It gives the impression of unity by everyone in the world having the sky in common. Thats what the song is about really. 
• I wanted the get the idea across of the world living 'as one' so I used a number of different mark making techniques to represent different people mixing and blending. I made two layers of this and rotated one so the individual marks actually overlapped showing bonding between humans. 
• The idea of peace is really key in this song and I initially wanted it to be really calm and soft to look at but instead I chose some harsher marks to mix into the collection because it highlights the darker issues in the world which Lennon was trying to battle against with this song. 

After reaching a composition I was happy with for each design, I went back to using ink to create some textures I could apply to my work. I felt that the designs I had were flat and did not have much to explore beyond the initial visual impact. I want the design to remain simple but just add a bit more depth. I feel that adding the textures has achieved this, playing around with different layer styles and effects helped me to reach these solutions. I have selected my two best options for each design here and will now finalise the one I think is most successful. 

I think the texture on the blue line for the 'Clearest Blue' image adds a sense of play to the image and gets across the lively nature of the music. I am planning on using the design where this texture is more prominent. I used a dry brush texture on the 'Worry' image to hint at a downward movement which connects to the concept idea I wrote about previously. I like how there are streaks of blue showing on the right hand image but the overall effect of the darker moon on the left works better overall. The higher contrast against the background make it stand out more and the texture on it is more consistent across the shape. Finally, I added a faint texture to the blue area for 'Imagine' just to make the image feel more whole and to avoid looking so flat. I actually like the design with the full blue background but to me it resembles the sea and not the sky, I think the circular design connects better to my concept.