Originally Posted by DGates01 (Post 3677890)

A revision of my previous 'Wall Street 2' cover, using a far superior German poster to work off of.

http://scenesteal.com/BR_WALLSTREET2Bsm.png

Originally Posted by karbacca (Post 3669857)

Ahha! Someone got it!
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8833/fastpoint.jpg
and just so everyone else can see it and for all that don't know. The Fast and the Furious IS Point Break, only difference is that they had cars and not surf boards in that movie. Same plot and everything.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3682292)

Doesn't this all presuppose that you want a custom cover to be indistinguishable from a retail version? With UPC and everything?

I personally don't really want that. It's not so much "right" as it is "like a retail one" that you're talking about.

Originally Posted by nolfoc (Post 3682318)

uhh dunno what movie you were watching these 2 movies arent the same at all, for starters one robs banks with mask skydives kidnaps a girl, not one of those things happened in Fast and Furious, you should really watch these 2 movies again

Originally Posted by jamclaur (Post 3682205)

In the end if you like your cover that's all that matters. It's not a matter of needing to go somewhere else. I wouldn't want any members to leave. I'm just saying if you (not you you, a generalized you) don't take criticism well you should just write that you're not looking for remarks you just wanted to post your latest work.

I happen to think your (DVDmike) covers look fine. :)



Agreed. But you'll have to admit that some people are definitely too sensitive when it comes to being critiqued... And that's fine. They just need to tell people not to critique their work.

Originally Posted by kpkelley (Post 3682334)

The basic plot of both is the same:

A young cop goes undercover into the {insert counter-culture} scene.

Originally Posted by Cliff (Post 3682168)

If we're throwing votes in here, I'm gonna have to side with dvdmike... and for exactly the same reasoning behind your friendly criticism. dvdmike's back has a finished, professional look and layout. His credit and copyright blocks are dead on and his use of logos is both accurate and (one of the biggest blunders I see with custom covers) the RIGHT SIZE. He's using the correct specs grid for Fox Home Entertainment and if you told me that his cover was the official artwork for the upcoming Star Wars Blu-ray, I'd have zero hesitation believing that. Yours... looks like a custom cover. You're essentially using the Warner Bros/Sony specs grid for a Fox movie, which is a big pet peeve of mine.

If I compare this to your Wall Street or Machete covers, the differences are even more obvious. They're good for what they are, but they are unmistakably homemade. If we just focus on your Machete cover for a moment, the R-Restricted logo is far too large, it's a logo that a studio would never use on a major new release, the running time is waaaayy off (it's 105 minutes), the credit block is wrong (the film was directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis) and I find the spacing of the lettering to be too identical so there's no clear delineation between a person's first and last name and that same last name and the next person's first name (see ROBERT DE NIRO MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ JESSICA ALBA JEFF FAHEY). You also have a Dolby TrueHD logo on there, when Fox uses DTS-HD Master exclusively. These are the faulty details that scream 'homemade' to me. (another one is throwing logos on the back that don't belong just to fill space- such as covers that contain all of the various sound formats when only one is present on the disc... for example, I don't understand why you have an "NTSC" logo on your Braveheart cover).

So while I could agree that dvdmike might need to take an extra moment or two to really refine the composition of his images and text (and I would stress the word "refine"), I think his eye toward making the back cover look 'real' is one of his greatest strengths as a designer. You're absolutely correct when you say that it's the back cover that requires the most attention and, to my eye, dvdmike gives more than due attention to all the little details that make a cover look 'right.' You can hurry a design all you want if it still looks good in the end.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3682292)

Doesn't this all presuppose that you want a custom cover to be indistinguishable from a retail version? With UPC and everything?

I personally don't really want that. It's not so much "right" as it is "like a retail one" that you're talking about.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3682649)

Thanks for the indirect compliment. I think where I do keep things looking like "retail" stuff is where I see them most--on the spines. I want them to blend in with my other covers, and yes, I guess that means I want it to be indistinguishable.

Originally Posted by Cliff (Post 3682725)

BLEND!!! That's a perfect descriptor of what I think the best custom covers do... They blend. They don't call attention to themselves as custom jobs. I'll give you a perfect example of a set of custom covers that are about as far away from what the studio gave, but I think still maintain that perfect blended quality... The original Zinema Bond series covers. Those were made by a guy essentially saying to the studios, "Here's a better way to do what you're doing." You throw barcodes on those and they're ready for retail.

