DESCRIPTION

The purpose of this project is to design and layout a CD package. The components of the project include: A CD Front and back cover bi-fold case insert that includes an inside and outside spread. The back side also includes 1/4 inch folded spines for the sides of the case.

Beethoven was chosen as the artist, while Symphony No. 3 & Symphony No. 6 were chosen as the featured pieces of music. Using Symphony No. 6: “The Pastoral” as the design inspiration, two original photographs were used as the backgrounds on the front and back covers. The photos have been cropped and adjusted using Photoshop to fit the package dimensions. The spine background colors have been sampled from the photos for color family consistency. To provide the best contrast for readability, black and white were selected for text colors. All background images were created in Photoshop. The final package layout and design was completed in Adobe inDesign CS3.

Bio Brief Content

Widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history as no one else before or since. Rooted in the Classical traditions of Joseph Haydn and Mozart, his art reaches out to encompass the new spirit of humanism and incipient nationalism expressed in the works of Goethe and Friedrich Von Schiller, his elder contemporaries in the world of literature; the stringently redefined moral imperatives of Kant; and the ideals of the French Revolution, with its passionate concern for the freedom and dignity of the individual. He revealed more vividly than any of his predecessors the power of music to convey a philosophy of life without the aid of a spoken text; and in certain of his compositions is to be found the strongest assertion of the human will in all music, if not in all art. Though not himself a Romantic, he became the fountainhead of much that characterized the work of the Romantics who followed him, especially in his ideal of program or illustrative music, which he defined in connection with his Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony as “more an expression of emotion than painting.” In musical form he was a considerable innovator, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto, and quartet; while in the Ninth Symphony he combined the worlds of vocal and instrumental music in a manner never before attempted. His personal life was marked by a heroic struggle against encroaching deafness, and some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of his life when he was quite unable to hear. In an age that saw the decline of court and church patronage, he not only maintained himself from the sale and publication of his works but also was the first musician to receive a salary with no duties other than to compose how and when he felt inclined. The works of Beethoven that undoubtedly had the most influence over succeeding generations were the Fifth and Ninth symphonies, with their progression from storm and stress to triumph; the Sixth Symphony, too, greatly influenced composers with a programmatic bent. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies, César Franck’s Symphony in D Minor, and all of Mahler’s first four symphonies are striking examples of Beethoven’s spiritual progeny, though few will grant that they equal, let alone surpass, their model.