Album front and back..

Our digi-pack front cover clearly states the name of the band and song. From exsisting product research we discovered that it is typical for the song name to be in larger text than the name of the band, so we used this information and made the name of the song the focal point. We have used the image of a book to link intertextually to our previous imagery in the video, where books are featured often in relation to the lyrics and narrative of the video.

We have made sure to include on the back cover of the digipack, a barcode, the copyright information, the logo for the band's record company, and a link to the shout out louds website. This is all information seen ordinarily on real digi-pack products and were things we knew we needed to include for it to appear professional.

Inside Album..

This is the final design for the left inside cover of the digi-pack,  after peer research into what is expected of and received well within a digi-pack we determined that having the lyrics available to be read and learnt if so desired is something highly regarded when the consumer is a big fan of the song/band - so they have access to the exact lyrics of the song at their discretion. Rather than just printing the lyrics as though typed on a computer, we wanted to continue our overarching theme and style of 'DIY', homemade and low-budget - the way we determined would be best to do this was making the lyrics look like they were written by the band members on a scrap piece of paper, to show their natural talent and casual approach to their songwriting. This also works with the laughing shots in our video that serve the purpose of creating a closer relationship between actor and audience, than is normally developed in a music video - having the lyrics in this way does this by allowing the audience to feel on a more personal level with the band members because they are able to see and read their orignal thought processes and ideas about the song, before it was made. I wanted to create this effect by actually writing the lyrics on a scrap piece of paper and scanning it in, but in the end we decided the more effective way of doing creating the effect would be to create it through photoshop, finding and image off the internet of some yellowed lined paper, and writing on it with a 'handwritten' looking font. After the lyrics were written, I decided to using the pen tool to draw some 'doodles' and 'scribbles' around the edge, as well as 'crossing out' some words, to make it appear more real, and like a scrap piece of paper. For the background to this we used the polaroid images used for the background on the other inside cover, and as the background image for the magazine advert. 

This is the final design for the right inside cover of the digi-pack, where the CD would be placed. We decided to use the effectively metonymic image of the LP record, with our personalised design on the front, to be the main image on this cover. The image of this record is one that features throughout our promotional pack, and serves the purpose of a repeated, recognisable image that represents the band/song when out of context, allowing audiences to recognise and relate it immediately back to this band/song. We decided it would be effective placing it on this cover, because although covered by the disc when it's in the case, when removed, the record is the exact size of the CD space, making it appear as though it is still filled - but with an LP record instead of a CD, working to please the desire for originality, classicality, and deeper appreciation for music - which are all carried by the image of an LP, connoting the overall style and themes of the indie genre. For the background for both this sleeve and the one on the opposite page, we have used our research and developed the idea of using polaroid photographs as the basis of the image. We began by taking screen shots of the most interesting and memorable scenes from the music video (to work as vertical intertextual references between the media platforms) and then using photoshop to place them onto a white frame that gave them the effect of being polaroid photographs. Once we were happy that the images looked genuine and as if taken on a polaroid camera, we used a fairly complex photoshop technique to create the impression that the pictures had been scattered over one another on a surface. We had to ensure they overlapped and were layered specifically to imply they were casually thrown, wanting to avoid them looking arranged or in any kind of pattern. After achieving this effect, we were then able to layer the record over the top, completing the cover that altogether carries many fairly explicit connotations of our themes and genre - indie 'DIY', low-budget and personal. 

Advert..

Working hard

Photo of record in fist stage of editing, the background has been removed so the image is just the record, so we can place it on various backgrounds if needed.

Me and Evie working like maniacs designing, brainstorming, uploading etc to get this deadline achieved.

Anna working hard getting the record cut out from its' background so we can use it on different backgrounds and in different images for example, digi-pack, magazine poster, promotional materials - so it can remain the constant within our project. 

Base photo

Base photo of the actual record we used in our music video, with our designed art in the centre. Intertextual code that will remain constant throughout all elements of the projects - almost becoming a convention of this band/song.

