Digipak remake

In our 3 hour lesson, we had a go at creating a digipak. We were shown a digipak that didn't follow the conventions se we had to re create it again using Photoshop. This is my end result although I would have liked to be more creative and also make an advertisement to go with it. My digipak for our artist will be a lot better!!

Importance and Functions of Digipaks

As we have finished our music video we are now looking into the ancillary production work where we will be analysing and creation our own Digipak and Advertisement for our music video. In class we have discussed the importance and functions of digipaks to the music industry.

What is a digipak?
A digipak is a modern approach to CD/DVD packaging, usually made of thick cardboard and it allows the possibility of including a lot more information on the band/artist. They are visually pleasing and can come with 4.6 or 8 panels that fold outwards and they allow the possibility of including more than one disc, perhaps in the form of DVD extras or additional recordings, that accompanies the release of a song, album or DVD. The digipak offers more

Example of a three panel digipak.

than songs to their fans and this would
encourage them to buy it.

A digipak could include these following things :

• Name of the band
• Name of the album
• Track listings for the album
• Production information, including copyright and company details 
• A few thank yous
• Collage of photographs of the band during the filming of a video or rehearsal for a tour
• Snippets of lyrics from the songs
• Behind the scenes information on the making of the album

The overall digipak style should include elements of graphic design- not just images taken from the video. It should consist of 3-4 colours max and no more than two font style. Also it must create some sort of visual
link with the advertisement.  The advert should include the release date and it should display the artist name and title. It also should include tour dates, reviews, websites and the record label.

Albums on Amazon

Albums on iTunes

When purchasing music albums from websites such as iTunes or Amazon you see that they are presented by the album cover. It is important to keep the album cover visual and eye catching because that is what is going to attract the audience. By looking at an album cover it should instantly tell you about the genre of the music and artist.

Design Activity: Advertisment

My Advert

Example of bad advert.

Along with my reproduced CD cover for Dan London, we had to also reproduce the advertisement poser. As a class, we looked at a example the media department has put together. The problem with the
example poser was there was so many spelling mistakes, over uses of fonts and colour. The album cover is positioned awkwardly too.

My poser layout was inspired by posters you would see when your traveling around london, especially the underground.
Colours used are all from the reproduced album

Inspiration for advertisement

First attempt of creating and designing a CD cover

My CD cover I made in class today :)

In class today Mary introduced us to Photoshop and how we would be making our digipacks. At the start of the lesson she showed us what made a unsuccessful CD cover and what we can do to make a good one. As I was new to Photoshop, it took me a while to get used to the features cause there was so many but managed to finish creating and editing a CD case in the end!! 

Design Activity: Dan London CD Cover

Editting using PS elements, deleting the existing background.

In class, Mary showed us examples where there is problems with the style and layout. Below is the example shown to the class. There are so many problems with this cover. Over used of fonts, spelling errors, random stamps, words overlaying image, images not being clear or crop out properly. 

How not to make your CD. 

Our task later was to reproduce this CD cover along with the advertisement.

Here's my CD cover.

I have used Louise Dearman's Album as the inspiration for my reproduction of my Dan London's album, the layout and the simplicity is all inspired by Dearman's album. 

Importance and the Functions of Digipaks

Moving onto the Ancillary side of the course, in class we was introduced to the importance and the functions of a digipak and the advertisements side of the business in today's music industry. 

Example of an digipak.

Digipak: Modern approach to CD/DVD packaging, usually made of thick cardboard and allowing the possibility of including a lot more information on the band/artist in the form of a small stapled booklet that is inserted into a small pocket of the digipak. 

The purpose of a digipak is all about adding valve; encouraging us to pay money for something extra beside the songs.




So what should a digipack consist of and look like?

• Artist(s) name: large, clear font and in the foreground. 
• Track listing: same font as artist or album name. 
• Production information: copyrights, year of production, web address, record label logo, distributor, reference number and promotional sticker  

iTune Store.

iTunes is one of the largest legal downloading application created by Apple. When you have purchased music from iTunes, the artist's album cover is the cover art. So the album cover is very important and plays a significant role in marketing. 

As you can see, the album covers represents the artist and their album on iTunes. 

Screen grab of my iTunes account. When I purchased Ellie Goulding's Guns and Horses single, her album cover is her cover art. This tells me that her Guns and Horses single is part of her 'Lights' album, so she has more songs on the same album for us to listen to and buy. 

Nowadays, due to high levels of illegal music downloading, artists and record label companies are doing everything to sell there album/digipaks to consumers buy advertising! To sell the physical albums, the digipak must be visually pleasing! 

Eliza and the Crystal's - Album Name: AURORA

The original 'Aurora Borealis'

As a group we have decided that the name of our artist's album will be Aurora. The name was inspired by the Aurora Borealis or The Northern Lights. This came about when we were discussing Rihanna's video for Diamonds as she had included something like the Aurora Borealis in her video. We thought the name would be appropriate for our single 'Spectrum' as it is about lights.

"An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions."

Rihanna's Diamond Music Video.