Front Cover of The Digipack

I have designed a set template for the front cover of the digipack. This is a image of the female from the music video, with the image being adapted by the use of photoshop and text being added in. I have made four designs in which I will get opinons on all four from a selected audience and the design with the most favourable feedback will be chosen. My prefered front cover design is design 2.

Design 1


Design 2


Design 3


Design 4

Music Video (Final Edit)

Discuss avatars in terms of their social and psychological functions and semiotic meanings

In a world that is heavily involved in technology and the use of the internet, the need for having an avatar has never been higher. The avatar’s function is to represent the user within the online environment, for example on websites like ‘Facebook’ and ‘MySpace’. The user instils the avatar with qualities they want to project into that environment. But what does the use of avatars say about the society that we live in today?

An avatar acts as a calling card / telephone number / identification card etc., allowing others to find the user / avatar. At the same time, it provides a distancing device that turns persons (user) into character (avatar). It is a fictionalising tool that creates a new reality. In this new reality people can portray a view of themselves which they either want to be like or how they want people to see them. An example of this is the use of avatars on Facebook or any other social networking website, with people being friends with their peers at the same school or workplace as themselves and wanting to ‘impress’ and ‘fit in’ with them. Avatars that take the forms of profile pictures are like wearing your best clothes to school; users want to present certain aspects of their personality (real, imagined or aspirational) to the society they interact with. The avatar of the user’s choice is a visual representation of the user that enables participation within the online environment. As such, it is a social tool; and in this idea they use this ‘social tool’ to make friends with people they see as in the same social group to themselves. This shows that the use of avatars is more to do with the psychological state of the youth of today, the want to be the most popular and liked person at work or in class. This also links to the human mental state of not wanting to be alone, and the need to have others close and nearby. For example the average person 9 out of 10 times will feel more confident and comfortable in an environment where they are with friends, and not in a room with a number of people who are unknown to them. The sense of belonging and not having to be in a situation like this has been more forced on us in recent years, with the ‘popular’ children for example they are liked by most; unlike the child that has few friends and seen as different to others, this mainly resulting in bullying and public humiliation. So even though the social functions of using an avatar are important, these are developed from the psychological state of the user.

Avatars are a form of language; they operate as a sign system that can be read in semiotic terms. The symbol of the avatar (signifier) points to the signified (the user), creating a sign. This sign is a profile of what a person wants to show them as. Avatars often revel in the gap between the signifier and the signified: users enjoy creating avatars that are not like themselves, so that there is a big difference between signifier (avatar) and signified (user). An avatar could not represent how the user looks, acts or thinks, just being a sign of what they may enjoy or find funny. The signifier art of the use of an avatar has become more popular in recent years with the introduction of improved technology, for example video games with the ability to create an avatar from many different looks on the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360.

Possible Ideas of Print Production

I decided to develop the idea of using an question mark as one of the images in the digipack, adapting from the album cover used by The XX. I would use the same black background with a bold font to make the text more effective. The question mark would then, possibly, have lyrics from the chorus of the song written inside and going round with the shape of the question mark. Below is the image of the sketch I made out to show this idea, alongside with the album cover of The XX's self entitled album to show how I've adapted the idea.

I have created 8 different designs for this by using a different font each time. I will get different opinions from people on what they think is the best and most effective design, and then choose whatever design was most favoured from the audience research. The designs are shown below.