Reflecting on AS' Digipak

Back in AS, my group and I had to designed an individual album cover (digipak) for our artists Rizzle Kick. As this was my first time using Adobe Photoshop, I was unfamiliar with some of the tools of the programme. Here is the digipak that I designed during the summer last year:

 

Rahi and I were the two main artists for our single, 'Down with the trumpet'. I had an idea to have me on the front cover and Rahi on the back to illustrate a binary type of bond between the two. The content of a digipak is shown above- it contains an image of the artists, the name of the artists and the name of the album. However the font used in this design is unreadable and the colour scheme is not matching therefore breaking the conventions of designing a digipak. The information within the spine of the digipak is accurate but again the font is not matching to the image and there is no clear distinction between the spine and the front cover. Although it is fitting to our genre,Hip hop/R'n'B, the quality seemed to be lost whilst I was resizing the text. On the back cover, I added the barcode of the CD, the record label and the CD writing and the bottom right. I did not, however, add the track list of the album which is essential for designing a digipak.

 

Looking back at this design, I have improved my skills with using Photoshop. I learnt how to resize images without losing the quality and I also learnt how to add filters to images to give a deeper effect. I have a better understanding of what the essentials are for designing a digipak such as adding the track list and having a matching colour scheme etc. Here is an example of my latest design of my digipak for our artist , Deseree Diamond.

 



PROGRESS

I have almost finished my digipak final and will be soon moving on to my advertisement. I have been slacking a little while with the blogging tasks but I shall soon be back on track. Doing the digipak was easy, with a little help from the students in my class, in the group and from examples from google I knew the DO'S and DONT'S on what should be on a digipak and on advertisements.

From now on I will be balancing out my blogging and making sure I blog everytime I am in class and also at home.

Final Design for digipak (Exterior)

This is the final design for my digipak, I will create the interior when we return in the new year. As I was given a feedback, I was able to modify my initial design of the digipak. Since the previous design, I was able to add a shading filter to the image of our artist to add an interesting effect to the image. I also changed the font as it was easier to read and decided to follow the colour scheme of Black, Gold and White. On the back cover, I included the cd writing and other logos such as HMV and Virgin to create realism within the design.

Feedback on Digipak mockup

Draft version of my digipak.

 



This is a draft version of my digipak. Whilst i was creating the front cover of the album i received some feedback from my teacher, he said the main artist should be visible to the audience and not covered with effects which make it hard for the audience as well as the examiner to recognise the artist. I also need to use colours which are suitable for my genre. As you can see on the front cover and the back cover i have used three different fonts which is one of the 'Don'ts' on creating our ancillary product. I will aim to use two clear fonts as a maximum. The back cover of the album looks very plain and doesn't include the vital information such as the barcode, record label logo and the information about the production of the album. From working on this draft digipak and receiving feedback from my teacher i will make sure i create a digipak which is suitable for my genre and includes the important aspects listed above when working on my final ancillary product.

Photo of the artist

As everyone within my group are designing their own digipak, we all had to choose different pictures of our artist. I decided to use this particular picture because the framing is really strong and there is a sense of ambiguity on how she feels therefore the audience may generate different ideas about the deeper meaning of the album. I cropped the background slightly because the rest of the image was not needed. Although I only done the mockup, I believe that my final design of the digipak will still contain  this image.

Photoshop Mockup

Here is my initial design of the digipak. On the right hand side is the front cover, it has the essential details that is needed for a digipak. One being an image of the main artist, Deseree Diamond, another being the name of the artist (which is not written on the face of the artist) and lastly the name of the album. As you can see in the image above, I have included all of these things. In the middle is the spine, all that needs to be included in this section is the name of the artist and the album. On the left hand side is back cover, I decided to use an image of a diamond key to demonstrate a clear representation of the artist because it is one of the aspects she is famous for. Also the key has a strong bond with the title of the album 'Freedom'. It illustrates the physical and mental prison she is escaping from. The black background may suggest that she is currently depressed by something .The track list are on the far left hand side and beneath is the barcode and the record label. Now as this is not the final version of the digipak, there are things I will need to improve on in order to make this successful. For instance, I would need to include the CD writing at the bottom of the back section of the digipak. Also I would like add filters or effects that would be more intriguing and relating to the artist. and lastly I would like to add more colour on the front section of the digipak.

Overview of the costume for Ancillary products

The ancillary products are simply products such as the digipak and magazines, designs that are used to establish an artist and give them recognition amongst their audience. Our artist, Deseree Diamond, will need to take exquisite photos for the digipak so that we could put it on the front cover and the inside of the package. The costume will play will vital role in designing and shooting the images for the digipak. The costume will illustrate the identity of the artist and show the target audience what they are trying to represent.

