Choosing the Font

From the research we did, we deciphered that font on album covers in the alternative/indie/rock genre are typically simplistic. I looked at a variety of fonts and found a few that I thought where particularly suitable and striking for our ancillary tasks.

This was the font that stood out the most for me, I think it has clear simplicity and sophistication, with a masculine edge that would apply well to our target audience of males.

Pull In Emergency

This was my favourite album cover that I found, It is by Pull in Emergency. The album cover is very understated, absoloutly no text is present, just a very creative photographed portrait. The idea does relate to the kind of target market they are aiming themselves at, similar to our target market, teenage and young adults interested in alternative music, with a keen eye to style and design. I think that the cover is incredibly eye catching, and has a stylish coolness to it that would capture potential buyers attention, and I think this idea could relate very closely to our music video. I like the idea of a close up portrait in black and white with a creative eyecatching twist like the black tape over the mouth. However despite this cover having absoloutly no text I would like to feature some simplistic, descreet text simply stating the band name. I will use this cover as inspiration for our digipack cover, back and contents.

Illustrated digipak covers

When I was doing my research into digipack covers I cam across a few album covers with illustrated covers.

This made me consider maybe using illustrative work in our digipack osmehow purhaps on the back or on the inside. Below is a painting of a clown that I completed for my portfolio which could be applied to our digipack as it links to the clown theme in our music video. I put the picture in colour and grey scale to show the different effects.

Response to Digipak Cover Research

Inspired by my research into digipack covers I decided to do some self portrait photographs inspired mostly by pull in emergency's cover. I have kept most of the colours gray scale, especially the ones with the heavy makeup, but I keep the last line of photographs in colour because I quite like the black lips against the pale skin tone, and the flower against the skin tone. I wanted the pictures to be eye catching, and they correlate well with the content of the video, I think the pictures give a sense of vulnerability and fear that viewers witness in our music video. Furthermore the overall contrast of black against white links to the desaturated colour of our music video. Also by using the lead character of the music video as the face of the album it again ties a direct link between the music video and the digipack. Also as I have taken a variety of different shots, with different makeup and props as it is a digipak and we may require photographs on the inside and back as well as the front of the digipack, so there is a varied choice of which photographs could go where.

Digipak cover research

As our current task is to create a digipack, I reasearched some digipak covers for rock/indie music, to see what kind of covers are used by bands in similar genre brackets to ours. I created a moodboard of my favourite covers, and concluded from my research that the covers a re quite simplistic, yet artistic. Most do not include photographs of the artists, but stylised photographs of other people. The font is generaly small, descrete and simplistic, and the colour of the fonts are mostly black or white

Digipak

Our group has started to consider the our digipak, we have at the moment decided a simplistic approach would be best for the content of the video. Therefore We will most likely set up a photo shoot for the digipak cover, consisting of either a photograph of the main character as a normal girl or as a clown. We are starting to look at various album artwork to draw inspiration.

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefield (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Digipacks hold huge responsibility for advertising their product, in this case the band and their album. It must capture a potential buyers attention and encourage them to purchase the album. It must show the album tracklist, band name, album name and manufacturer.