Post #528149 by DejaVoodoo on Wed, May 5, 2010 9:26 AM

Thanks to everyone who replied and offered their advice and glowing words of encouragement. :) I must confess I had a minor artists crisis recently...you know, the one where you think your work is sh!t and should be destroyed in a violent hell-fire. I considered scrapping the entire project and reimagining it from the ground up. Luckily, I came to my senses and realized that I could make what I'd already completed work...somehow. I just needed to tweak it further and address the challenges I was facing head on. Anyway, with all that being said, there've been MORE changes made!

I've now retitled the project (hopefully it'll stick!) to "In The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room: The Enchanted Sounds Of Poynesian Pop." I love the song and even though it technically isn't Exotica, per se, it's still a heck of a lot of fun to listen and sing along to. Let's call it my homage to Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.

I've also reconfigured the text to better fit the shape of my "canvas" and get rid of a lot of the negative space I originally had going on in my design. I know some negative space is a good thing, but the background image was so detailed, it just looked silly to have such a short title and all this space around it. Plus, the scale of the type, compared with the scale of the Tiki and torches, looked odd and disproportionate. So, here's what I've got so far:

First you'll see the design as it fills the entire square canvas followed by a "matted" version that only reveals what will actually be printed on the disc.

Now, I need your help, oh wise members of Tiki Central! I've narrowed my font options down to two (maybe three, thanks to the kind words of tobunga in the previous post!), however I'm not sure which one I prefer in conjunction with the subtitle/secondary font, Chinese Rocks, I've chosen (which ISN'T changing). The main font in the photo above is titled Motel King. Here's how it pairs up with the subtitle sans all the fancy text effects.

And now here's option #2. It's called Hideaway.
Honestly? I like 'em both, although I think Hideaway is too tall and similar to Chinese Rocks whereas Motel King is low slung and wider offering a nice contrast to the condensed caps of Chinese Rocks. Still, Hideaway ain't bad. Too much contrast could be bad.

I'm also slightly troubled with the Liberty Records logo. I like the shape of it in the overall concept of my design, however, a vintage Exotica collection titled "In The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Room" would never appear on Liberty Records - not if Uncle Walt had anything to say about it! Perhaps the Disneyland Records logo might look better?

Please keep the comments and suggestions coming. I feel this project is nearing completion. I just need to square away a few more details...