planning individual digipak

In comparison to jewel-case CDs, digipaks are a far more effective format to use to promote an artist and build a relationship with the target audience. This is due to the fact that a digipak is more personal as it contains a note from the artist to the audience; this builds a relationship as it is a way to make the audience feel like they are personally receiving something from the artist. Furthermore, a digipak makes good use of presenting artwork and images as it contains a booklet; again, this is a way of the artist giving something more to the audience than just a plain CD. The artist is also further promoted as more information about them is provided for the audience to look through and therefore really get to know the artist; also, it sets the artist apart from other artists and therefore the audience would appeal to their music more, consequently perhaps sharing the digipak around with their friends. In relation to my music video, I need a digipak to go along with it as a way to promote my artist. Therefore, I have planned out the front and back cover of the digipak, alongside two images that will be in the booklet, a note from the artist and the design that will go on the actual CD.

Within my digipak, I have used particular elements that I have taken from the scenes which are going to be in my music video, along with ideas I have personally come up with. For example, the front cover of my digipak consists of a large image of the artist standing on a road at night time. This image has not been taken from anything within the music video; however, it still relates to it as the audience can see the artist's face and therefore are aware that the digipak is relevant. In addition, as it is the front cover, I wanted to create the impression that the artist is looking back at the audience whilst walking away from the camera as if to invite the audience in to buy the digipak and also be a part of her life. Whilst planning the front cover, I thought a lot about the cinematography to use for the image; I opted for a long shot so the audience cannot see the artist's face in a lot of detail. Close-up shots are not conventional of the indie genre as artists do not like to put a lot of emphasise on themselves, but rather focus on their music. I have also conformed to the indie genre conventions with the color choices I made; I did not want bright colors for the front cover, as despite bolder visuals attracting the audience's attention more, they are not conventional and do not match the mood of my music video or the rest of the album. Therefore, I chose to have the image set at night time as the dark natural lighting will make the artist seem like more of an enigma and draw the audience in with curiosity to find out more about the artist. However, when I edit the image in Photoshop, I will shape the dark lighting around the artist and have brighter - but discreet - lighting on the artist's face to illuminate it. Also, I think this connotes the idea of "the light at the end of the tunnel" which links with my music video as it contains a death at the end of it. In relation to the whole album, the connotation of death from the image, matches the mood of the album as it is not a particularly over-joyful one. However, when I was researching and analyzing Gabrielle Aplin's digipak for "English Rain", I liked the use of juxtaposition between the brighter pastel colors in comparison to the dull, greyish tones of the background as it connoted the idea of the artist having two sides to her. Therefore, to employ some happiness in the digipak, as the album is not completely depressing, I will edit the image to increase the saturation of the trees on the road. Furthermore, I will make the white lines on the road brighter and ensure that the brighter lighting on the artist's face will noticeably contrast with the darker lighting of the rest of the image.

In comparison to the front cover of the digipak where the image I used was set in the countryside, the back cover will consist of an image set in the city. Despite the fact that using city locations is not particularly conventional of the indie genre, during my research into my target audience, a lot of people said they like to see city locations within a music video and therefore would like to incorporate it in my music video; they are also in my music video so it fits in well. However, I want to go even further by editing the image so the buildings are all burred but the artist is standing in front of the buildings, looking directly at the camera, and the shot of her will be in complete focus. This image has been inspired by the use of fast-pace editing of the London shoots in the music video. Furthermore, I think the juxtaposition between the blurred background and focused image of the artist will help to build a personal relationship between the audience and artist as they are gaining a deeper insight into the chaotic life of the artist. The artist is therefore promoted more as they are represented as living a celebrity style busy life and therefore makes them appear to be extraordinary; the audience will aspire to be more like the artist as they recognize their success. As I want any lights that will be featured in the image to stand out more, I will aim for taking the picture later on during the day - pre-evening time - as I do not want the image to be too dark but I do not want it to be set in complete daylight. Having the lights stand out whilst the background image of London is blurred will create a more effective image as it will visually stand out more and appeal to the audience as it is far more interesting. Another aspect of the image to think about is that I plan to take two separate images and combine them as one image: I want to take a picture of the artist separate from the picture of London as I will not be able to take one of her actually in London. Therefore, I have to consider how to best approach taking the picture.