A lot of customs out there don't pay attention to all those little details that make a custom blend to the point where you no longer realize it's a custom cover. They throw a dozen different unrelated logos on the back, they get the aspect ratio wrong (although even officials do that sometimes), they can't think of something to fill a space so they insert a giant Blu-ray logo... They end up looking more like bootlegs and you know those covers when you see them.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3682292)

Doesn't this all presuppose that you want a custom cover to be indistinguishable from a retail version? With UPC and everything?

Originally Posted by Cliff (Post 3682168)

If I compare this to your Wall Street or Machete covers, the differences are even more obvious. They're good for what they are, but they are unmistakably homemade.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3683278)

Then you find it a good corner and take a percentage of its profits.

Originally Posted by DGates01 (Post 3683150)

As for the Machete cover, again, I appreciate your feedback. But I think you're getting lost in the minutiae. It's a solid design job. And I'm not trying to make it identical to the retail version, because, it's not going to the retail market, or the counterfeit market (which I'm feel that maybe some of these covers might be ending up in).

Originally Posted by DGates01 (Post 3683328)

I take no offense to that. But maybe we're confusing customizing with replicating. My first concern is a cover that is pleasing to the eye, with everything seeming to go where it should.

Originally Posted by DGates01 (Post 3683328)

The smaller details are of secondary importance. I've seen it the other way around. A person can nail the the technical details, but have no real design skills. Those covers, to me, look the worst.

Originally Posted by Cliff (Post 3683722)

And that's my point. An NTSC logo shouldn't really appear on a Blu-ray cover. It's filler. It's minutiae that's aware that it's minutiae.

Originally Posted by Cliff (Post 3683722)

But see, to me, it's the minutiae that can destroy a good design. Look, if someone is anal-retentive enough to:
a) be bothered by the cover the studio designed
b) design their own complete cover - front to back
c) find good paper stock (or photo paper) that will aid in great looking covers
and
d) size and cut covers to the appropriate size

then, don't you think the minutiae is important? I mean, you're so picky that you go to the trouble to design, print and trim your own covers, but not so picky that you care that the stuff that you're printing is accurate or well thought out?




And that's my point. An NTSC logo shouldn't really appear on a Blu-ray cover. It's filler. It's minutiae that's aware that it's minutiae. It exists ONLY to be minutiae. Having the wrong running time or misusing a TrueHD logo serves no purpose on the cover, so why is it there? To ME, that's a sign it's NOT a solid design job, because the design, while being visually intriguing, still has to serve a purpose. Otherwise, what's the point of putting any information on it? I'll give you an example... If you look at dvdmike's Star Wars cover, he DOES have a TrueHD logo in the specs grid. Now, just having called you out for having a TrueHD logo on Machete and telling you that Fox uses DTS-HD Master exclusively, this would seem at odds with that complaint, wouldn't it? But I can guarantee you (without ever even speaking to him and based solely on the quality of the covers I've seen here) that that is a deliberate choice because dvdmike is taking into account Lucasfilm's relationship with Dolby that this might be the rare case where Fox uses TrueHD instead. That's a guy who's really thought this through. He's not just moving stuff around from a previous cover. Everything about what he's done is well thought out. He may benefit from other opinions on occasion, but I don't think he's that off the mark.



But can't you have both? A pleasing/creative design AND getting all of the details just so? Getting the tech specs and the branding of the disc right is far more of a design challenge than someone photoshopping "picture, picture, box of text, picture, picture, picture, box of text, picture, picture, box with credits, giant logos." Trust me, it's much more difficult to mirror what would appear like a genuine studio release while developing unique creative concepts to blend together with. I find dvdmike's covers to be very close to that goal. Like I said, he's most certainly in the area of 'refining' with these. Another example, on his Phantom Menace cover... I would probably slide the back image just a hair more to the right to clear Anakin of the Specs Grid. It's a minor slide; probably 20 pixels. But it's not a poor design by any definition of the word. The design (even as minimalist as it is right now without the special features) looks finished. You could print that up today and have it ready on the shelf. That tells me its a good cover.

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001 (Post 3681398)

There's a difference between "I don't think that works, why don't you try this?" and "That sucks."