Shopping Cart

In SureThing, I first created a new label, and set my background using the "Use Your Own Background" command.

For the background, I'm choosing a photograph that, at first glance, might appear kind of ordinary. It has no identifiable subjects, and falls under the category of "Photos I thought would look cool at the time, but turned out kind of boring when the film was developed and I looked at the prints" (if you're like me, you take LOTS of these types of photos). But don't despair, such photos can make great background images. This particular one was of a coral reef on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Note: I very purposefully chose a photo for my background that did not contain people. I want it to be a true background and not the primary subject of the label.

If you don't have personal photos to use as backgrounds, you may want to try some of the background images we've assembled. Click here to check them out.

This step is important. Your loved one wants to see pictures that are meaningful to you, that bring back fond memories of times spent together, etc. I'm going to use a close-up photo of our darling subjects, and place it in one of the four design areas.*

* The center hole of a CD presents some interesting challenges for a designer. It can be especially tricky when working with photographs of people. I approach the CD not as a single canvas with a hole in the center, but rather four separate design areas. I quite often create designs that don't adhere to this system, but when I want an ordinary photo to look cool, I find that placing it into one of the four areas and cropping roughly according to the colored regions generates good results.

For the main title, I selected a handwritten-style script font with a romantic and personal flair, and I chose a light color to create as much contrast between the background image and the text as possible.

For accent, I selected a heart character from the Valentines Things font to enhance the Valentine-y feel. It fits thematically, but it also helps fill out design area #1 and focuses attention on the message.

For the sub-text, I chose another script font more suitable for smaller sizes, but that still has a romantic appearance. I also chose a color with good contrast against the photographic background, but for Valentine accent, I selected a pinkish hue.

Choosing an appropriate typeface is very important. It establishes the mood of the design. A structured, symmetrical typeface such as Helvetica or Arial just wouldn't cut it. Remember: we're designing a love letter that just happens to be a CD label, and all the design elements should convey the same message. Don't believe me? Compare the following:



In the example above, the words say "I Love You," but the font itself doesn't convey it very well. Type matters, so make your choices carefully. Again, script fonts are your best bet for a Valentine's Day message, but italicized serif fonts would be a good choice too, such as this:



Not only did I italicize it, but I set it in lowercase to enhance the personal feel.

I designed this last effect to fill the #3 quadrant of my design area, but I also wanted a way to display additional photographs on my label. I decided it would look neat if I created the appearance of Polaroid snapshots tossed haphazardly on the label, as they might appear on, say, a coffee table.

First I selected the photos to use and inserted them to my label using the Picture Tool. Then I scaled/cropped them all to the same size. You can make yours larger or smaller. The size isn't as important so much as you scale them all to the same size.

Then I used the Rotate tool and rotated each image in such a way to give a random appearance. I overlapped a couple of the photos to enhance the randomness (but notice in a general way that they still complete the design quadrant, and more or less follow the contour of the CD).

For the coup-de-grace, I created a border around each photo to give the appearance of snapshots or Polaroids. To do this, I simply double-clicked the image to open its Properties dialog box, then clicked the "Set Border" button, selected a line style and set its color to something white-ish.

All of the snapshots were from our honeymoon, which tied in thematically with the rest of my Valentine's Day label design, but these could be pictures of your kids, pets, or whatever sparks a warm glow in your loved one's heart!

I created my jewel case using elements from the CD label itself. The main photo, for instance, is the same one I placed in design area #2 of the CD, but not scaled down quite so much, and the fonts are the same, but in different colors. I added a rose from the Valentine Things font in the upper right corner, and repeated my Polaroid snap shot effect.

The white area below the main photo would also be a good place to include a hand-written note to further personalize the gift.

When I put the whole thing together, I was pleased how well it worked as an actual Valentine's Day card. The jewel case sits perfectly on a desktop, but you could also take the jewel case insert out of the plastic case and use it as a standard card. Have fun with it!

— Sean Cavanaugh