These particular clothing will give the representation we are looking for our artist, which is to display her as a luxurious independent woman with class. 

Possible photographs for the ancillary products

 

Reflecting on music video

In my own opinion I do not think the filming for our music video was great. If we set aside more time and made sacrifices we probably could have gotten more shots to put into the music video, however, we made use of the shots that we had and it didn't look bad. Planning was very essential in trying to do something like a music video. We did have an initial plan but we did not stick to it, if we did I think the video would have been better. This just proves to show how important planning really is and we should think long and hard and be 100% sure before we go out to film.

Update on Ancillary design

Clear ideas for digipak

Photoshop mockup

Progress for the photoshop made mock up isn't going as well as I would've liked. I'm finding photoshop slightly difficult to use, but I feel like I know what I'm trying to do, I just don't know how to do it. However I do believe I could finish most of the mock up by the end of this week or at the very least the front of the cover. The back of the digipak should be much easier to do as there isn't any imagery apart from a barcode.

Initial design for digipak

In this lesson, we needed to draft our ideas about the digipak on paper. This is to assure that there is no flaws when it comes to the final design of the product. Here is the drawing of the initial digipak I designed today.

I chose not to draw any images because we will be taking photos of our main artist and I will import the images onto my initial design of the digipak

Location choices of the photos.

These are some of the pictures we took for our Digipak. I couldn't upload the rest of the pictures due to an error with the format of the pictures. But i managed to upload these four last week. We decided to use a white background so when the artist stands against it the audience can focus on her. Also if i decide to cut out the artist and separate it from the background it will be easier to do so in photoshop. The clothing she is wearing is quite casual but it stands out and it represents her style so we wanted to focus it all on her clothes and herself. I chose two different photos to use which are a good example of this as her positioning is strong.

Annotation of hand drawn mock up

A mock up of my digipak.

This is a mock up of my digipaks. I have drafted my first ideas on what i will create for the final product.  I have used colours which are bright but simple and common when looking at other electro pop albums. I have also annotated the mock up explaining what conventions i have followed and the reasons for using these colours and the image. These are just my initial ideas i am hoping to come up with more ideas and use them in combination when doing the final product.

List of potential fonts, colours, layout, and design ideas (Planning for the Ancillary Part 1)

This blog will feature, the things stated in the title. I'll be exploring fonts, colours, layout and design ideas. First off fonts:

A list of potential fonts I quickly looked at in photoshop. I tried to pick fonts based on how I think our artist is presented, and how they're audience would expect them to be presented. As a role model for the aspiring section of the public. However I'll still have to wait till I make a digital mock up of the album.

Colours: Colours for the digipak I've planned are fairly minimalistic. I'm only deciding to use black, white and possibly grey on the digipak.

Layout: Layout for the digipak is also fairly simple. I plan to have a shot of the artist (Close up) in the center of the digipak, with the name of the artist above the picture. Going across the top of the artists chest would be the title of the album. In the bottom left and right of the digipak, I will have a set of diamonds similar to this:

                                             

on the back cover I want to have the track listing in a diamond shape.

A mock up of the idea I have planned:

I'll annotate the mock up at a later date as well as make a photoshop made version.

Research into the design layout of digipaks.

This is a very good example of a front cover i found. The front cover belongs to the Artist Chris Brown  which is from his album called Fortune. The Diamonds in the background look very cool as it goes with the colours and the way the artist is positioned. It is almost like a sci fi film cover but i am hoping to do something like this with the diamonds in the back and use colours which will compliment it.

This is another design layout which i quite like mainly because of the way the artist is positioned. It focuses on the artist mostly and is visible to the audience. 

The Font on this cover suits the image displayed on the front and also fits in with the electronic genre. From looking at this i will use a similar font to this to link it to the electro pop genre. 

Research into different digipaks.

For the design of my digipaks which will be part of the production work. I will have to research into the different types of digipaks there are whether in the same genre as our artist which is Electro Pop or look at other genres and see what images and styles they have used to make it stand out. Doing research will help me to decide what colours, fonts and images will go with my chosen genre.

This is the front cover of Leona lewis Album 'Glass heart'. As you can see the image of the artist is very clear, bright and visible to the audience. It focuses on the artist herself and displays the name of the artist and the song title in the far left hand corner. The cover looks simple can grab the attention of the audience as the artists image is bright in focus and adjusted to the centre. The font is white which stands out against the background and there is at least two clear fonts.

