Other Digipaks

 As a group we all wanted our digipak to look professional, we wanted to create a digipak that would not look out of place next to current albums. Adam found an old CD case and printed out our panels to the correct dimensions.

He then found some of his collection of albums and put ours up to the test against professional work. Overall we are very happy with our digipak and feel our work has conventions of music digipaks but has unique edges. We feel the gradient we have used has enabled us to create an eye catching front cover that will stand out against its competitors and catch the customers eye.

This is a picture of the inside, again we feel that the constistency of colours has helped us create a consistent house style. Printing each panel out has been very rewarding for us. When you see a piece of work on a computer screen it is different to if you see it as it would be sold. We have been able to see how the four panels flow and compare the use of colours and fonts. On Photoshop we were working on each panel individually which means when it was all put together in a real CD case we can see what the relationship is like.

CD Cover and Advert comparison

Before I started to design my magazine advert I wanted to have a look at some of the conventions and relationships between CD cover and the advert. We want to develop a relationship across our digipack and by doing research it will enable use to see how similar or different the two are in the music industry.
I started by reading a copy of Q magazine and I came across some of the adverts, so I typed them into google to find the album cover that accompanied them.

The first advert I found was advertising Adele's new album 21. I started by looking at the fonts used, the title font 'ADELE 21' the font and colour scheme is used consistently throughout. With the artists name in white and the title of the album in green. Green is then used once more on the advert, this is evidence of creating and using a house style that makes these two easy to pair. The pictures are both very similar, firstly both are black and white which helps keep continuity. In both the artists gaze is directed away from the camera, the pictures are very similar which maintains continuity. Just in case someone does not make the link between the two, they have added a small version of the album cover on the bottom of the advert. This helps to customer when buying the album because they know what to look for.

I then came across another advert in Q, this one was for White Lies debut album, 'Lose my life'. The relationship between the album cover and advert is very strong, but I believe that using the same picture twice lacks imagination. Adele and her designers have done it perfectly in my opinion, they are not using the same image twice but it is very similar so it maintains the house style without looking as if they have just cut corners in the design process. However the title fonts are the same, this is something that we will defiantly be doing across our digipak.

 Here is both the magazine advert and the album cover for Rihannas new album 'LOUD'. The house style created between the two is very strong, this is done by the consistent use of fonts. The title font is in exactly the same font and colour which creates a positive relationship between the digipak and advert. The pictures are different but are have similarities, the album cover is a close up of her face whereas the advert is a medium close up. Rihannas hair style is exactly the same in both images and they have even put in a screen grab of the album on the magazine advert. This helps the audience make the link between the two pieces of media, this can be seen in Adeles media brand above.

The relationship between Jessie J's album artwork and the magazine advert is very strong. The main similarity is the image, they have used the same image of her to increase the relationship between the two. The dimensions are exactly the same, they have added the album cover to an A4 dimension window and then filled the empty space in black. The black used to fill in the box also fits the house style as it matches her hair colour, lipstick, clothing and nails. The fonts and colours are used constistently throughout, the gold from the title is used to highlight text, 'debut album' and Includes the #1 international smash' this again strengthens the house style between the two.

The magazine advert and album artwork for Plan B's album The Defamtion of Strickland Banks also have a strong relationship and consistent house style. The main colour used is Red, this is used over both of the platforms to maintain the house style. Red is used for the titles of each page which helps create a rating system based on colour. Red is used to catch the eye of the audience, it also highlights the main tag line on the advert. The images are different one is black and white and one in colour, however the audeince can still see that the artist is the same. This is done by the use of the microphone on the advert which links to the performance based setting on the artwork, including the sign at the top of the album. Also similarly to Adele and Rihannas there is a small screen grab on the album put on the advert this is useful for the audience as they know what to look for on the shelf.

Overall the links between the digipak and advert are clear for us to see. The images are similar and in some cases the same, the use of fonts are consistent over the two, no new colours are introduced on the advert that have not been used on the album. This strengthens the house style and is something we will have to consider when constructing our album. Another convention I have discovered is that taking a screen grab of the album and putting it on the advert so the audiences know what to look for.

Album Research

Before making our digipak we need to look at the key conventions of professional albums, and to see how the use of colours and fonts are used over the four panels.

The main conventions of the front panel is to promote the artist and the name of the album. The picture is generally a close up of the artist, this is done to create eye contact between the artist and the audience. On the disc is normally the name of the artist and the album name. There is generally some form of legal content on the disc but the position is varied and the record label is normally given recognition. The CD cover colour is normally a block colour and images are rarely used, this is something for us to consider when making our CD disc. The back cover of an album has the song list, generally the song list is vertical with numbers next to them but on occasions it can be horizontal depending on the picture. The back cover then has more legal content followed by a bar code and other ways to promote the artist such as their website.

