Hand Drawn Designs

These are the potential designs that I drew out for the print productions. The top image shows the inside panels of the digipack, while the other image shows the the front and back panels of the the digipack.

Inside Images for Digipack

Second Panel

Third Panel

These are the design that I have made for the inside of the digipack. These are still provisonal designs as I am waiting on feedback from an chosen audience to give their views on both images.

Advertisement Designs

I have created three designs of my advertisement posters which are slightly different to each other. I am going to ask a small number of the target audience to choose which they believe is best, and which one they would be more attracted to. I would then put together the results and choose the final design which has the most votes.

These are the three designs:

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Research on Advertisement Posters

Many artists, especially those who are unsigned or fairly unknown, use advertisement posters to inform the public of their new EP and advertise their music to a wider audience. How advertisements are designed and used depends on the genre of the music and of the views of the target audience, with the band wanting to appeal to them with something that they like. For example when researching I found various adverts of different genres. The background colours and added images represent the genre, even though many are in conventional ways which may not represent how the band seen their music.

These adverts show the front image of the EP/album being used on the posters. This helps to make the viewer famliar with the album cover, making the viewer more likely to buy the album if they saw it in a shop on the highstreet. The adverts also have quotes, from critics reviewing the album in at the most ten words, or rating (Out of 5 stars or out of 10); these quotes are also positive if not no one would buy the album. These adverts are not only to advertise the band's new music, but to advertise the band themselves. The posters include the band's websites, the band's logo, and the record company's logo to help promote them as well. Some bands also set up album launch parties if they are a band that are still relatively unknown, using the party to gain more fans and spread their name.

Record Label Logo

To make the digipack look more professional I had to add a fake record label on the back of the CD case. With the use of found pictures from the internet not allowed I had to make my own logo on Photoshop. I decided to going with a logo that was simple yet effective, choosing to use a star placed right next to the name of the record company.
This is the image of the star that I used. I managed to find a font which used stars as letters, meaning there were lots of different designs to choose from, with this design being my favourite. The old, vintage look of the image linked to the indie genre, with vintage sounds used in the music and vintage clothes wore by the target audience.

This is the font that I chose to used, along with the name of the record company I came up with. After looking through fonts I decided that this one fitted best with the image of the star, with nearly the exact same design used for both. The font also has a funky look to it, making it much more interesting to read than just a plain 'Times New Roman' font.

This is the finished design that I made for the record company logo.

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

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.

Print Productions

On thinking and sketching out ideas for what I could do for the print productions on all areas of the digipack (front cover, back cover, and inside) I discovered an issue with trying to link the name of the song to designs that I could do. After looking at other album covers, which I have detailed how I could adapt them into my own ideas below, I discovered that many artists have album artwork that has nothing to do with the name of the album or of any of the songs that is on the album. I have decided that I have to install this idea into my own work, with the song title 'You Don't Know' giving very limited options at which I could use.

I drew out a sketch of my first idea, with all four covers. This fits in with my video where I used stop motion by having text on paper. This time I have people, maybe the band members, holding up the pieces of paper with the information about the name of the artist, name of the song, and the information of the songs on the E.P including the length.

On the second panel I have used a question mark, the only link with the name of the song symbolizing the idea of not knowing something or asking a question. This would be inter-textual reference with the album cover of British indie band 'The XX'. They have used an bold 'X' to link with the name of their band, while symbolizes the sub-genre of their music with the dark atmosphere that music creates. The dark background makes the white bold text stand out, drawing the attention of people looking through CD racks while shopping; this makes the front cover of the their album successful. I would adapt this with my idea of the question mark, yet include some of the lyrics from the chorus. I could also use this image to go on the back of a booklet included in the digipack.

The use of a female in the music is evident throughout, and is seen as main metaphor in the song, with the male either not knowing the feelings that the female has or not knowing that the female has cheated on him. In the current mainstream music scene there is a healthy number of female artists around, for example Ellie Goulding and Florence and The Machine who are both pictured. Both females have been shown in a artistic way, fitting in with the genre of their music. Looking through the images I believe that an image of the female character would be more suited inside the digipack on the 2nd panel, with the male character maybe being on the other side on the 3rd panel. (More information about the male character in the paragraph below.)

The male character is seen as the main character in the music video, with him seen playing the guitar while a male voice sings the lyrics making the narrative structure is being told by himself. As with the female character an image could be inputted into the inside of the digipack, next to the female as stated in the previous paragraph. The image of David Vertesi on his album cover Cardiography is similar to a shot of the male character in the music video as he plays the guitar as sunlight beams down upon him. Looking at the costumes on album cover and in the music video they look very similar, while both fitting into the same genre. Again, as with the female character the album cover may not work successful with just one of the two characters from the music video used on the front. The type of photography shot that is used for David Vertesi album artwork is something that I would like recreate for my own print productions.

With the idea of using the female and male characters for the digipack in the ideas above the next idea would work with those. While the images of the female and male, separately, are inside the cover the image of both characters together could be used on the front. This would link to the music video where both characters stand opposite each other with the tree separating them. The image to the right, the album cover of White Apple Tree - Velvet Mustache, is an example of how the idea of two characters being seen together, but questioned if they are actually together, could be used. While the colours used show of the genre, similar to the genre of We Can't Dance.

Many artists use images for their digipacks that have no relevance to the album title, and are used to grab the attention of a passing shopper. For example the album cover for Everything Everything's Man Alive, image to the right, uses an image of a fox, with bright colours and static effects. I have an idea for a way of adapting this into my own idea, with an artistic photo of a cat that I have. This may be best to use as an 'Plan B', as it would be very difficult to produce, while also time consuming.

Hello again...

It's now time for a new blog ready for A2 media! This will show all the work that I will do for the A2 section of A Level Media. Let the fun begin...