This digipak design (my first draft) is based on the unsigned artist known as Carly Jones who we produce the music video for with one of her songs as the track. Thus to finish the production the digipak cover, inside and

back was created with the design being shown above with the album cover the same track title as the one we made the music video for. I selected this name for the album as I felt that it clearly showed the connection to the artist’s video and noticed that usuall y during up and coming artists first album’s they usually use one of their released songs as the album cover. I believe that this is show that their target audience can clearly

recognise who actually sung the song if they say heard it on the radio instead of seeing the artist within a video. For example artists that have done this include: Rihanna – Music of the Sun, Pink – Missundaztood along others. Yet this method isn’t always used such as with Avril Lavigne’s debut album named Let go which she hadn’t gotten a song of. That said nowadays the method of using song titles as the title for album’s are

becoming increasingly popular and more so for albums targeted at a younger audience so seeing as my target audience is for teenagers and upwards to around early twenties, I feel that it would suit their style.

The text I used for the artist’s name is called Chaparral Pro which is also red in colour and size twenty four. I chose to include the artist’s name so people who know who’s album it is as it is just as important maybe even more so than the digipak title. The colour red I used as I feel that it is a fairly bold colour that catches people’s eyesight rather well and as well as this it ties in with the genre of some of her music which relates to love or

some kind of relationship between people which red stands for. I also used this colour to fit in with the pins on the picture as the red pin is near the top of the pack thus I placed the artists name in an upward posi tion compared to the album name text which ties in with the blue pin thus is placed lower down to match the blue

pin almost creating a kind of mirror type feel. The reason to smile text I used is in times new roman, size seventeen and is in the colour blue as I mentioned earlier. I chose to use the blue colour to tie in with the song reason to smile and how it is suppost to make the

audience feel which is sad or at least slightly upset as the song is about someone looking for a reason to smile due to a trauma to them that they can’t overcome. Within the video this is explained as the characters mum dying due to suffering from cancer and she is trying to cope with the pain while trying to move on yet finding it hard with the memories. I picked the size seventeen as I wanted the text to remain pretty b ig yet to be smaller

that the artist’s name so that she gets more published with the media and society in general. The text was picked as I felt that it needed a simple tone to the design to flow with the artist’s thoughts and her personality which I felt was quite calm and laidback.

Digipaks are known for having a picture of the artist or something that ties to the songs as the cover and this album is no different. Going along with this stereotype I used an image of Carly withi n the top centre of the digipak which I took within the college in close proximity to the artist so that she wouldn’t miss any of her

lessons. Due to this factor however and the fact that she couldn’t get any transport to go to any other locations my ideas were limited to what I coul d do with the image. However I was able to take a photo of her facial features and her mid body so that the target audience could recognise the artist as well as the track before I modified the photograph on photoshop. First of all using photoshop I edited the image by using the

sharpen tool to make the features more defined and clearer then followed this step by using the contrast tool to make the image more brighter and noticeable due to lack of l ighting when I actually took the image. Next I used the burn tool to get rid of a few scar’s as well as the clone tool to help create the clean skin that is

stereotypical used on album covers as well as magazines. The effect I then used is known as lens flare which creates a flare similar to that from a lens at a designated point that I chose to be within the upper right corner of the photo to create a purer feel to it as well as making the image more noticeable.

The back however I took a completely different approach to as instead of using another picture of the artist I used a picture of a flower as well as using the track l ist which is presented on the back of the digipak in black and white shades of colour. I felt that the back of the device needed to show the target audience the songs

presented on the album like with nearly ever album out there today which seems to be a set rule as nowadays there isn’t an album released without a track l ist on the digipak to show what songs it has on it. Thus I took this factor to incorporate it into my digipak.

The track l ist I used is a l ist of songs given to me by the artist as I felt that it gave the digipak a more realistic feel than say if I made all the songs up apart from the one that the artist recorded for us, reason to smile. I made the text of this arial with the s ize being twenty so that is was stil l a large text that could be read from a far distance away but so that I could fit all of the songs in as well as including the image of the flower. The font

I used in order to keep it clean and simple as every text desi gn that I used seemed to be either be too professional or not enough such as a text that was old English yet so joined up that I couldn’t identify some of

the song titles, nor could a group of people I asked on the matter either. Thus I felt the clean and simple text option would suit better as it allows people to view the track l ist and during a short questionnaire which I conducted people only seem to view the back of digipaks when they first purchase the album and when they want to find the song that they like but not for anything else such as looking at the image on the back.

Due to my findings I didn’t want to spend too much time on the back yet more of the front as people commented that they looked at the front of an album much more than they did with the back. Thus I took a photo of a flower that I found within the vil lage. The reason I took the image was because I felt that it tied with

the video of reason to smile with the link to death as well as the title of the digipak which is the same name as the video track. After taking the photograph I began to edit it using photoshop, for instance I used a blue hue effect to the image to try and match it to the blue text on the front however it didn’t fit right and neither did

red so instead I made it black and white. Thus it goes with the text as well as the background colour creating a kind of mellow feeling towards the digipak which represents the artist’s type of music which are quite slow and as I mentioned before are mainly about feelings and the way that people express them.

So that the photo fitted with the back of the digipak I used a flower texture for the white background to match along with the image so that it didn’t look out of place. I then bordered the photograph and text with an image of jeans to again match the casual feeling that I wanted the album to create and express through the whole

digipak. However I do feel that it might be a step too far as it looks too different from the rest of the album yet I do like the texture like feel that it gives as it l inks with the target audience as studies I have looked at show that jeans are a top brand of wear for teens and upwards.

The middle of the digipak again I took a different idea for as I had to remember that half of the image was going to be covered by a hole where the CD would be kept. That said I sti l l wanted to include the artist within the middle of the digipak allowing it to flow as the audience opened the pack up. Due to this factor I added two images of Carly yet showing her more laid back and connected with the music by her expressions and the

emotion that I think people can feel when looking at her facial features. The two pictures are presented together yet slightly apart so that each one can go on a different side with one being where the CD is placed and the other being where the booklet would be left.

That said I placed the photos so that their eye view is looking towards the other image hopefully allowing the audience to see the whole aspect of the digipak as it is known that we as humans recognise images by their facial features and follow the way they are placed or the direction that they are looking at. This is believed to

be why when looking at a painting of a photo of a person staring back at the viewer they can sometimes get intimidated. I feel that this is a good technique to use as it is subtle and doesn’t provide too much extra work on top of the digipak design itself.

I didn’t decide to use any text on the inside as I felt that it took attention away from the rest of the digipak and as well as this I didn’t feel that text really suited it. For one I couldn’t pick any text that I felt suited the artist of the songs even when using quotes from the song title as well as Carly. That said if I found the right text I ma

consider using it within my final production piece of the digipak. Colours that I used were picked in order to match the front of the album cover as that was what people would see when they opened the front cover so I tried to keep the background colour as close as I could, keeping it

different shades of brown while also using the colours brown and blue to border the images. This also matches the text on the front cover which I feel creates that flowing effect so that the digipak isn’t too different when someone looks at it otherwise they may not know exactly what they are getting which some people, especially

my target audience, don’t l ike. Yet seeing as I clearly tied in the feeling throughout the digipak I think that people will know what they are buying when l ooking at the digipak both inside and out.