Digipak research

I have noticed that a lot of Digipaks consist of a close up shot of the artists face fro the front shot and a long shot of the artist at the back of the albums. I figured that this is to do with allowing the audience to see the artist, and making them feel as though they are close, so they get more than what they paid for.

The front cover of the Rhianna album cover is a close up of her face. This gives a pure sophisticate visual image to the audience, as the colour red o her hair also goes with her lipstick. The red lipstick is one of the primary colours light, which  symbolises love, affection, temptation, passion, guilt, blood, sex. All these words are in connection to the themes of most of her songs in the album. For example above, one of her songs 'we found love' which goes with the theme guilt,anger, and affection which is portray through the narrative. 

The title of the album 'LOUD' is written in capitals and this also links with the word, therefore the use of capitals emphasizes on the word and the meaning of the album. I also noticed the the colour red is also very loud in this image, as it is very bright and bold and stands out. This just shows me that i understand what kind of album cover people are attracted to, and in her case people like the vibrant, bold images.

In some most digipaks you usually get a booklet that has the songs and sometimes the lyrics in them, this is to get the audience even more involved with their artist. The booklet usually has who the song was written by and what producer produced it, different images of the artist sometimes in different outfits and any special than-you's. below are all of the pages to her little booklet.

Its important that any album has a back cover. This is because when stores want to cell the album and customers come in they are able to see what type of songs are one their the name of the song, who may be featured on theire and especially when there are features on their that the buyers like the will pay money just to listen to that song. The font for the tracks is kept simple due to the fact that they want the audience to pay full attention to the artist. At the bottom of the digipak the artists website and record label connections are placed there to enable that people are able to keep up to date with the artist and their latest movements.

PLANNING OUR DIGIPAK

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK AND REACTION!!

THESE ARE THE AUDIENCE FEEDBACK I RECORED YESTERDAY!!

THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS I ASKED

PICTURED: SHANI, HOLDING UP MY QUESTION SHEET. 

ENJOYYY!!

THIS IS ME RECORDING WHILE OUR C=VIDEO WAS PLAYING ON THE BIG SCREEN. LOOKING BACK AT THIS RECORDING I FEEL GREAT ABOUT THE VIDEO WE PRODUCED IN THE END AND OUT AUDIENCE SMEED TO ENJOY IT VERY MUCH. FROM THE AUDIENCE REACTION I CAN TELL THAT THEY FOUND IT ENTERTAINING AND THE EDITS AND SPECIAL EFFECTS WE USED BROUGH A POSITIVE REACTION.  (BY THE WAY, MY LIP SYNCING WAS VERY ON POINT, ITS JUST THAT MY BLACKBERRY DEVICE IS VERY SLOW WHEN FEEDING BACK FOOTAGE. I THINK I NEED A NEW PHONE) ENJOYYY!!

AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO, I RECORED SOME AUDIENCE FEEDBACK. THESE ARE TEH RESPONSES I RECIEVED (BELOW) 

FEEDBACK FROM EMILY AND ETEHL- BOTH A2 MEDIA STUDENTS (BELOW AND ABOVE)

FEEDBACK FROM PRINCE- A2 MEDIA STUDENT

FEEDBACK FROM ROSETTA- A2 MEDIA STUDENT

GREEN SCREEN EXPERIENCE

YESTERDAY A2 MEDIA STUDENTS WENT TO THE GREEN SCREEN TO WATCH OUR FINAL MUSIC VIDEOS!

IT WAS SUCH AN EXCITING DAY FOR US, AS MANY OF US WERE WATCHING OTHERS VIDEOS FOR THE FIRST TIME

THE IDEA OF HAVING STUDENTS WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEOS IN THE CINEMA JUST CREATES THAT CINEMATIC FEEL AND BUILDS THAT SUSPENSE. ALSO IT IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR US STUDENTS TO GET SOME FEEDBACK ABOUT OUR VIDEO AND THINGS WE COULD IMPROVE FOR NEXT TIME!! 


HERE WE GO!

