After putting our digipak designs in a case, I did a survey asking people to pick which genre they thought it was from a list of six.

People tended to think that it was either rock, metal, or punk. These are all similar genres and I am confident that if we had not given metal or punk as an option then most people would have guessed the correct answer of rock. One person also thought it was rap, but as we have photos of the band with a bass guitar and drums I can only assume they did not look for very long. Overall, rock was the most guessed answer so our digipak clearly uses the correct conventions to be recognised as the correct genre.

Front

Inside Front

Inside Back

Back (and Spines)

In line with the improvement targets for our first draft, we created a second draft including the two extra panes, and added the copyright information to the back pane, as well as changing the background to a photo which we inverted to see more of the performer.

Our teacher gave us feedback in the form of a screencastify (below).

Here are our new targets for improvement following this feedback:

• Possibly more shards of glass on the front cover
• Add more detail to drumsticks – match style of the title font
• Maybe add more colour and detail to art on inside right pane
• Change logo to add more clarity (make slashes longer and closer together)
• Maybe add colour to inside left image – edit photo to place logo on bass drum

We will use this feedback to create our final draft before moving on to the social media page which we are also making for our band.

When it came to creating our first draft for the digipak, we decided to change direction for the style, and keep the convention of having art instead of a photo of the band, but a more serious style. In keeping with this, we changed some of the song names from the slightly whimsical “laundry” theme to more serious titles.

We do not have any photos for the digipak yet. This will come in our second draft.

The bass neck and drumsticks symbolise the two instruments used by the duo. The smashed light bulb links to the title “Lights Out”. The smoke on the back creates a sense of danger and revolution.

The two fonts work well, “bad grunge” is used for the title and song names and fit the feel of the album, “true lies” is used for the band name and logo, which matches the brand. Both fonts fit the genre well. The colour scheme also works well, with only four colours all working well with each other and fitting the genre.

Our targets for improvements are as follows:

• Add copyright information to the back pane
• Add a photo to the background of the back pane
• Add the two inside panes (probably a photo for the front and simplistic art for the back as it will normally be obscured by the CD)

Before beginning to make our digipak using software, I decided to draw a mockup of what it could look like. I decided to have a washing machine linking to the album name “The Notorious Laundry Incident”. Some of the song names are more whimsical and linked to the visual theme of laundry, but some are more seriously titled and politically charged like “Paper Crown” and “More Fake News”. The baby is to create intrigue and mystery in this abstract scene. The back has wires and an eye watching the viewer, giving a sense of mystery and sinisterness.

We will also need a barcode, logos, and legal information on the back, and should also add the band name “Brief Divide” to the design. This is the colour scheme I am planning to use.

Before making our own digipak, I decided to analyse an existing one to look for generic conventions of a digipak and also the specific genre conventions for our band. I decided to analyse “Only Revolutions” by Biffy Clyro, as it is a similar genre to our band.

This analysis of the conventions, connotations, and representations of the album art will help when making our digipak, as we will know what works and what doesn’t, as well as what we have to include.

After creating the mission statement for our band, we made a mood board to get inspiration for our digipack cover and social media page. This will help us create the style and brand of our artist, and make sure that it fits the blueprint of our genre to best please the audience.

In addition to our music video, we still need to design a digipak and social media page for our band. To complete this task, we created a marketing strategy and mission statement for our band.

This mission statement and marketing strategy will help guide us when making the rest of our brand package including the digipak and social media page.