This is the back cover of the album. We have  a long shot of the artist Leona Lewis on the left side. we automatically see a link between the two covers as the front cover is a mid shot of the artist showing a bit of her bright red sequinned dress and then we see the full dress on the back. The track list is also shown with a bonus track with a well known artist, this is to also persuade the audience to buy the album as some may enjoy listening to 'Childish Gambino'. To the bottom we have the important information such as the barcode, record label company date etc. 

From looking at this digipak i have ideas for the digipak i will create, which will  represent Deseree Diamond. The image of Leona Lewis shows a strong, independent woman which we will use similar to this one in order to portray Deseree as  a strong woman. However i will not use colours which doesn't suit our chosen genre which is Electro pop. The colours here are quite feminine and illustrates Love and relationships. 

Question 4 - Notes and Ideas

Some notes and ideas for question 4 of the evaluation I've thought about doing. I think for question 4, I can focus more on self evaluation and evaluation of audience feedback. I will evaluate audience feedback mainly through text, as I think it will be hard to film an audience's reaction who are in the cinema and are focusing on the music videos. I will most likely try to find reactions for after the cinema trip, and evaluate their reactions as well as my own.

Analysis of past student ancillary product: Magazine Advertisement

This ancillary product of a previous student it on I like a lot. The actual digipak photo is decent, although the shape of the album isn't a stereotypical shape. However as a magazine advertisement I think these group of students did very well; it includes reviews from notable music magazines and notable newspapers such as The Guardian, NME and Billboards. It includes ratings, and the platforms the album is available on/through.

I also think the group of students used the space well. If I were to make some changes I would probably not use a picture of the album but rather a picture of the artist only. However I understand that the group made the magazine advertisement, for an album that's already come out rather than an album which is coming out.

Ancillary Product - The Do's and Dont's..

The Do's and Dont's of creating the design production work:


DO'S.

• Stick to two clear fonts as a maximum. Use sensible, appropriate colours and fonts which will complement each other. Make sure the colours and fonts used link to your chosen genre.
• When using colours to decorate the front and back cover of the cd you must make sure you use at least three colours as a maximum. Use colours which will go with the photos.
• You must also use clear photos for the cd cover, images that are in focus and not out of shot. 
• Follow the rule of thirds for composition.
• Remember to include important information for the consumers such as the barcode, date, copyright information, title of the album, artist name, record company logo, website and artist website.

DONT'S.

• If you are going to use effects, make sure they are appropriate and suitable for the genre. DO NOT use effects which are to stylish and too blurry as the important aspect of the cd cover is too be able to see the artist image.
• Don't stretch images to fit the panel this will make the image look out of focus and will cause you too lose marks.
• whatever you do DO NOT place the text across the face of the artist.
• Choose a font which will go with the genre and compliment the design layout, don't pick a font because you like them.
• Research is vital when creating a cd cover as you will have to follow the genre and conventions very closely. Too many photos which are used to fill up space will lose you marks.

Ancillary Products: Do's and Dont's

Do's and Donts of ancillary products are fairly simple:

Do's

1. Stick to two clear fonts maximum.
2. Stick to three colours maximum.
3. Use clear photos that are in focus.
4. Follow the rule of thirds for composition.
5. Include the stereotypical ancillary qualities such as a barcode, date, copyright information, title of the album, artist name, record company logo, website and artist website.

Dont's

1. Use unnecessary effects. 
2. Stretch images to fit the panel.
3. Place text across the face of the artist.
4. Use fonts simply because you like them.
5. Feel the need to have photos on every panel.

Ancillary Products: Do's and Dont's

1. Clear Fonts:  Use fonts that everyone can read, fonts that are suitable for your chosen genre, fonts that go well together. Not fonts that make it look pretty but impossible to read. 

2. Suitable Colours  3 COLOURS MAXIMUM, Colours that also go very well together. Do NOT go crazy on the colours, Making people feel as if they've jumped into a packet of skittles, HOW DARE YOU!!

3.Clear Photos   Using photos that are clear and in focus is just basic Common Sense GUYS. Make the photos the appropriate size for your digipak. Do not use a photo that is hard to look at. 

4. Rule of thirds  Follow the rule of thirds. ITS THAT SIMPLE. 

  REMEMBER
 Include the bar-code, date, copyright information, title of the album, artist name, Record company logo,  website and the artist website.

5. DO NOT use unnecessary effects, use effects according to your genre. Keep it simple but UNIQUE. 

6.  Dont Stretch your image, DO NOT make your artist un-proportionate, THEY WILL NOT LIKE IT. If the image isn't the right size find one that is the right size.  