VIDEO OF THE A2 MEDIA STUDENTS BEFORE GOING IN TO SEE OUR MUSIC VIDEOS

THE ATMOSPHERE WITHIN THE CINEMA WAS VERY INTENSE BUT AT THE SAME TIME EXCITING AS EVERYONE COULDN'T WAIT TO SEE EACH OTHERS VIDEO AND OF COURSE THEIR OWN. 

Final Mock Digipak!!

This is the mock digipak i made in class. To make this digipak I made saure to put in all the conventions of a digipak. I decided to use bold , clear font to make the artist name stand out however i didn't want it to overpower the artist face. 


I made sure to also make the font simple and clear to read. 


The colours i used were black and white with natural colours such as brown, cream and orange. Kind of like earth tones to represent the artist as a down to earth person. 


The artist i am trying to portray in my digipak is a non-flashy artist who has a humble personality. The digipak also represents the genre of music which i created it for which is jazz and soul. Very cool calm and collected, with a hint of mystery, and this is where the use of black comes in. 

Font research

Ive been on www.dafont.com and done some quick research on fonts which i would like to use on the digipak. Below are my favourites from the site:

Cinema & feedback

 

Today we went to the local Islington cinema to watch all of the A2 groups music videos.When our music video came on the screen I decided to film it using my BlackBerry's video camera. In the video you can hear cheers from the audience during certain parts , for example when we used the sparkle effect.

 

Student feedback - a text 'munched' using the Screenmuncher app from Blackberry

Plan / Mock - up of Advertisement

Plan for advert

Plan / Mock - up of digipak

Front and back of digipak

Inside panel and CD housing

My Digipak from last year

Rules for creating the digipak / advertisement.

Here are the basic rules to follow when creating a digipak and advertisement:

Do 

 Use a clear font

Use appropriate image and font sizes

Use clear in focus photos

Use photos that are the correct shape for the page

Follow the rule of thirds

Use an appropriate type face that follows genre conventions and a house style

Be careful were the font is placers – make sure it follows the genre conventions and is clear from a distance

Follow the 3 colour rule and use appropriate colours for images fonts and the background

Think carefully about how to integrate font, images , text and language.

Use appropriate industry logos – barcodes / date /copyright / titles / artist name

 

Don’t

Stretch images

Use layer styles

Use any unnecessary effects

Place text across the artists face

Use a font simply because ‘you like it’
Feel that there needs to be a separate photo on every panel

Practice digipak

Practice of creating a Digipak. Dan Mock up

Using the programme Adobe Photoshop, you could edit your images on the right effect you want, you could also add different coloured shapes you choose to use.


Using the programme Quark, it was more easier to fiddle with the text.

Here is my end result

Do's and Dont's DIGIPAK!

DO

Use a clear font.

Remember to add-

BARCODE, COPYRIGHT, DATE, TITLE, ARTIST NAME AND WEBSITE.

Use the same type of font, also use an appropriate type that follows  the genre conventions.

Be careful where you place your font.

Use Colours Appropriately 

DONT

Forget to add the number on the spine.

Overlap The font with the image.

Camouflage the font with the back ground.

Stretch the image to wide or thin.

Add 50 different fonts like this - Hello hi bye - bye.

Add Spelling errors unless its deliberate.

Ancillary research

Why are CD's still in use?

 CD's are still in use due to the fact that some people still like to have the hard copy of their music. Some CD's come with bonus features ( such as an extra disk ) which arent avaliable for download. During the class discussion it was found out that only 2 of the 15 people in the class had bought music within the past 12 months. It is also common for older people to still buy CD's as it is the main way in which they are used to purchasing music.

Examples of ancillary products:
 Magzines / Internet pop ups / Billboards

Rapper Nicki Minaj's Digipak for her album 'Pink Friday'

How are they useful to:

 The artist 
Digipaks put across a visual representation of the artist. By doing this it puts across the genre in which the artist belongs to. They can also be used for promotion - for example a controversial digipak cover could create more album sales.

The industry

As mentioned above the digipak can help boost sales for the artist , label and industry.