DVD Label Part 4 : Fixtures & Fittings

In this final post on the subject of the DVD label, we explore replacing the placeholders created previously with actual final items, much as we did with the DVD inlay, only this time we are using Adobe Illustrator™. The individual items required have already been identified previously in the last post - DVD Label Part 3 : Bricks & Mortar - as the following :
- Main background graphic.
- Age restriction notice.
- Media type.
- Title.
- Legal notices.
- Publisher/Developer logo.

Having reminded ourselves of what is needed, we can now proceed to examine and implement each one in order. Most of them will actually be simple imports of the same items used on the DVD inlay in PhotoShop™.

Main background graphic.

 For the background graphic we will be using the same 3D/holographic circuit board effect we created for the background on the DVD inlay. You may be concerned by the fact that it is the completely wrong size, and indeed shape, as the inlay is considerably larger, and rectangular rather than round, however this will not pose an issue, since we will be resorting to using clipping mask techniques, similar to those used on oddly shaped items in PhotoShop™. Although the result is essentially the same when using a clipping mask in Illustrator­™, the process is entirely different. Firstly rather than operating on 2 layers ( one to display and one as a clipping stencil ) it operates on 2 items within the same single layer, secondly the item to display must be below the item to clip around, rather than the reverse, and lastly both must be selected to apply it, as opposed to only the item to show through.
Using the above knowledge, the precise sequence of events to undertake is as follows :
- First import the background graphic, to do this in Illustrator use the File > Place option. Be sure to import it into the correct layer, the one with the placeholder for the background. Position it suitably in the centre, most likely it will be placed there by default anyway.
- Ensure that the placeholder and actual graphic are on the correct Z planes ( which one is above the other ). We require that the actual graphic be below the placeholder, this can be altered using the context menu on either item, under the Transform section. This section allows you to place an item at the bottom, at the top, or a single level up or down from it's current plane.
- Select both items, right click for the context menu, and Make Clipping Mask. The result should be immediate.

Age restriction notice, Publisher/Developer logo, Media type & Title.

 I have combined these items because the process it exactly identical on all of them. There are actually two methods of completing these items, both will produce the same results, therefore i will go through both of them, allowing you to chose whichever you prefer.
Before resorting to either method, the correct items must be imported with the place option, ensure that in each case you have the correct layer selected when importing the item, this will make things much easier in the long run since Illustrator™ will place them into the selected layer, unlike PhotoShop™ that tends to create new layers for imported items.
Once placed, they need to be resized accordingly, since the placeholders were already created precisely to the required sizes. Illustrator™ actually snaps to much better than PhotoShop™ also. In the latter it does so when doing most operations, but not so much when resizing, which can be a real pain, no such issues here. Simply dragging the corner will resize items, there is no need to confirm the size here either, it's all done on-the-fly. Remember to always hold shift when doing so to maintain the aspect ratio on all the above items. The simply move the item until it snaps to the corner of the corresponding placeholder, then resize until the opposing corners stick to one-another. At this stage we are ready to explore the two options.
The first method is to resort once again to clipping masks. You may have concerned that some of the items - for example the logo - do not match the shape of the placeholder, which may present you with worries that it would leave the clipping shape showing through on these portions of image. Thankfully this is not the case, since Illustrator™ essentially makes the clipping shape entirely invisible at the same time as it trims off the excess on the other image. Since you have resized it so there is no excess, the result is the the placeholder, used as the clipping shape, is simply hidden.
The second method, is actually just to manually hide the placeholder, the easiest way of doing so, is to select it and use the Control toolbar that should automatically appear near the top of the screen, if it does not, it can be enabled in the Window menu. It should have an Opacity setting, set it to 0% in order to hide the placeholder graphic entirely.

Control Menu with Opacity Setting

Legal notices.

 This brings us the the boring but necessary legal notices, as we have previously established on other posts this should follow the outside of the label, and be upright when read from the centre of the disc. As for as contents is concerned, after examining the existing products in the post DVD Label Part 1 : The Beginning we can see that it generally contains warnings against illegal reproductions, as well as the usual array of copyright information. Based upon these facts and the information we put in the legal section of the DVD inlay, we settled on the following :
"Tactical Advances™ © 2014 Spider Leopard Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Tactical Advances and the Spider Leopard logo are trademarks of Spider Leopard Ltd. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, rental, public performance or broadcast of this game is a violation of the applicable laws."
One interesting thing to point out is that unlike PhotoShop™, Adobe Illustrator™ will automatically select other layers if you click on visible items that are present in a layer not currently selected, this can be both a blessing or a hindrance depending on the current task. There is a useful feature to aid in the situations where it poses issues, you can lock layers so that all their content remains visible but cannot be selected or interacted with in any way. simply click the space between the eye symbol and the layer name, a padlock will appear symbolizing it's locked, click it again to re-enable the layer.

Layer Unlocked and Locked

The next task is to actually place the text where is appropriate, which as one would expect is simply a case of selecting the Lorem Ipsum placeholder text and overwriting it with the above paragraph. The text will almost certainly be a different length to that which it is replacing, and as such will not appear centered in terms of the gap in text at the bottom of the disc. In order to adjust this one must select the text, 3 yellow lines will appear, one at the end, one at the start, and one in the centre - called the mid-point - firstly ensure the start and end ones are positioned so that all the text is visible, but nothing more ( moving the end one shorter than the text will cut off the end of the writing ). Then use the mid-point to centre the text, by dragging it into the horizontal centre of the disc. It should snap-to.

Mid-Point Centered on Disc

And that is the DVD label complete in itself, all that remains is to export it ready for print. The print company we have used as a benchmark is exactly the same one as that in the DVD inlay, therefore so are the requirements, the process is also the same, Save As PDF, remembering to remove any down-sampling and compression. If you can not recall the exact procedure used before, it can be found in DVD Inlay Part 4 : Fixtures & Fittings 

Evaluation.

At this point obviously the DVD label is complete, but this we still need to evaluate what we conclusions can be drawn from this section of the project. The most notable thing from my point of view was how much quicker this section was completed compared to the others. Perhaps mostly due to the fact that the majority of items are imported from work done on the DVD inlay. Indeed even though the company logo involved significant work, using complex pen tool features, as well as others, it still progressed much quicker thanks to vector tools than many of the elements in PhotoShop™, but also I suspect part or this was mere feeling rather than fact, due to the fact the logo is effectively part of this section, due to being vector based within Illustrator™, but I had already completed it prior to this, because it was required for insertion in the DVD inlay.
All the same I can't help but feel that perhaps I could have included more items, and used more features on the label, yet whenever I think about it in more depth, actually it already uses quite a quite a wide array of features, even if most are within the logo, but also that the end result is perfectly suited for it's role as a DVD label for this PC game. However an alternative scenario would have been to go down a different route, and rather than paste the inlay theme onto the disc, placing bitmaps, we could have decided to design a new feel from scratch, something more simplistic in appearance, but also more suited to vector tools. Naturally we would still keep within the constraints of the main theme of the game, and it would not simply be for the sake of using vector tools, since the results could potentially be used for any future related materials where more simplistic looking, or constantly resized artwork would be better suited.