Practise ideas for digi-pak

On the inside of our digi-pak we know we want to have the lyrics of 'Show me something new' on the first inside 'page' and we want in to appear like the piece of paper it was first written on - a feature seen before in indie-rock - so the paper looks like a scrap piece that the band found and just brainstormed ideas and first lyric ideas. It needs to look rough, messy and scrap, hand written on a crinkled piece of paper kind of thing - VERY RUSHED EXAMPLE, JUST TRYING TO MAKE CLEAR THE IDEA.

Polaroid idea..

We were really interested in bringing in the theme of polaroid pictures, as they carry with them connotations of home made, DIY style artwork and style. I was researching some other bands and artwork that include polaroid style photographs. 

I found this album on the internet,  the album  package consists of 144 polaroid photos that unfold into a 2x2 square, and the pictures, when viewed from afar, blend to form the 'No Code' triangle/eyeball logo that is the theme throughout the album - I really liked this album, as it really cleverly uses polaroids to create the image that defines the album - which is what we have aimed for with the record within our album package. 

The main focus of this album cover is one large polaroid picture with the album art inside it. 

The use of scattered polaroid images in this album cover is something we think is really successful and looks really DIY, as if the pictures have just been taken and dropped straight to the floor. 

This album artwork is a set of polaroid pictures which work to show the narrative and establish the characters of this band and particular song/video.

A mixture of one original image, overlaid with polaroid pictures is a combination we've decided we definitely want to achieve when making our digi-pack.

This particular band is actually called 'Polaroid',  their artwork for this particular album includes both a record and polaroid cameras with pictures coming out of them, defining the two most important features of our digi-pak ideas. 

Rough idea

This is our rough idea of what we want the music video to include - we know we want to incorporate the record used in our video as an intertextual link, we want screenshots from the video to feature, in a polaroid kind of style; connoting more of a DIY feel and style - also having our lyrics written in a hand made kind of style, as if written by the artist when composing the song, will help add to this feel as well. We definitely want it to have the DIY homemade feel to it, because this features often in indie music and videos, and it is something we have embraced and strived to achieve - without it just looking mediocre and UNintentionally DIY..

Example digi-pak..

When researching images for the previous post, one of the album covers found had with it an image of the opened out digi-pak. We thought this one was really impressive, and has features we will definitely take inspiration and ideas from. The use of the record image on the front is the initial element that appealed to us for the project we are doing, then the use of cartoon 'doodle' style imagery is something we have incorporated in our music video and will endeavor to include on the digi-pak, as it follows the conventions of our video, and links to the desires of indie-rock audience of the 'DIY' appearance. The way the artwork continues throughout the digi-pak as one whole image is something we think looks very attractive, and definitely makes it a more desireable and admired product that a consumer would be inclined to buy, rather than just downloading the music off the internet.

Records..

 

Again from audience research we conducted in the research and planning stages of making out music videos, we established an iconic sign that indicates and features highly within indie-rock genre music videos/album covers/band artwork/advertising campaigns etc. We have incorporated this into our video by beginning the sequence with a record player starting up as the audio does, and ending it with the record stopping in time with the fade out of the song. We therefore want to make this image of a record a key feature of our whole digi-pak design and style, I wanted to find some examples of existing uses of records in album art to maybe gain some inspiration on how to incorporate them into the image and pack.  

Style inspiration

 From our questionnaire, and existing knowledge we knew an element admired by indie-rock audiences for their albums art is having elements of black and white imagery, as well as having some colour featuring. We really liked the style and idea of having a mainly washout image, but with one or several key colours picked out across the image. We like this idea especially for our digi-pak as we have already incorporated it into the design for the record in our music video, where there is hand drawn image of some books, some of which are filled with block colour, and the rest are black and white.

I researched on the internet some existing examples of this kind of style, and found several album covers, most of which similar if not the same as our genre, although some varying slightly. They all make use of picking specific colours to stand out, either against black and white, or in place of real-life colours.

Shout Out Loud's Posters and Adverts

From these posters and adverts it is clear the the Shout Out Louds have consistent design elements in all of their promotional work - from these images we can see their use of simplistic, basic colouring as their posters all focus on one main stand out colour, or little use of it. 

