Entry 2 - Planning the template

Size

It is important to keep in mind the fact that a DVD paper sleeve is not just designed as one would with a poster as it includes its certain sections i.e. the front, the back along with the spine area. So I must take this into consideration and provide myself with guidelines before including images. I must also remember to include the bleed area within the guidelines as this would basically show me the areas which are to be cropped out. The bleed area and guidelines essentially enables a degree of accuracy in my design.

I carried out a bit of research on the typical size of a DVD Amaray case which basically aided me to deduce the overall size of the file I will be creating and where about I would be placing ruler guidelines.

Site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_case

“The printed paper sleeve for a standard DVD case can be printed on a standard A4 sheet of paper which, after cropping, can be slipped into the outer jacket. The paper room on the front and back panels of the case is 129.5mm × 183mm and spine panels have a width of 14mm or less. This gives 273mm × 183mm as resulting maximum overall dimensions for the printout (which is less than the 297mm × 210mm of an A4 paper sheet).”

This is the template i will be working with 

Dpi (standard 300 dpi print/ standard 72 dpi web)

In terms of the file’s DPI resolution, I have chosen to use 300dpi as this is the standard print resolution, which is a necessary resolution to work with when creating a DVD inlay.

Transparency

I have chosen to create the overall file using a transparent layer. Working with transparent layers essentially enables flexibility when designing mainly because it would allow me transfer sections of an image to another file without carrying unwanted parts. It also enables a smaller file size which is generally better as the load time and the amount of storage space required will be small.

Whereas when taking a section of an image from a layer which is not transparent e.g. with a white background, there may be a chance that I will carry over an unwanted discreet white outline around the selected content. This would be inefficient as it would take time to carefully remove the unwanted background. The file size would also be quite large compared to that of a transparent layer as more pixels would be used in the files.

I conducted a brief plan of the overall look of the design on the DVD inlay and Label on word using the templates of each with shapes and arrows. This is saved in my work area.