We now need to have a look at how digipaks are designed to work alongside videos to support the promotion of a new album.
Consider digipak covers. What do they have in common? What are the forms (technical elements for all CD covers) and genre conventions (designs particular to that genre of the music)?
Here are our notes on the conventions of a digipak. Read them when you get stuck.
Now you must find a digipak cover from the same genre as your music video and annotate it for the design forms and genre conventions. This must be uploaded to your blog. Make it detailed and use the terms from the sheets below. Try and find the back of it too, that would be great for some of the technical forms i.e. barcode, publisher logo etc.
Click for an example analysis
You should focus on: images, graphics, illustrations, font, colour, technical conventions (barcode, parental advisory, album title on spine, tracks on the back), register of copy, mise-en-scene, composition, intertextual references, how does the cover communicate meaning, denotations and connotations, image manipulation, filters, generic conventions, how can it be ‘read/interpreted’ by an audience, star image, metanarrative, representation?
This is a link to a previous student’s exemplar.
YOU ARE DOING A MEDIA LANGUAGE ESSAY AT THE MOMENT – THIS IS A MINI ESSAY ON HOW MEDIA LANGUAGE IS USED IN PRINT DESIGN TO ENCODE MEANING. WHAT DO THE COLOURS, IMAGES, FONTS, LANGUAGE, PHOTOGRAPHS, FRAMING, COMPOSITION, ANGLES ALL ENCODE?
Use terms like convey, suggest, represent, show, highlight, infers, highlights etc