Finally we have draft 3 of our digipak in which we have altered to the feedback we were given in our screencastify from our teacher. She really liked our overall product but we have a few alterations to make which I have noted down below.

We have added the barcode and copyright etc, made the model bigger on the back page and most drastically, we have added some coloured opaque lines to the inside right page to add some effect as it was a dull image. We chose these colours because they match the inside left colours of the sunset really well and brings the whole theme together.

We asked our classmates what genre they thought our digipak was from first glance, without any indication, and everybody guessed pop. This is good because it means our brand is portrayed well in the colour scheme, name of the album and star and also the model and her mise en scene.

We are still yet to decide on a font for the name of the star on the front cover, but for now this is our draft 3!

We have worked on our feedback and targets to improve and composed a draft 2.

What we changed:

• Completely changed the inside right image to a plain picture of a sunset and the clouds to add some variety
• Adjusted the whole back page as the fonts didn’t work
• Swapped the picture from page 3 to the back page
• Made the layout of the tracklist half and half, and different colours

What we are still yet to change:

• Incorporate some colour from the inside left image into the inside right image, ie. yellows, oranges, purples (somehow)
• Maybe change the font of ‘Angel Delight’ as doesn’t really fit the same theme as the tracklist
• Make the model on the front page bigger.

Here is a screencastify feedback from our teacher of our draft 2 of our digipak

Targets for improvement:

• Spine on back cover, barcode, copyright and music record company
• Change font on either back page or front to match
• Do something with 3rd page, we are going to add some colour

We have finally completed the first draft of our digipak completing all 4 sides as a rough draft.

What we like and will keep for future drafts: 

• The images of the model chosen, we will keep these as we are sticking with the model being in the music box idea
• The inside left page, we love the transparency of the image of our model behind the sunset image, we think it is very eyecatching
• The front image of the music box, it is perfectly zoomed in so you can really tell it is a music box especially with the model posing like a ballerina on the stand too, just helps portray the message.

What we are going to be changing in future drafts:

• Finish the tracklist and be unconventional by not having the name of the tracks straight down the middle
• Change some of the fonts, don’t feel like they fit very well
• Use a plain image for inside right because otherwise our model is on all four sides.

Self assessment:

The use of camera and photoshop to manipulate engaging images is clear to see especially on the front pane by the  purposely artifical image of her in the music box . We are going to use photoshop when creating our draft 2 especially when cutting out and putting the model onto the music box again for the back pane. The use of camera angles has helped us create the perfect images of our model being a rebellious ballerina.

The use of unconventional mise en scene is clear with the contrast of the pretty ballerina dress alongside the black boots and fishnet tights to convey a playful look. We have also given the model extremely exaggerated pastel coloured makeup to match the theme of the rest of our digipak which is sunset colours.

It is clear to see we have used desktop publishing when forming this draft of our digipak. It is particularly evident that we have used InDesign in the inside left pane in which we have layered two images, a sunset and a picture of our model, to create a pastel transparent colour on her face.

To summarise our digipak shoot, it went very well and we got the images we really wanted to get which will fit onto the picture of the music box perfectly! Due to the outfit and mise en scene, she really looks like ballerina that doesn’t follow the stereotypes which is the idea we were going for.

These are the cut out images of her which we will then put onto InDesign onto the picture of the music box.

Here is the picture we got of the music box for our front cover, it is tattered and broken but this almost adds to the effect of the model being edgy and different and not perfect.

We will replace the plastic ballerina in the box with our model which will look really effective in the end. Overall our shoot went very well

Here is a contact sheet with all the images taken in our digipak studio shoot.

Here are my top 3 favourite images from the shoot

The second image is the one we are using for the front cover of her posing in the music box which I think will look extremely efffective. The other two images we will be using in the inside pages of our digipak.

Upcoming this week, we’re shooting our pictures for  the first draft of our digipak. The production meeting agenda will help us keep organised when bringing in our props and focusing on the aims of our shoot. As we are shooting at school, there are little to no risks but we have still filled out a risk assessment for the studio.

We sketched out a rough drawing of what theme we are going for in the digipak and the layouts of all our components such as the tracklist etc. We did 4 small drawings for each side of the digipak; we will keep coming back to this sketch when filming our shoot and the first stages for our draft 1 on InDesign we will use this drawing as a basic structure.

Here is an image of our hand drawn mock up, it is very rough but it is what we will follow when shooting. The first image is of our model which we are going to photoshop onto a music box with the titles around her.

The second image is going to be an extreme close up of our model as she is going to have some really exaggerated makeup, using pinks, blues and gems. We are also putting a purple transparent sunset image over the top of her face.

The third image is going to be of a cloudy sunset, which we already have the image for as we need the inside right to be a plain image without the model in it.

And the back pane is going to be the tracklist, on an image of a ‘love heart’ sweet, if it looks effective when shooting, if not we will use another image of our model.

The digipak overall is going to be a similar colour scheme to our music video, therefore it is going to be sunset themed. The main pastel colours we are going to be using are:

• Light blue
• Light pink
• Purples
• Yellows

We decided these because of our sunset theme and conveniently ‘love hearts’ sweets are pastel colours also which works well with our theme. On top of this the music box that is going on the front cover is light pink, so the rest of the digipak has to match this.

Before we brainstorm what ideas we could potentially use for the frontcover of our digipak, we decided to look at some already made cd and album covers of famous artists similar to our own genre. We also looked at the common theme of colour schemes within our genre, and have decided the most popular colours by artists are pink and blue, as seen in our padlet.

We are most inspired by Charli XCX album ‘sucker’, we have put the front and the back of her digipak on our moodboard because it is so similar to our theme that we are going for and looks very effective. We want our star image to portray a very similar vibe to this, with the whole love and pink theme to show off our narrative. In doing this, we will be following the conventions of a typical indie/pop album cover but we want it to look effective as possible whilst following the conventions. However we don’t want this to be basic so when doing the photoshoot, we will work hard to use abstract props and makeup to prove our star is different and stands out.

Our next task for preparing ourselves for the production of our digipak is to analyse an already made famous digipak, one of an artist similar to ours. I chose to do SIA’s album ‘This is Acting’ as she is of similar genre to our artist Lorde and I knew that her album was very bold and clever and unconventional.

We had to label each part of the album front and back, this proves we know what to look out for when we create our own digipak and to gather a proper understanding of the conventions.

This album is very alternative, and uses quirky fonts which represents SIA as an alternative, not mainstream artist and likes to play with the look of her albums. By looking at the front cover we can tell it is clearly a SIA album by her famous half black half white hair. This represents SIA as always keeping her statement look as part of her album cover but switching it up and making it quirky and different each time.

First, we had to come up with the foundations for our digipak, components such as coming up with an album title, mission statement for our star, brainstorming ideas and images that we wanted our digipak to look like etc. We needed our mission statement and brand to match and go alongside our already made star image and narrative.

We made a powerpoint summing up the main features of our artist and artists’ morals to portray our brand.