7.  DO NOT put text across the artists face, As an upcoming artist people would want to see what YOU look like and not how fancy the text looks. 

8.  And finally DO NOT use photos on every single panel. Not all digipaks have photos on all of the panels, Personally I think it looks tacky. Follow the CODES&CONVENTIONS correctly when looking at the genre linked to your artist and use the ideas in your digipak. 

!!!!DO YOUR RESEARCH CAREFULLY!!!!

Research of digipaks

For the upcoming design of my digipak for my artist, Deseree Diamond, I will need to research some digipaks that current artists have designed themselves. Here are I would briefly discuss my views about the following digipaks I have seen thus far:

Right Side: As you can see, this is the front part of the album cover. It is clear image of the artist with a strong but feminine posture. Around the bottom left, we can see the name of the album. The font is Italic because it displays sentiment and it also follows the colour scheme. On the bottom right, it displays the artist's name. On one hand this could be defined as fairly simple but it catches the audience's attention with dark grey background and bright image of the artist.

 



 

Middle/Spine: In between the front and the back part of the album is the spine. The spine is only meant to have the artist's name and the name of the album/single. As clear in the image above, the album has the name of the artist and the name of the album too. It also has the same colour as the writing on the front part of the cover, this shows that there are following a particular colour scheme.

 

 

Left Side: This is the back section of the album cover. There is another strong image of the artist, Nicole, but this time she reframes from showing her face. From this, we can suggest that she is choosing to represent a different side to her, maybe a side that isn't as strong as the one we are seeing on the front. The grey background may suggest pain or sorrow and the positive gesture that she displays in the front part of the album contrasts the dull colour however on the back we see a brighter background but a more dull pose from the artist- again illustrating a contrast between the images and the colour that is being portrayed.It still follows the colour scheme of the goldish brown colour on the back. It has the essential conventions of the track list, barcode and record label of the artist.

 

Here are a few more that I've researched.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within these three examples of digipaks, the one that I believe would be most helpful when we are designing our own would be the first one with Nicole. This is because our main artist is a female so we may want to use a similar colour scheme or similar poses. However, the other two examples with Tinie Tempah and Michael Jackson I would like to use a similar type of effects to make the cover look more interesting. 

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is type of packaging that is used for CD's and DVD's. It can come in a range of different materials such as cardboard, plastic or even glass. Artists tend to use  these for their album covers, they often design it in a particular way to represent the artist. This can consistent upon three main things: Colour, an artist may choose to incorporate a particular colour scheme that is used a number of times by them in other media platforms such as music videos to show a clear link between the two. Font, the font of the digipak may be seen as a representation of the artist as well. An artist that has songs with deep sentiment may choose to use an Italic font to represent delicacy whereas an artist belonging to a metal genre may choose a stronger font. Imagery, a digipak may contain images that will make the audience recognised who the product is by. Artists such as Daft Punk uses the two spaceship helmets on their digipak which allows their audience to recognise them instantly. For this course, we will be designing a digipak for our main artist Deseree Diamond. We will need to follow the conventions of designing a digipak, taking into account about the Do's and Dont's and doing plenty of research to see what will be suitable for our artist.

Ancillary Products - Design Production work

THE DO'S AND THE DONT'S!!!

1. Clear Fonts:  Use fonts that everyone can read, fonts that are suitable for your chosen genre, fonts that go well together. Not fonts that make it look pretty but impossible to read. 

2. Suitable Colours  3 COLOURS MAXIMUM, Colours that also go very well together. Do NOT go crazy on the colours, Making people feel as if they've jumped into a packet of skittles, HOW DARE YOU!!

3.Clear Photos   Using photos that are clear and in focus is just basic Common Sense GUYS. Make the photos the appropriate size for your digipak. Do not use a photo that is hard to look at. 

4. Rule of thirds  Follow the rule of thirds. ITS THAT SIMPLE. 

REMEMBER REMEMBER REMEMBER
 Include the bar-code, date, copyright information, title of the album (Obviously), artist name (Duhh), Record company logo,  website and the artist website.

5. DO NOT use unnecessary effects, use effects according to your genre. Keep it simple but UNIQUE. 

6.  Dont Stretch your image, DO NOT make your artist un-proportionate, THEY WILL NOT LIKE IT. If the image isn't the right size find one that is the right size.  

7.  DO NOT put text across the artists face, As an upcoming artist people would want to see what YOU look like and not how fancy the text looks. 