Whilst planning the digipak, I have also had to consider the typography I would like to use as it is a way to effectively attract the audience into purchasing the digipak. As Gabrielle Aplin's digipak conforms to the indie genre of being quite simplistic, I wanted to use this convention within my own digipak. Therefore, I have chosen to use a font that is similar to Gabrielle's in its naturalness, however when I get to actually creating it on Photoshop, I will play around with the design. Evidently I do not want to use a font that is completely bland; however, I want the main focus of the digipak to be upon quickly getting concise information across to the audience and mainly focusing on the images as they convey deeper meaning about the artist and their music. The overall layout of the digipak will mainly image based; the only side of the digipak with more than a small amount of writing will be the one with a note from the artist. I have chosen to use minimal writing on the front and back cover of the digipak - just the album name and artist's name - as this is conventional of both the indie genre and digipaks in general. This is due to the fact that the front cover should not contain a lot of information as it is the design of the images which is how the artist attracts the audience in. An image is a far more effective way of appealing to the target audience as having to read a lot of information looks and is exceedingly boring. However, on the back of the digipak I have decided to include a list of all the songs that will be included in the digipak as Gabrielle Aplin also did this in her own digipak. Instead of listing them one after the other, I have decided to lay out the song names by placing them around the bottom of the album in a random order; but they will be numbered. This is due to the layout of the image; as I will be editing a picture of the female character in, there will not be enough space to list the songs. However, when I start using Photoshop, I may discover that my initial idea is not suitable enough as it does not look professional or attract the audience enough. Therefore, there is the option of just having the blurred image of London and not having the artist in the image too; this would not be a huge loss as there is a picture of the artist on the front of the digipak. In addition, after researching into indie genre digipaks, I have seen a pattern of convention of the artist only being featured on the front cover of it, and therefore it is not an obligation to follow my initial plan of the digipak.

A requirement of a digipak is to include a personal note from the artist. Therefore, one of the six sides of my digipak that I have planned out includes this. The design I have chosen for my own personal note is to have a mid shot image of the artist with a thought bubble coming out of her in the shape of a cloud, along with other smaller clouds around the main big cloud. In this thought bubble cloud will be the personal note. I have chosen this design as I was inspired by Gabrielle Aplin's digipak as she had strong connotations of escaping and being free, through the use of balloons and umbrellas. Using clouds would effectively appeal to my target audience as firstly, it is a more creative approach than simply written out the personal note on a plain background; the audience are of a younger age (15-25) and would therefore appreciate creativity as they would stereotypically like fun and playful things. It will also appeal to the target audience as it connotes the idea of having your "head in the clouds", which a lot of the 15-25 age group can deeply relate to. In addition, this consequently helps to promote the artist positively as she will seem more like an ordinary and relatable figure for the audience, as she is represented as being quite young, carefree and friendly, with a lot of normal and stereotypical youthful qualities. The image I chose of the artist is a mid-shot; most of my digipak sides have an image of the artist but do not clearly show her face and therefore I wanted at least one where her face was in clear show. The layout of the personal note has been carefully designed so that the page is neatly ordered; there is activity in both the top and bottom of the digipak side; however I have balanced it out so that it is not a lot for the audience to take in. In addition, as this digipak side contains the most writing, I have made sure that the writing has been contained in just one place so that the page is not busy for the audience and they can quickly read what they need to, without struggling to take everything in. The actual typography I have used is again, extremely simple. I did not want to use fancy font as this is both unconventional of the indie genre, as well as having looked out of place alongside the rest of my digipak. The language I chose is also simplistic as despite my age range being 15-25, and therefore being well abled in a literary aspect, they actually do not appeal to fanciful and cerebral language; they care more about colloquial language, e.g. "hey guys!" instead. Therefore, I have taken care to shape my writing around the appeals of the relevant age group. I have chosen to keep the color scheme quite simple as the main focus is the personal note. Therefore, I have opted to only use color on the clouds; instead of keeping them white and having the sky blue, I have decided to use blue for the clouds as I wanted them to stand out as much as possible. I also wanted to keep to the use of greyish tones for the main background to clearly juxtapose with any brighter use of color - in this case, the clouds, which need to be brighter as they need to be positive and happy as the note is in one of them. Depending on how it turns out when I come to using Photoshop, I am either going to have all the clouds - except the one with the note in it - in a more prominent shade of blue than the one containing the note, or reversal. This way, it will become quickly evident what is the main focus; it also just helps to keep the digipak side looking as interesting as possible. It is also conventional of the indie genre to use a simple layout and color scheme and to maintain this outlook all the way through my work, I have ensured to conform to this convention in this side of the digipak.


