Digipak & Poster Font

Throughout my research on what font I wanted to use on my digipak, I had decided that I would like to go for a more handwritten look as this fits better with my chosen genre, however, I now believe that a bolder font may be best as it would be a lot clearer for the consumer to read.

I decided that the font below is the font I would like to use on both my digipak and my magazine advert.  Here is an example of how it may look:

Digipak Draft

Here's a WIP of my digipak. I still need to add several elements such as the barcode, the explicit content label and a design for the CD, but I am happy with how it is looking so far. 

While researching other digipak's in my chosen genre, I found that they stuck to the same colours, and so I complied to this when making my own digipak. I obtained inspiration from bands such as the Arctic Monkeys and The 1975 as I liked the simplicity that their album covers held.

Digipak Template

I downloaded a free digipak template from a website named 'Disc Markers'. The template gives me a guideline of how to lay out my photos for my digipak (including the sizing) and where I need to place each individual photo. 

So far this is what I have put together:

For the moment I have only chosen the style of my front cover and the font I am using, but I am still planning and researching what I can use on the other sections of my digipak. I would like to go with a fairly simplistic design as I feel that it goes with my chosen genre, and will still attract my audience, especially as I have decided to go with fairly bright colours. I do not want my digipak to be too busy as this would distract the audience from the artist on the front cover.

Mac 4 Final Music Video

Digipak Inspiration

The Arctic Monkeys & The 1975 were large inspirations of mine when it came to creating my digipak due to the simplicity of their album covers. They do not give much away as to what the band are like as they have no images of themselves, but this almost intrigues the audience as to what kind of music they produce. 

I was interested in using dark colours but to make mine stand out and link it in some ways to my album name, I decided that I wanted to use some colour. To add onto that, although I have planned my album cover to be very simple, I would also like to include an image of my artist on the front cover. Along with the colours, I feel like the word 'Spectrum' would go well with multiple images of my artist. 

Bands & Their Chosen Names

While researching my chosen genre during the creation of my digipak, I became intrigued into the reason why some artists/bands chose their stage names. Here are a few examples:

Lorde (also known as Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor) chose her artist name due to being fascinated with "royals and aristocracy". However, she felt that the word 'Lord' was too masculine and so added an 'e' to the end to make it more feminine. 

Birdy's stage name (also known as Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerde) comes from the nickname her parents gave her as a baby, because she opened her mouth like a little bird when being fed.

Foster The People: Mark Foster originally named the band Foster & the People, but people misheard it as "Foster the People". Eventually, he took to the nurturing image it evoked of "taking care" of people, so the name stuck.

Goffman's Theory (1972) - Gender Representations in Advertising

In the portrayal of men and women, advertising often uses the following codes and conventions:

• Superiority, Domination & Body Language: Men are shown in dominant positions and appear to be reflective of thought and intelligence. Women are physically portrayed in sexual or reclining poses with blank or inviting expressions. 

• Dismemberment: On females, parts of the body such as legs, chest, etc., are used, rather than the full body. This is often applied to sell products which are not related to the body, such as mobile phones (right) 

• The Voice-Over Authority: In moving image advertisements, male voices are used as voice-overs in commercials rather than females.

Evaluation Questions

In the evaluation the following four questions must be addressed:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

• What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Lorde - Green Light

I found the music video for Lorde's new song 'Green Light' very interesting as the main focus was on her performance, not on the narrative. The shots are relatively long but this works well as she is mainly singing. I particularly liked the changes of scenes/environment and the different colours that are used.

Digipak Front Cover Experiment

Following the general conventions of an indie pop album cover, I decided to experiment with some of the fonts I had downloaded with an edited picture of Klaudia. I would like to go with the handwritten look as I feel it fits my genre best. I would also prefer the background to be white as I feel that would make Klaudia stand out much more and it would also fit with the colour of the band name and album name. I'd like to experiment with the placement of the band name and album name, but I will probably take more pictures of Klaudia before doing so. 

Also, I am unsure if this is the band name I would like to use but as it was an experiment, I had just decided to use one that I had come up with earlier.

