Class -

Many layout issues stem from not gridding out the design first to make sure you have established margins and alignment of text and images.
Humans like organization - and when the edge of an image lines up with a logo and some body text below, it enhances readability.
Of course - rules are made to be broken - but prove to me first you can design around a grid (:
Here is a scan of the back of one of my CDs. I gridded it out. Note the scale of larger rectangles to smaller subdivisions, and how the eye moves across the organized text and logo and image.

http://www.jeffprentice.net/teachf/onlinedes_tech/cdgrid1.html

the link below has 11 examples of grids (bottom right), some from Swiss grid master Willi Kunz.

http://www.jeffprentice.net/teachf/onlineelec_des.htm

One of the best things you can do for this course is simply go to your CD collection and take the CD apart and look at the designs, logos, barcodes...I would even go so far as to recommend emulating one of the ones you like. That's the way the old masters learned to draw.

Check this info out - I will be analyzing your work in the context of you having absorbed it (: