Category Archives: Digipak

After we had received feedback and reassurance from our peers that our digipak conveys key conventions of the indie pop genre we had been designing for this gave us confidence and also relevant ideas for our final draft. 

Here is our final draft of our digipak:

Please click on images to see PDF’S

After seeing our Digipak in the album cover holder we decided that the back cover was very simplistic and also had an irrelevant colour that didn’t go with anything else on our digipak, neither did it go with our star image. So we decided to go with the name of our album and tie in the name to the design. Therefore we created a road down the middle of our digipak. This gave our design individuality but also gave our digipak a key feature on any indie pop album cover which is artwork. We wanted to go with more of a playful and bold theme which also went with our music video theme to tie in the digipak together. 

We decided on the back cover we liked the text, however the colours didn’t look right with the new changes we made, therefore we changed these colours to match the road so that it blended nicely with the colours inside our left and right covers. 

My group is very proud of what we have produced and believe it follows the true convention of an indie pop album cover and digipak.

Below is our digipak draft 3 in a cover, this makes our music video more conventional and reaslistic and ahs also helped us decide what works well while all of the images are together.

In order to get a new form of feedback for our draft 3 we decided to do a survey. We asked 22 people what genre they thought our digipak was. As you can see from the tally results, the majority got the correct genre. This shows our digipak is easily established as an indie pop digipak and that the design is evident to the genre. However because we still had a few wrong genres this shows us we may need to tweak some of our digipak to make it more conventional. For example in order to establish it is a indie-pop digipak and not just a pop digipak we are going to add a couple more designs and less images as images go more with the pop conventions rather than indie pop.

This is our first draft of our digipak, we have created first drafts for our front cover and back cover of the digipak. Due to this being the first draft we have a lot of adjustments to make to guarantee our audience does not reject the text and that the product is what they are expecting. 

Our genre is indie-pop, while doing the research tasks we concluded that with indie-pop bands they tend to have the band on the front as well as a visual artwork piece on the back. We are unsure fully on our design however below is what we like about this first draft:

What we like:

• Pink tones 
• The font of the album name 
• The layout of the text 
• The image 
• The green 

Improvements:

• Blue tone on the back cover 
• The font of the song names 
• Add a barcode by the copyright 
• Change the spines 

By establishing the changes we need to make we can make sure we make a successful digipak that is more conventional for our genre.

Here our the cover sheets of our shoot for our Digipak as you can see we used an arrange of shot distances and poses for our shoot. These photos will be used in our digipak as well as some will be posted on our social media page to intoduce our band.

Due to us being prepared and organised and having done a PMA we were able to have an enjoyable and successful shoot. The PMA came in handy when it came to the shoot day so everyone knew what they were bringing, what they were doing and what shots we needed. 

Positive things that came out of our shoot:

• We got a variety of shots
• The costumes worked well 
• Everyone brought everything they were required to bring 
• We did individual shots for our social media page 
• We took some natural photos we didn’t intend to take but they turned out well

Improvements:

• Plan the photos and angles we want to take in further detail 
• Bring another set of costumes to save doing multiple shoots 

Altogether our shoot was successful and we got some useful and good photos to use for our digipak as well as our social media page.

In the top left I have my front cover, top right is my inside left cover, bottom left is my inside right cover and my back cover is in the bottom right.

After doing research on what are conventional and essential elements of my digipak with my chosen genre, I have created a mockup on paper of my original ideas that I have been developing using the conventions of an indie pop digipak.

Front cover 

Due to the album name ‘Every Blue Moon’ I decided to have a big edited moon in the centre of my front cover with the star image reflecting onto the moon with a silhouette of the artists. Due to me having a band playing I chose the lead singer of the band to have on my front cover. Due to the genre indie pop it is important for me to tie in both repertoire of elements of each genre. For example tying in my artists on the front cover which is traditionally pop as well as tying in some artwork which is more indie. The colours I will be using are primarily blue and pink mixes of neon and light tones. 

Inside Left:

On my inside left cover I have the constant throughout the blue moon however only in the top right corner of this side. I have included the instruments which are common among indie bands ideas. I am going to incorporate more artwork into the inside left cover, however not sure how at this stage. 

Inside right:

This is where the CD of the album will sit on the CD I have printed onto it the band name and the album anime across the centre. A city which will be more animated then images of a city. The common theme of the moon appears due to the album name. The colours I am using on this page are darker, black and grey on the CD as well as the band with the album and bands name being bright pink to stand out. 

Back cover:

Using the conventional elements of a back cover of an album digipak. I have the same design of the moon being the focus, however the moon being more faded and not as prominent towards the bottom of the image as this is where my band’s faces are going to be. The colours for this sector of the digipak are blues oranges and cool tones for the back of the digipak. The songs on the back include:

1. Blue Moon 
2. Best Day Of My Life
3. Melody 
4. Diamond 
5. Believer 
6. Hit It 
7. Pride 
8. Go Big Or Go Home 
9. Brightest Star 
10. Luck 
11. Angel 
12. What We Live For

Colour Swatches:

These are the colours I would like to use in my Digipak.

As you can see from below we had to choose an album cover that matches the genre of our artist and label the repertoire of elements that are conventional for a Indie pop albums blueprint cover and digipak. 

For example every album cover has:

• The artists name (usually on the front cover of the album cover)
• The name of the album on the front cover 
• A barcode 
• Small copyright terms and conditions for legal reasons 
• The tracks in the album printed and listed on the back cover

As you can see from my connotations and explanations of the album cover I chose a slightly different one as it has some very unconventional parts to it. For example the text is very small on both sides of the album as well as the Name of the artists isn’t on the front cover but on the back in small writing. I highlighted this while looking at the album due to the nature of it being unconventional.

Indie pop is a different type of music as it combines the indie side with the pop side therefore with indie albums you can usually expect a piece of artwork on the front but not the artists, however with pop you always have the star image on the front cover. Therefore Clario’s album ( the album I chose) is a combination of both but more pop due to her being on the cover.

The language in the media is very important as it tells a story and is very conventional to my chosen genre. This research and analysis will help me to create a succesful and conventional digipak for my band.

We found in this task that In order to have a star image that blends with your brand and genre you have to do research on the genre they are part of. 

This included selling our barn and our star image, understanding our competition and being aware of what they have done/ are doing, having a mission statement that reads well and is effective, making the audience want to know more about the artist and finally how you are going to sell your brand or star to the target audience.

Before we started coming up with our group/band/artists name we had to first of all think, who is our audience? Who listens to indie-pop music? And who are we targeting this brand at? After some research we discovered that most age groups that listen to indie-pop music are ages 15-21 so therefore in full time education or not long out of full time education. We took this on board when discussing our marketing strategies.

We decided for Island Panic we are going to use integrated advertising this means we are using multiple platforms of social media and industries to create the most efficient and successful audience for our package. We are also going to use guerilla marketing, we were also thinking of doing a call to action in our digipak to make the audience want to engage. Obviously when we were thinking of this we were making sure it all fits with the genre and is  coherent with other artists’ work as we wouldn’t want the audience to reject the text. These are our USP ideas and strategies. 

This lookbook connotes what our genre of music for our band Island Panic is all about, these images we found connected to the style of music and the Bands branding. Some of these images are integrated advertising pieces of artwork.

While doing this tasks we realised we didn’t know much about the genre therefore we had to do some research on Indie pop music, the main connotations to having a successful indie pop brand the repertoire of elements are as follows:

• simplistic artwork
• Bright colours 
• Emotional 
• Tells a story 

By now knowing and understanding the conventions of a successful indie pop art piece whether it be a vinyl, album cover or music album cover, we can use this information as inspiration for our pieces of work in this module. We like some of the artists on the look book wall who will be using integrated advertising to appeal to the maximum audience we can. 

Above is our production meeting agenda and our risk assesment, this will keep us organised. This also helps everyone understand where they need to be and what they need to bring incase they forget. This also helps as we have everything when we need it and where they need to bring it. This would also help us as if our teacher needs to get hold of us we have the school phone number to gain contact easily. Our risk assesment helps us stay safe and elliminate any risks or potential hazzards during or surrounding the shoot.