Digipak Reflection

Here is my completed Digipak made with the help of our Photoshop programme. Overall I'm really proud of the conclusion and how it came out, I feel that my use of colour was used to the best of my ability, and after learning interesting techniques, I was taught what things can help bring colour out even furthers (eg; Contrast, Brightness, Opacity). My aim was to keep to a relaxed but fun image, and I believe I achieved this through my soft, tie-dye like background. I also decided to use a lipstick stain as a consistant theme throughout, the use of red represents love and almost heartbreak - this also acts as a trademark for my artist. Romina and I used a large sunhat in our video in order to create an overall brand image, so I wanted to create this correlation within my digipak. I plan to create a mini questionnaire in order to get audience feedback, as I believe it would really help me view my digipak through the eyes of others, and also to look back at the things I could've done to improve it.

Conventions of a Magazine Advert

Album adverts will often have a clear image of the artist being advertised. As we can see in the adverts I've picked out, the artist is seen as the main focus, for instance in all the adverts I have chosen, the artists face takes up a good 3/4 of the page, emphasising their importance therefore attracting their fans.

It is also important for the image to have some relation to the disposition/name of the album. For example, 'Florence and the Machine's' album, titled 'Lungs', have cleverly played on this by showing the main singer surrounded by flowers with a pair of lungs prominantly placed under her dress. Florence Welch has also associated herself with nature and flowers (a play on her name - Florence/Flowers), which has created a brand for herself that her fans can identify.
Madonna's album, titled 'Celebration' has also made a relation to the mood of the album. The artist's face is taking up majority of the advert, and her vibrant makeup is specifically highlighted. The entire advert uses little colour (tints of yellow corresponding with her blond hair), however her flamboyant, bright blue eye shadow and deep red lipstick are the main focus of her face. This corresponds with the theme of 'celebration' as the singer looks as though she's prepared for a party or some kind of festivity.

Magazine adverts will most likely contain valuable information which the spectator needs to be aware of, for instance, album release date,  album title, and availability (price). Sometimes the advert will contain a positive review, for instance Ellie Goulding's advert,  'Lights' contains a quote from 'The Insider'  calling the album "A staggering achievement". This aims to attract fans and readers of 'The Insider' who value their opinion and as a result, lead them to purchase the album.

Magazine articles will often also contain singles that are current and have achieved chart topping success. For instance Florence and the Machine's article references to singles such as 'Dog Days are Over' and 'Kiss with a Fist'. Lana Del Rey's album 'Born To Die' cites singles such as 'Video Games' and 'Blue Jeans'. Marina and the Diamonds' album notes singles such as 'Hollywood' and 'Oh No!' This is used in order to attract fans of those specific singles and therefore intrigue them into wanting to hear more.

Advert Sketch

Here is a rough sketch of my magazine advert. Structure is very important to me whilst tackling this section, as I don't want all the features to appear unorganised or random, therefore I'm enthusiastic to play around with this during the actual process. I'm aiming to use a quote from MTV, as this is the kind of area that I believe my artist is most likely to fit in with. In terms of choosing an image, I'm aiming to pick an image that stands out in order to attract my audience. Finally I aim to somehow incorporate my chosen record company, XL Recordings, in order to give the public an idea as to what kind of artist Alessia is.

Photoshop Progress

So far I've managed to gain more experience using Photoshop than at the start, as I've successfully completed two sides of my digipak: the front cover, and the back. I'm happy with the pictures I've decided to use for my four sides, as I aimed to choose pictures which correspond with our brand name (cheeky). I believe that these pictures would appropriately attract our target audience, which is young, teenage girls.

 

The backgrounds I have used are also aimed to give off a fun, colourful vibe, but also have a sense of 'girliness'. The last screenshot is the stage I'm at currently, which is completing my inner CD section.

 

 

 



Record Label Research

A digipak will usually note the record label in which the artist/band is signed to. This is a brand or trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos.We were all asked to choose a label which our artist will most likely be signed to, and find a label which corresponds to our sound and image. My artist follows a pop, alternative and synth genre, therefore the label which I believe would fit perfectly with this would be XL Recordings.


In order to confirm this, I did further research in terms of looking at the artists which are already signed to this label, and deciding whether they correspond to my own. Artists noted on the 'XL Recordings' website include FKA Twigs, Adele, and M.I.A, females who often sing about female empowerment and heartbreak, and follow an alternative singing style with a fun, pop vibe.

Photoshop Tutorial

During our lesson we were given a tutorial which enables us to use Photoshop in order to create our very own Digipak for our artists. We were shown the tools and techniques  in order to give us a more further understanding in how to do this ourselves. In the lesson we chose an artist of our choice, and photo shopped their picture onto a clear, simple background onto an A4 portrait square.

 

Once we had chosen this we were told to drag the picture of our artist and hold it over a tab which had our background, followed by us dropping the image over the background. This was followed by us cropping around our artist image, we did this by using the magic wand tool. 

 

Something I personal found troublesome with this task was managing to find an artist picture that was of reasonable quality. I managed to go through 5-6 images, all having terrible quality and appearing blurry over my background image. This became frustrating for me, however in the end I managed to find an acceptable image of singer Lana Del Rey to place in front of my chosen background. Here is a screenshot of my progress.