Half-Life [PS2 Version]
Cover Redesign
Video Game/DVD Case Cover Design
During college, I'd been meaning to play the Half-Life series for a long time, and after getting my copy of The Orange Box for PlayStation 3 in 2008, I figured I should probably play the original Half-Life before I got to the sequels. My little brother reminded me he'd purchased it for PlayStation 2 a few years previous; I'd forgotten about it, as he'd bought it used, and it'd come with a generic cover and handwritten label.
I initially set out to find a high-resolution version of the official cover that I could print out and put on this cover-less copy, only to discover what that official design looked like (see below). I was not pleased at all with the multiple points of poor design (in my opinion), and felt something needed to be done.
Case study: scan of the original PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life.
(Sourced from the Internet.)
(Sourced from the Internet.)
Case study: scan of the cover of the PlayStation 3 Edition of The Orange Box.
(Sourced from the Internet.)
So, I decided I wanted to do what I could to match the design of The Orange Box's cover, for sake of continuity. The hardest part was hunting down the font which was used for it, but thankfully I found it (Neo Sans designed by Sebastian Lester for Monotype), because it really helps further tie the two covers together better as a collective series.
My final redesign.
Just about everything was recreated from scratch, including logos that couldn't be immediately sourced, and copyright information (which I also updated here and there). The only things that aren't recreations are the game screenshots, UPC code, and a few other elements which I culled from a high-resolution copy of the original/official PS2 cover design sourced from the Internet. I even used reference of a few other versions of Half-Life game covers (and a website or two) for game synopsis text, considering the official PS2 cover didn't have that, which seemed odd.
In designing the cover, I wanted it to look as much like an authentic PS2 game cover as possible, and I think I pulled it off quite well. (I did a few custom variations with the black-boxed portions of the "PlayStation 2" logos on the front/spine, but in the end, I thought going with the authentic PS2 cover design was the best choice.)
In designing the cover, I wanted it to look as much like an authentic PS2 game cover as possible, and I think I pulled it off quite well. (I did a few custom variations with the black-boxed portions of the "PlayStation 2" logos on the front/spine, but in the end, I thought going with the authentic PS2 cover design was the best choice.)
The redesign in action.
I tried to design this both to fit the correct measurements of an authentic PS2 case cover, and also to fit within the restraints of a regular 8.5×11” sheet of paper (so that others could easily download and print it out for their own use; attached as a PDF to this project!). In my experience, a few centimeters seemed to get cut off when I initially printed the final result. But managing to adjust the print previews well enough, I got it to center as best I could and print without issue (although it did take a few test prints).