The picture is a close up and the colours that Jessie J is wearing have been carefully selected so that they can be used across the four panels. The use of colours across Jessie J's digipak is very consistent the backgrounds are all white which helps create a house style. This is also  maintained by the consistent use of font. The artists name is in the same font on the front cover and the CD disc. The font for the song title 'Who you are' is also in the same font but they have chosen to change the colour of this font. The back cover is dominated by the colour black which is key to the front panel, most of Jessie's accessories are black. Overall the colour scheme is consistent and the use of fonts help link the panels together. However I believe that the colours on the disc do not fit in with the hous style as this colour is not used anywhere else, perhaps picking a colour from the front cover would have looked better.

 Here is Adeles digipak, I believe that the house style they have created is very strong, again this is done by the use of fonts and colours but also the use of images. The image on the front cover is again a close up which promotes the artist, this image links well with the back cover although she is looking at the camera in this picture they are similar. Both close ups and in black and white.The green that is used on the front cover is picked out and used on the disc, this gives the digipak colour and the title of the album is also on the disc cover which stregthens the house style. The fonts used are consistent and simple, this helps increase the house style of the digipak.

Here is the digipak for Tinie Tempahs album Discovery.The strong house style is created in large by the colours and effects used on the front and back panels. The stylish effects to give the album a mystical aura gives the album a unique look which also links to the title, Discovery suggests something new, something different which is certainley the case for the effect used. The triangle also strengthens the house style, it makes the images look similar to each other. The colour of the CD is again a block colour and is picked from the front cover which strengthens the link between the two. The font is used throughout the whole album, its used for the title font, the font on the disc and the song list.

The use of bright and vibrant colours is the key factor is creating a strong house style in Coldplays digipak. The front covers bold colour is picked up upon and used over all the panels.

This ideas are apparent in the digipaks for Oasis, Plan B and Noel Gallagher

CD analysis

Oasis Single Covers

Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds is a fairly new band so they do not have a lot of single covers to look at. I decided to look at a band with plenty of single covers that were in our genre, who better than Oasis, Noels former band.

The bands name is always written in the same style, this creates Oasis's house style and develops a relationship between all of these single covers meaning they are all linked. However on certain tracks they have decided to change the colour with them favouring the plain black and white. When people see this they are instantly reminded of oasis straight away.

The position of the name is varied, generally the easy thing to do is to place the name at the top but Oasis have not stuck to one position, and even place it on the guitar for the video importance of Being Idle.

Not all of the single covers actually state the name of the song, this is interesting because how are people supposed to know what song they are buying. Going 'by the book' you would say that you cannot have a single cover without the name of the single on it by Oasis are notorious for going against the grain.

I have noticed that three if these single covers are fairly similar, the covers with the dark background with the semi circle of light, are easily linked.

Noel Gallagher Digipak

Noel Gallagher band 'High Flying Birds' are a british band that formed in 2010, they have just released there first album called High Flying Birds. Here are three single covers and the cover of the album, bottom left. We found the album cover in Q magazine, which then led us to search for some of the single covers. This was also used as a magazine advert in Q which took up  awhole page, this was useful to us because it helped us see what adverts from our genre look like.

Originally we took some pictures of Glenn facing the camera, but  upon further research you can clearly see that in most of these album covers Noel is not facing the camera. Except the album cover, but even that is blurred, this research has altered our original ideas. We will have to make a CD cover for our Digipak and we will have to take into consideration house style, which these four covers do very well. The title font 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, is the same across all four, this keeps consistency and continuity across the covers. It also means that if you had thousands of album covers you would easily be able to group these four together. The song names are even in the same font which contributes to the house style. We searched on da fonts, and looked at the handwritten section of the fonts, we looked at the effect Noel Gallagher has created doing this and decided to see what it would look like, so Adam found a list of fonts that we fitted this description.

On further analysis you can see that the pictures have little relevance to the song title, however the picture for the cover of What a Life, uses a location that is seen in the video. However 'The Death of you and Me', the location on the cover is not even seen throughout the video, this gives us something to ponder. Do we use a location that is seen in our video, it could be shot from a different angle or height, this will help create a link between our video and CD cover.

There is also a link between them in terms of the lighting and effects used, if you look carefully all the single cover, the colours start at an faded turquoise. It then changes across to an orange, this is a subtle touch but it works with the pictures. I had a go at doing this on Photoshop, if found a plain picture of Noel Gallagher. I originally tried doing it over the whole picture but it did not look right. So I used the Quick Selection Tool, to cut out the background, I selected the gradient tool and found the colours that matched the effect on the cover 'What a Life'.















We have decided not to use the 'normal' setting for the overlay, but changed to 'colour burn', we felt that it gave us the effect that we wanted.