Design, Photoshop illustration and artwork
The Brief
To design, from scratch, a cover that would show-off the game and the Ford Racing franchise.
The Solution
As there were no existing elements to work with some research had to be done to source images of the Ford GT car and a suitable environment to put it in. As the game was an officially endorsed Ford product, a medium-res image was found on their corporate website. This would be used as a base to re-draw the car.
Work on illustrating the car began in Illustrator. The linework was broken into separate parts - headlights, bonnet, windscreen etc - to enable easy editing and colouring, ready for when it was taken into Photoshop.
In Photoshop all the separate elements were brought in and placed on individual layers in a large hi-res (300dpi) file. Gradually, each element was built up with colour to reveal something looking more like a Ford GT, but one that lacked any realism. The next stage was to add subtle highlights, glows and reflections. These would make the car look more realistic.
The second part of the process was to place the completed car in an environment that looked real, and like something from the actual game. It was decided to put the car on a bridge, like the Golden Gate, as a similar structure could be found in the game. This photo was modified and treated from a hi-res holiday snap and all the surrounding elements, like the sky, city, and road, were generated by hand on the computer.
With the cover finished, and approved by Ford, the remaining part of the job was completed. In comparison to the illustration, the artwork process was relatively simple. Single templates were created for the DVD inlay, retail box and manual and then multiple language versions were subsequently made.
The end result is a strong looking front-cover illustration with informative packaging. It sums up neatly the exciting arcade nature of the game, and really stands out on store shelves.