PLANNING - Drafts and Layouts: Digipak CD Disc (Freehand)

Initial Idea 1

Initial Idea 2

Initial Idea 3

Here are some images of myself sketching some initial ideas:

PLANNING - Drafts and Layouts: Digipak Front and Back Cover (Freehand)

From researching digipak's from a variety of genres, it gave me inspiration on album cover layouts and the codes and conventions used. From undertaking this important research I was able to identify the key features of an album front cover, enabling me to design some freehand drafts of initial ideas.

Initial Idea 1

This is my first initial idea for my album front cover. At  the beginning of our planning, we came up with an idea to change the title of our album from 'Only By The Night' to 'Strangers'. This was due to the idea that the meaning of the album title could link to our music video as the girl is alone in a big city and is surrounded by Strangers. On the right hand page of the draft is meant to show a sketch of cuts of different people to make up one person (as shown below).

We thought this was an original and inventive idea to have on the front of an album cover so we continued to carry out this idea. Myself and Louisa took similar photos of 22 different people who were willing to take part in our project. Here are some of the photos:

After taking the photos and trying to edit them together on Photoshop, I found it really difficult trying to line up everyones features. Myself and Louisa then helped each other out and eventually constructed this image...

We were satisfied with this image, however, after importing it onto the album front cover on InDesign, the image did not have the desired effect and impact. We printed the image off and asked our target audience what they thought about it. The answers we got was that it didn't make alot of sense and didn't fit the conventions of an album cover. After this we decided that this idea wasn't going to be successful and decided to start from the beginning.

Initial Idea 2

This initial idea is based on the existing Kings of Leon album ' Only By The Night'. However, I adapted this idea to make the 4 sectors of just the members of the band rather than an image of an owl (as shown below).  However, after sketching this idea, I realised that this would be quite difficult to line up and have the same problem like the previous idea. I also felt as though it was not original enough as it is too similar to the existing product. These are the reasons as to why I did not pursue in designing my digipak around this idea. This design is also based around the 'Strangers' idea which we were not going to continue with creating.

Initial Idea 3

This was the final idea that I sketched and I felt that this was the best option to go with. This idea has reverted back to the original title of the album called 'Only By The Night'. By sticking with this title, it gives the album a more realistic approach. One issue that had to be resolved here, was that as a group we needed to communicate with each other to make sure that we all knew that this was what the album was going to be called, so that if someone was making a poster they would be able to advertise the correct album title. A strength of this draft is that on the front cover it only has one key image that takes up most of the page, conforming to the layout of other album covers. The name of the band is clearly written at the top of the page, immediately highlighting to the audience that this is Kings of Leon's album. A possible weakness to this idea is that behind the key image of the band there is some dead space and it may look too plain when created on InDesign.

A strength to the back cover of this draft is that it has another image of the band, which is popular among digipaks. Another strength is that the track listing is clear and visible to the audience. The font size isn't too small and the position it is in is a conventional aspect. Other conventions include the barcode at the bottem of the page and the record label details on there aswell. 

Here are some images of myself sketching some initial ideas:



DEVELOPMENT - Editing has begun!

After uploading and organising our footage, we began editing on the school video editing machines. To edit our music video together, the editing software we are using is Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

Here are some photos of ourselves using Premiere Pro and editing our video together:

Myself and Kate B spent time after school had finished to put together the beginning shots of our video. We experimented with the programme and figured out how to use some of the tools such as the razor tool to cut clips.



PLANNING - Digipak: Back Cover Conventions

Generic conventions of an album back cover:

• A simplisitic house style that is consistent with the rest of the album.
• An image of the band or an image that relates to the album.
• List of the tracks featured in the album.
• Barcode, usually in the bottom left or right hand corner.
• Name of record label.
• Record label's and the band's website.
• Copyright and year.
• Who owns the copyright.
• The distribution company of the album.
Alternative Rock:

From researching and analysing these conventional aspects of the back cover of an album, it will help me to include these important features when designing and creating my own album.


Even though these 3 albums each have an individual layout, they all include the conventional aspects of an album cover.

Heavy Metal:

                   

Solo Artists:

PLANNING - Digipak: Conventions

Typical codes and conventions of an album Digipak feature:

• Band/artist name and the title of the album.
• Copyright information.
• Information on the bands record label.
• The bands website and the record labels website.
• An introduction to the band e.g. names of band members.
• A short text about the band and who they'd like to thank for their success.
• Credit to the people who were involved in the making of the album, e.g. Song writers, Producers, Engineers, Production Managers and Photographers.
• Multiple photographs of the band in different locations.
• Images that relate to the album and song meanings.
• Lyrics to each of their songs.
• Track list.
• Barcode.

PLANNING - Digipak: Front Cover Conventions

Generic conventions of an album cover:

• A consistent house style with 2/3 colours used.
• A big and bold artist name.
• A smaller font used for the album name.
• A key image which fills the entire cover.

After identifying the typical codes and conventions of generic album covers, I then looked more closely at different genres: Alternative Rock, Heavy Metal and Solo Artists.

Alternative Rock:

• A consistent house style of colours, fonts and sizes.
• A simplistic colour scheme of 1/2 colours used.
• A simplistic design on a plain background.
• A key image, usually the only image on the page.
• The only text on the page is the name of the band and the title of the album.
• The name of the band is the biggest text on the page, however it is not oversized.
• The name of the album is a smaller font size.

Heavy Metal:

• A big, bold and oversized text of the band name, centred at the top of the cover.
• The album name is of a smaller font size than the band name and is located underneath the band name.
• A colour scheme of more than 2/3 colours.
• The colours used are strong, loud colours such as black, red, grey and brown.
• The key image is quite dark, mysterious and scary.

Solo Artists:

• A simplistic colour scheme.
• A simplistic design.
• The artist's name is the biggest text on the cover and can easily be identified, attracting the target audience to the name of the artist rather than the name of the album. This could suggest that the artist is confident as being well recognised and are able to promote their album by their name only.
• There is only one image. The key image is of the artist themselves against a plain background.
• The camera shot used is a mid shot of the artists top half of their body.

PLANNING - Digipak: Research

As a group we assigned ourselves ancillary tasks:
Myself - Digipak and Magazine Cover
Kate - Website and Bus Stop Advert/Bus Advert
Louisa - Poster and DVD
Vanessa - Poster and Calendar

As I am designing and creating a Digipak for our band, I went to HMV to get inspiration for what to include.

After going to HMV, I came home and looked at the CDs I own. I gathered a variety of genres, took photographs of them and analysed their codes and conventions.

Alternative Rock
I researched into albums of the alternative rock genre looking at bands such as The Cribs, Enter Shikari, The Kooks, Panic at The Disco and Paramore.

Heavy Metal
As well as looking at the alternative rock genre, I also looked at other genres such as Heavy Metal as they still used the same codes and conventions of an album, which was very useful.

Albums: Iron Maiden, Killswitch Engage, Cradle of Filth,
Motorhead and The Black Dahlia Murder.

Solo Artists
I also looked at solo artists and how they portrayed themselves through their albums.

Albums: James Blunt, Pixie Lott,
Diana Vickers and Taylor Swift