We also established that they consistently use simple, bold and clear typography in all of their work, to ensure immediate recognition and avoid misunderstanding and confusion. We will definitely take on this feature of clear typography in our magazine advert as it is extremely important for the band to be immediately recognisable and the audience no exactly what the advert is for as soon as they see it.  

Magazine Advert

I thought it would be a good idea to analyse an exsisting magazine advert for a band/album to understand what is expected of an ad, and what vital elements should be included and what is not so important.




Here we can see the digi-pak cover for the album being advertised on the abover spread. The imagery is the same on the advert as that of the album cover, therefore ensuring recognition of band and album when seeing the ad, and/or finding and buying the physical album.



Radiohead - Digital or Physical

I was looking on the NME music magazine website to try and get some examples of advertising campaigns for bands and songs, and to maybe gain some further ideas of what is expected of a digi-pak and what we definitely should try to include.

We knew as a group that in this day and age, purchasing a physical album is a lot less likely than downloading it off the internet; therefore we knew that for a digi-pak to be successful it needs to stand out and be something audiences WANT to own, rather than being something to store the disc in that ultimately ends up taking up space on a shelf.

I came across a feature about the new 'Radiohead' album 'King of Limbs' and there was an interesting thing about the releasing and buying of albums in our current society:

"In an essay on censorship he wrote last September, Colin Greenwood referred to a batch of new songs and said the band had 'begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again.'

Turns out the answer is: pretty much the same way they released 'In Rainbows' (i.e as a surprise). By offering two versions - the music-only download, and the 'premium' physical edition - they're embracing the digital era while rewarding more committed fans." [http://www.nme.com/]

From what Radiohead are doing in releasing their album digitally, as well as offering a "premium" physical version, we can see that current indie-rock bands want to keep the physical album alive, and keep providing their most loyal fans with good quality, treasurable album packs that will be admired and purchased almost as a separate product as well as the music - rather than just having the songs downloaded on their computers and ipods. This has encouraged us to try and make our digi-pak almost a piece of art in itself, instead of just a sleeve to hold the disc, because if we were making a real product to put on the market, it wouldn't sell unless it was something different, special, and sought after by our target audience. 

Questionare..

In today's lesson we compiled a questionare to help us gain information on what will and what won't be well received by our target audience. The questionare was made up of several closed and open questions that would hopefully give us indication of what to include within the appearance of the album cover, and also the content e.g lyrics, band information etc. We posed the questions to a small portion of our target audience; 16-24 year old males and females who are fans of the indie-rock music genre. 
We currently have the results from this in a grid, but we will endeavour to put the ones we can into a simplified graph format to put on our blogs, as so to make clear the reasons and intentions behind decisions we will make for the design of the digi-pak.


Some graphs:

Ancillary Tasks initial ideas..

For our ancillary tasks we must firstly design and create an appropriate digipak/album artwork for our song and video - therefore it must be similar in genre, style and feel to our video production. THEN create an A4 magazine spread advertising our band and video..

We haven't yet carried out our questionare or done in depth research, these are just our initial musings surrounding the task of the digipak. A couple of album covers that we already knew of, of bands that are within the indie rock genre can be seen below;

We particularly liked these album covers as they were good inspiration for our own work as we knew, from the style and features of our music video, that we wanted elements of hand drawn style imagery, as well as photographic snapshots of the video - which can be seen in the 'Wombats' album art, where the background image is a photograph, but the typography is made to look scruffy and hand drawn. Again with the Mika one, there is a photograph of Mika himself, surrounded by cartoon images, and the typography again appears hand written - we definitely wish to take this recurrent idea on board with our design, and work on a font that we can create by hand to use for the typography on our front cover i.e title of song/band, and to use inside or on the back for other information such as song lyrics, band information etc. Using a font that appears hand drawn, I think, is a really indie-rock feature, that I've seen a lot, and think looks really effective in creating the D.I.Y style that is desired by indie-rock fans. It also links well to our video as we used hand drawn animation and typography over the top of our shots to create an individual, indie style.