Coming up with an innovative idea for the CD design of my digipak was also crucial. I was inspired by the design idea when my group and I were going through some of the footage we took for the music video. In one of the beginning scenes of the video, the artist is on a swing; I chose to take this and use it on the CD. As the CD has a circular hole in the centre of it, I draw my artist on a swing around this centre, as I thought the hole would create a creative privation of the artist's face. As mentioned previously, it is not conventional of the indie genre to heavily feature the artist' face and therefore I have conformed to the conventions. The lack of face actually would appeal to the audience as it is quite a unique idea and it also relates to the music video for one of the songs featured in the album; therefore, if the audience have seen the video, which a lot of them will have, then they would understand the link. This is instantly more appealing as it makes the audience feel as if they are in the know of something only certain individuals would understand and therefore makes them feel more special and connected to the artist. The design I chose also helps to promote the artist as it connotes the artist to be quite enigmatic, which will intrigue a lot of people as naturally, humans are curious to know more. I am yet to decide whether I would like for the CD to simply be an image of the artist on a swing with the background location in sight, or instead, edit out the background and just have a colored but plain background. When I get to the stage of using Photoshop I will be able to quickly decide as I will be able to really see what the CD will look like and be able to compare it against the rest of my digipak to see what works best. If I do choose option A of having the original image, then I will still edit it and put a filter on it to increase the darkness and saturation in the centre of the CD, and have the brightness increase at the edges of the CD, as I think this would make it stand out more and look more creative and original. However, if I choose option B of editing out the background, then I will use a plain color of blue or green as these have been dominantly used throughout the rest of the digipak. 

This is one of the two sides of the digipaks that will be images for my booklet. This image I have chosen is simply an extreme long shot of the artist standing on a hill, overlooking the scenery. I chose to use a long shot as I wanted to capture the location as well as the artist within it. Furthermore, as I have previously used an image of London for the back cover of my digipak, I wanted to ensure that both locations used in the music video would be included in the digipak. I also chose to include the artist as I wanted to draw from the performance side of the music video in that the artist is standing all alone and therefore suggest to the audience that this album is going to be quite personal and a get-to-know the artist as you will see her on her own, and away from everyone else and therefore really connect with her. Unlike some of the other images, this image will be taken as one element, in that the artist will actually be standing on this hill, as opposed to editing her in another image, e.g. through the use of a green screen. As this image will not contain any typography, I want it to stand out as much as possible, so I will edit it by putting a filter on that increase the brightness and strengthens the color elements within it. 

This is the last side of the digipak I planned out and the last of the two images I am going to use for my booklet. This is simply an image of the artist standing in front of a brick wall. In our music video, we were actually going to use this location for the artist to sing in front of, so that is what inspired me to use this image. It is also a good image as it is a full(/wide) shot of the artist, so the audience can clearly see her face and the outfit she is wearing. When I take the picture for the digipak, I will take multiple from different angles, e.g. from the front where the artist is looking directly at the camera, from the front where the artist is looking down at the floor and from either sides where the artist is looking across, out in the distance. This is simply due to the fact that I have not decided what will look best and therefore would like a range to choose from. I purposely chose a shot that includes the artist's entire body as I want the audience to see at least one clear example of the style of clothing that the artist prefers as this is a good way for the audience to build a connection with the artist. If the artist is wearing clothing that appeals to both the genre and the target audience, then they will be better promoted as the audience will aspire to have the types of clothing the artist does as well as conforming to the indie genre in their clothing style which the audience will like. I think this image would best suited to be edited where the contrast is increased and a strong filter with a bold tone is placed on it as a brick wall is quite a rough looking background in the sense that you would not want a bright or soft looking image.

Overall, all the planning I have done for my digipak largely differs from a jewel case CD; the latter focuses more on simply gaining as many sales as possible, whereas digipaks focus on the relationship between the audience and the artist. Digipaks have been carefully thought out to provide the audience with as much content from the artist as possible and to give them something back for their loyalty, e.g. the time and effort spent on the artwork of the booklet and the personal note from the artist. The style of language and the typography used in jewel case CDs would also greatly contrast, as digipaks spend more time and care upon carefully constructing what they write as they want to appeal to the audience as much as possible. All the planning I have done for my digipak has been extremely helpful, especially in regards to taking pictures and preparing me for the use of Photoshop. I now have list of all the relevant pictures I will need, which I can share amongst my group to ensure that if they are filming a particular scene which involves the location of one of my images, they can take the picture for me. For example, Molly was set with the responsibility of filming the scenes at Theydon Bois, where the swing is, and therefore I need to make sure I let her know what images I would like. I have also been prepared for the use of Photoshop as I now how I want to edit all the images I have. For example, in the image for the CD design, I do not specifically know how I want the final outcome to look yet, but I know how I want to approach the outcome; I have two different options and I now know how I am going to edit the image to get there. Conclusively, I am now very aware of the images I need for my digipak and from analyzing and talking about my digipak plan, I am confident in my chose of them.