8.  And finally DO NOT use photos on every single panel. Not all digipaks have photos on all of the panels, Personally I think it looks tacky. Follow the CODES&CONVENTIONS correctly when looking at the genre linked to your artist and use the ideas in your digipak. 

!!!!DO YOUR RESEARCH CAREFULLY!!!!

Creating a digipak

After finishing editing the music video, we now need to creating a digipak which is like an album cover for our main artist. In this lesson, we were asked to use Adobe photoshop to practicing creating digipak with allocated images. Here are some screenshots of my work during this lesson:

This is the layout of the digipak. On the right hand side is the front cover of the digipak, in the middle is the spine and on the left is back of the digipak.

This software is great to create the digipak because it is specialised in manipulating images.

This is the track list of the digipak

This is the image that I chose for my front digipak.

Here are the tools that I will be using as the essential for creating the digipak

Ancillary Practice

Ancillary practice didn't go as well as I hoped. The idea that I was aiming for proved to be harder to execute. I was planning to add an old school film frame to link with the old school picture, but i struggled to find a suitable frame and instead had to settle for the wrong one. I spent too much time on trying to find a frame and didn't get to the back of the digipak.

Analysis of Three Digipaks and advertisements.

 

Analysis of digipak and advertisements

The artist that we chose to do was AlunaGeorge and the genre of her music is electronic, pop and garage, three other artists that share the same genre with AlunaGeorge are Katy B, Disclosure and Chase&Status.




Katy B

This photograph was from Katy B's digipak for her song 'Katy On a Mission'. The codes and conventions that come with an artist that fall into the category of pop, garage or electronic music all evolve around colours and disorientated photos of either the artist or something completely random. My opinion of this is backed up by this digipak. The colouring of this digipak makes everything dreamlike and surreal something that would link to artists around the same genre including their music videos. I also think that this photograph is self explanatory, it speaks out for itself, it doesn't need big,stylistic fonts all over the cover to make it stand out, Katy B's posture already stands out for itself with the help of the colour in the background, giving the poster a sense or originality, not following into the footsteps of other artists that use stylistic writing all over the cover and "over-the-top' photographs to grab the attention of future possible fans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNhPYj-5rIY Here is the video to Katy B - Katy On a Mission.
In this video are obvious codes and conventions that link towards the genre of pop, garage and electronic music, and they are, close ups of artist, live audiences, flashing lights, possibly a DJ Deck and the person that produced the beat to the song.

This is the advertisement for Katy B's single 'Katy  On a Mission'. Many electropop/ garage artists, when advertising, only advertise the artists name and the song, I have seen this on many artists that fit in the category of garage, pop and electro. i think they do this to emphasis only on the song rather than other things that could drift their mind away from the actual single that has been released. Just like the digipak this poster has similar colours however the colours are more obvious to make the writing stand out, on the digipak the colours were faint so that the audience/fans would be able to see Katy B seeing as she is the artist.

This photograph is of an electro/pop group named disclosure and just like Katy B's digipak the front cover is very simple, things like the outlined scribble faces on the two little boys are what makes the poster as eye catching as it is. Looking at this poster no other poster comes to mind which is a good thing because it means that no other artist has ever done this type of thing before making their poster unique and automatically making them stand out above the rest. The codes and conventions of electropop/garage artists all fall into this photograph, the artists always want to keep their albums, digipaks and poster simple however have something small that will make the poster or album unique, something that portrays the artist.




Here is the poster to Disclosure, once again very simplistic, not over the top but still draws attention to itself. This poster links to the digipak, just like the digipak this poster has the same outlined scribbled faces on them which could suggest that they use this as  branding technique, every time someone sees this they would automatically think of disclosure because this is something they have decided to be recognised by.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkk2H3Ztrfk












Both of the artists all have the same thing in common and so does this artist, 'Keeping it Simple', onceagain this electropop group have kept it simple when releasing the didgipak, on the front cover it only has the artists name and the name of the song which obviously is common which has been shown on two of the other artists digipaks. Chase&Status are both men and this cover links bak to them, being boys they would like cars and  racing, once again linking back to personal hobbies or interests, something that identifies them.





And also just like the other advertisements it only shows the artist and the song name, both the digipak and the advertisement have the same type of font at the front something that links the two together.













By looking at all three of these digipaks and posters I have seen that artists that belong to the same genre (Electropop, Garage and pop) all have the same thing in common which is making there posters and cover albums simple. the artist that we have chosen belongs to the genre of electropop and garage so when making our own digipak i would have to make sure to also keep it simple but somehow unique.