Digipak Draft 4

Below is our fourth and final draft of our digipak.

Draft 4

This draft I believe was a great improvement from our last one as the colours work a lot better together and the digipak as a whole looks more professional and cohesive. Specific changes we made were;

  • Changing the back image so it fit better on the pane
  • Changed the yellow accent colours to the blue that was found in the new back image
  • Incorporated that colour into all our panes e.g drawing the neon line across the inside panes
  • Changed the spines to the new blue colour
  • Added a glitch to our artists typeface on photoshop to create continuity with the glitched image on the back pane

Digipak Draft 3

Below is our third draft of our digipak. Specific changes we have made from draft 2 are:

  • Incorporating in yellow dash’s to make the digipak more interesting
  • Photoshopped our star more for example making her eyebrows darker and smoothing her skin
  • Made our model on the back pane bigger

Even with these changes however their are still definite improvements to make. Targets to do for our final draft include:

  • Maybe incorporate the yellow in other places to create better cohesivity
  • Potentially change the back pane photo as it doesn’t really fit

In order to make sure that our genre is portrayed clearly, we sent out a form asking our peers to guess the genre of our digipak. The feedback was mainly positive as 95% of our responses guessed the right genre with the other 5% guessing R&B.

 

 

Digipack Draft 2

Below is our second draft of our digipak.

From draft 1 we have made many changes to our digipak to reach this point, these include:

  • Changing the moon on the inside right pane to an eclipse that we made in photoshop to fit more with the album name
  • Added a border around our photo rather than having the pink glow as it looked messy
  • Changed our inside left image to some soundwaves in conventionally electropop colours
  • Added in spines and moved our track list to one side rather than having our star in the middle

Below is the video we used to help us to make the eclipse for our inside right pane.

Teacher feedback:

After we completed our draft 2, our teacher recorded a screencastify commenting on our digipak. There were many positives to take from it, for example she liked the neon collar and the artist name going up the side on the front pane, but of course there were improvements. Her main improvement was to add more details to create interest and perspectives but specific targets have been detailed below:

  • Photoshop the front image more for example brightening her eyes and darkening her eyebrows
  • Add something to the background so that it is not completely black
  • Play around with and move the digipak title so that it is off centre
  • Bring another neon colour in as it is very samey with the pink and purple
  • Add a neon line similar to that on the inside right to the front pane to add interest
  • On the back pane, make the picture of our star bigger
  • Add another colour into the back pane e.g on the first letter on each track name
  • Add the name of the album onto the spine
  • Make inside right wider to fit in the cd cover frame

 

Digipack Draft 1

Below is our first draft of our digipak. Overall I think that there are many improvements to be made but what we have done is a good foundation to build upon.

Self Assessment:

I graded our first draft around a D/C as there are many improvements to be made. I evaluated our digipack against three criteria to establish this initial grade which were:

  • The use of camera and photoshop to take and manipulate engaging images
  • The selection of mise en scene in the photos and the meaning it communicates
  • The creative use of DPT to integrate images and text and use colour/typefaces

My detailed responses to these 3 criteria can be found below:

Teacher’s feedback:

Our teacher also sent us feedback after the completion of the first draft. Particular points for improvement that she made was:

  • Place a photo on the front of her looking directly at the camera to create audience connection
  • Need the name of the star on the front pane
  • Add some depth to the paint stripe on the front pane by maybe adding in another colour
  • Correct the odd section of the outer glow on the back pane that goes out from the image
  • Add copywrite to the back pane
  • Add something to the spines
  • Either put a photo of the star on all 4 or only 2 as having 3 panes with the star on is odd

Evaluation of shoot

Overall I think our shoot was exceedingly good as we got a large range of shots so we have a lot of options when it comes to make our digipak. Specific things that went well include:

  • Accurate mise en scene for the electropop genre with the all black then the pop of silver of the jacket
  • All shots in focus
  • All shots well lit
  • Range of angles and shots to use of our 4 panes e.g close ups, mid shots, long shots and high and low angles

Below our some photos that were taken on the shoot.

Contact Sheet

Overall I think our shoot went well as we definitely got a wide variety of shots to use for our front, inside right and back page of our digipak. After reviewing we have found that almost all of out shots are clearly in focus which is great as it means we can choose almost any of the photos taken.

On top of this, I think our mise en scene worked well with the electropop genre, accurately portraying our star image. The only thing that could have gone better is that the chair that we used doesn’t exactly fit with our quirky and edgy star image so if we use one of the shots containing the chair we will have to edit and photoshop the chair to better fit our genre.

 

Photoshoot / Design Production Meeting

Production meeting agendas are of high importance if we want our digipak to be a success. They outline what is needed for shoot and who is responsible which is vital as everything has to be there in order to get the correct star and brand image. For example if we forgot the silver shirt the quirkiness and edginess of the star image. It would also make our artist seem more ordinary rather than extraordinary as her costume would be bland and plain.

For this shoot it was unnecessary to do a risk assessment as we are shooting onsite at the school.

Hand drawn mock up

Planning what we want our digipak to look like before stepping into the studio is paramount so that we already now what kind of look and vibe we are going for. Below is our hand drawn mock up and colour palette which we will take into our shoot.

Within this we we made sure we included any technical conventions for example a title and a barcode as well as genre conventionsĀ of the electropop genre. These include a neon colour palette of colours shown below, graphics and a bold typeface.

This is important as if we encode the correct information for our target audience, they will have preferred reading making our digipak a success. This includes encoding the edgy and quirky side of the star and brand image.

Branding Moodboard

A convention is anything that is typical of a particular genre of music. It is important that we study the conventions of our chosen genre, electropop, before attempting to start on our digipak so that our target audience has a preferred reading and accepts our work.

Made with Padlet

The mood board shown above is a collection of all things conventional to electropop and are therefore things that we should aim to include in our own work. All of these things will help connote our brand and star image. Specific things that we have found are very conventional to our genre include:

  • Bright, neon colours
  • Bold fonts
  • Quirky and unique shapes and effects

 

Digipak Conventions Analysis

Before creating our own digipak we analysed a digipak of our chosen genre, electropop, to work out what was conventional. I learnt that conventionally a digipak includes:

  • Name of artist and album
  • Barcode
  • Track list
  • Copywrite information and music publishing company

Specifically for the electropop genre I have found that conventionally digipak’s contain:

  • A bright colour/colours contrasted with darkness
  • Bold fonts
  • Minimalistic covers with quite a lot of empty space
  • Distorted/faded images

This will be very helpful when we come to produce our own as we can make sure that our audience will have a preferred reading to our digipak which in turn makes profit. The way to guarantee a preferred reading is to stick to many of the conventions listed above however we have to be careful and make sure that we are still unique so that we can make our mark and stand out within the music industry.