Digipak Song List

Below is the final list of songs which I will be displaying on the back of my digipak. Some names were either generated in a name generator or I had thought of them and condsidered that they may fit well with the other songs I have chosen. 

1. Spectrum

2. Silence

3. Demon

4. Sleepless Dreams

5. Escape The Ruin

6. Iridescence

7. Hidden World

8. Adoration

9. Twisted Heart

10. Broken Nightmare

Band/Album Name Ideas

Below are a list of band names & album names which I have either come up with myself or generated through a word generator. I have decided to try out a few of these names on the front cover of my digipak to decide which one I would most like to use. 

Band/Artist Name:

• UltraMortal
• New Magic 
• Black Maps
• New Kicks
• Royal Set 

Album Name:

• Haze
• Spectrum
• Iridescence

Third Day Filming

Sadly we didn't have time to make a vlog during the filming process as we only had a limited amount of time but below are some screenshots of the shots we captured.

Music Video Inspiration

A large influence on some of our shots have come from the performance music video for Sabrina Claudio's song 'Confidently Lost'. We thought that our actor, Klaudia, would work well in these shots, especially as we felt like we could replicate some of the environments that Sabrina Claudio is seen performing in.

Digipak Experiment

In preparation for creating my Digipak, I decided to go out and experiment with some ideas which I may possibly use. I have decided that these styles of images will be shown on the inside cover of my Digipak.

The last couple of images were taken with the camera moving slightly but although the lines are shaky, I felt that there may be a way to incorporate this into my chosen theme. Also, although I have decided to make my Digipak quite colourful, I felt that this may contrast with our music video in terms of how I want my artist to be perceived. However, as these pictures have been taken in the evening when it is dark, they still pose some similarities to our music video which is why I have chosen to use them.

Second Day Filming

Front Cover Idea

I am interested in creating a Digipak with a 3D look on the cover - I chose this technique as it may be effective at showing the different personas/feelings that our character has (which would be shown in the songs), while also supporting the theme of the music video we are currently making.

I decided to experiment with a photo I had saved of Klaudia, just to see the outcome of what it would look like when edited. I am hoping that soon I can get the right pictures for the front cover of my Digipak so that I can start editing it and possibly create a prototype of what it may look like. I still have yet to decided how I am designing the inside pages and the back of my Digipak, but I will create a mind map of the ideas I come up with. 

CD Covers: Indie Genre

From my research, I can see that Indie artists CD cover's all hold very common conventions. I had noticed that a lot of artist place their album name underneath their own name/band name (usually the fonts being different or in a different colour to differentiate between the two). Although many other genre's also do this, I found that this was very common when looking at the various types of CD covers in my particular chosen genre. 

The Indie genre also use much warmer colours to appeal to their audience, and frequently have the artist on the front cover, often looking away from the camera. From the CD covers I looked at, it is clear that the artist has been illustrated or there is some form of illustration on the album cover, something which I had noticed is quite common in my chosen genre. This makes certain artists unique and stand out a lot more in comparison to other more popular artists I have seen whilst researching different genre's and artists. 

Digipak Analysis

Extra Digipak Notes

CD and DVD DigiPaks make a big statement, they represent the ultimate custom packaging for your CD or DVD replication project. A DigiPak is also a more environmentally friendly option when compared with traditional plastic jewel cases or DVD cases.

The DVD Digipak is a popular alternative to the DVD box which is now widely used for feature film DVD releases which are special editions because it increases the value and creates a premium product.

Material: 300gsm card with matt or gloss varnish. Printed 4 colours (CMYK) or Pantone colours. Spot varnish, lamination and embossing available. Made mostly from thick card, the digipak is virtually shatterproof and allows great graphic display.

Dimensions (based on standard 4pp digipak): finished size of 139.5mm x 6mmx 125.5mm. The panels can be increased from 4 to 6, 8 or more.

Originally used for the album packaging of leading musicians, the digipak and digipak family are now priced reasonably enough to be used for any CD or DVD project. The digipak is an extremely versatile packaging. It can be made to accommodate a booklet either by placing in a die-cut slot or gluing onto one of the panels.