To coincide with my music video production, I was tasked with creating two print artefacts: an album digipak, and a promotional poster for my album.
A digipak is a form of CD or DVD packaging, typically constructed from cardboard, which includes a gatefold binding to house one or more disks. When researching existing digipaks available commercially, I found that the majority were 6-panel digipaks with one disc. These use the gatefold system to provide additional content, such as lyrics or additional artwork to add to the visual presentation of the album. The case opens up and reveals three panels on the inside, with the centre panel housing the CD.
To begin with the construction of my own digipak, I was first required to seek out the correct measurements. I recorded my dimensions in centimetres and in pixels, to aid my development in the computer environment, with image editing software.
Although I finished my design using Adobe Photoshop, I started out the the designing process using the graphic-design website Canva. I used Canva’s pre-set CD measurements, 1400x1400 pixels, as a starting point, which I also found to be the optimal resolution for album artwork used in the popular music service iTunes. A digipak of this proportion also includes six spines. A spine allows the six panels to connect along their hinge. Additionally, research into existing digipaks showed that artists commonly use the spine to display the artist name, album name and the record label. I then searched online and found the ratio between the width and height of the album spine in centimetres (approximately 1:25), which allowed me to calculate the pixel dimensions for the spine (56x1400). From there, I was able to calculate that, using 6 panels and 4 spines, the total canvas for my digipak would be 4312x2800.
The design of my digipak features a stark contrast between the front and back covers. For the front cover, I used a photograph of the artist, taken outside. It is common for album artwork to feature the artist in some form, and in similar vein to the Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’, the album from which I took my chosen song, the artist is looking directly into the camera for the photograph. I placed the artist at the centre of the cover, so as to draw direct attention to him from the audiences. The artist is wearing all black in the photograph. This allows him to stand out from the background, but also is visually symbolic of darkness. The colour black is associated with fear, sadness, but also strength. These are characteristics which I felt that the character in my music video exemplifies through his struggles with his place in the world. In the photograph, the artist also has his arms crossed. According to psychologists, the crossing of the arms is a classic gesture of defensiveness, and is also subconsciously used to convey feelings of insecurity. This, again, is another element with which I wished to create a connection between the visual presentation of the character in the album art, and the character in the video; as in the video, the protagonist repeatedly is ignorant towards others’ help, and displays feelings of insecurity throughout.
After the photograph was selected, I manipulated it using Adobe Photoshop CS5 to enhance it’s visual presence. Most notably, the colours were edited. I turned down the saturation on the image, so as to give it a more ‘drab’ and dull presence. This was done in order to reflect the visual styling of my music video, which also features muted colours to portray a distinct visual palette. On top of this, I manipulated the presence of individual colours, to manipulate the colour palette. I was inspired to do so, by looking at the album artwork for Rubber Soul, and wishing to pay homage to that album’s visual palette, which distinctly features green and brown tones, above others. To do this, I lowered the red and blue tones of my photograph in particular, primarily the blue. To achieve the exact colour that I was looking for required much experimentation, however I eventually reached a balance of colours which I was satisfied with, and I felt presented a muted, woodland colour palette.
Across the three ‘exterior’ panels of my digipak design, runs a consistent notepad-paper texture. The photograph for the front and back covers both tear into this, as if they are placed on top of the notepad. The goal with this was to create synergy between the digipak and the music video, by using the notepad to highlight the protagonist’s youth, as notepads and lined paper are often associated with school. Likewise, the album title and artist name are presented in uppercase using the font ‘Permanent Marker’, and the artist name is underlined, much like a student might underline their name on a piece of work. In the lower right-hand corner of the cover is the record label for Apple Corps, the record label founded by the Beatles towards the end of their time together. I chose this label as homage to the creators of my chosen song.
On the back cover of the album, the lined paper texture is much more prominent, which allows for the tracklisting to be displayed on each line, as if written on by a student. At the header, the album title is again displayed. It is written slightly below the line, to give it an authentic handwriting aesthetic. The tracklist itself is taken directly from ‘Rubber Soul’. I chose to rename the album, as part of my re-branding the original artist, to ‘Nowhere Man’, to place more focus on the name of the song on which my main production is based. The photograph seen at the bottom of the back cover features the character, with his hood up, walking away from his college establishment. The raised hood symbolises insecurity, and also shielding oneself from the world. I chose to have this photograph of the character walking away from his college, as it represents the idea of choosing to walk away from one’s stresses and troubles rather than confront them. This idea is reflected in the lyrics of the song, where the protagonist ‘knows not where he’s going to’.
The final panel to feature the paper texture is the exterior gatefold panel which is alongside the front cover. I decided for this panel, to take the opportunity to create something visually unique and artistic, which would add to the visual styling. For this, I added a photograph taken at the cover photoshoot as a layer in Adobe Photoshop and then applied the ‘Sketch’ filter. I then erased the environmental segments surrounding the character, so that he would be the focus. Finally, I used the eraser tool to add sharp ‘scratchy’ cuts to the bottom of the image, to further the illusion that it was drawn by hand using a pen or pencil. Again, in this image, the character has his arms folded, suggesting a defensive stance, however he is also smiling and looking upwards. This juxtaposition suggests that the character finds some comfort in his being somewhat insecure and introverted, which is briefly touched on in the music video.
The three inside panels of the digipak are centred around the CD itself. The centre panel sits behind the disc when inside a CD jewel case, and the two remaining panels sit either side. For the inside panels, I looked to other artists and existing products for inspiration, as I felt it would be unimaginative to simply fill all three panels with more photographs as filler. My inspiration did not come from far, however, as I researched the history of album covers, and found that the Beatles, whose song I had already chosen for my production, were the first to implement the lyrics of their songs on the cover of an album, with 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I again used the Beatles for inspiration, and decided to devote both the left and right inside panels to displaying the lyrics, in full, to every song from Rubber Soul, the tracklisting of which I adopted for my album. This proved to be a tedious process, searching, copying and aligning every lyric to every song and making them all fit. However, when completed, the result is an impressive collage of song lyrics which would add much more use to the role that the digipak serves. It encourages the audience to interact with their album artwork, as the Beatles did, and encourages a more interactive approach to music listening.
I also designed a magazine advert to promote my album. To successfully do this, I researched into existing advertisements for albums. I found that a number of elements were common between different examples. For instance, the vast majority of advertisements would include an image of the album artwork. This is important, as it allows consumers to know what they are looking for, if they were to purchase the album in a music store, for instance. Sharing imagery is also an effective method of establishing synergy between the advertisement and the product itself. Additionally, I found that also common was having the album title and the artist’s name be presented in bold lettering. This of course is what the advertiser wants consumers to remember, and so it is crucial that they be displayed as such. Finally, the third most prominent feature I found across real world examples of album advertisements, was displaying positive reviews of the album from trusted sources. These sources can typically are limited to music magazines and newspapers. Positive reviews encourage consumers that the album is worth their time, and thus worth purchasing or streaming.
When constructing my magazine advert, I took these three main conventions into account, and they were essential to the development of my advertisement from the beginning. I chose the base colour for the advert to be black, as this would reflect the introverted tone that is set by the artist’s clothing on not only the front cover of the album, but on photographs across the digipak. I also took into account how consumers would view the advert. For example, when looking at the image, the viewer’s attention is almost always drawn to the centre. This is because the centre of the image is typically at eye-level. With this in mind, I chose to place eight glowingly-positive reviews of my album in the centre.
For my reviews, I selected sources that I believed would be reputable for music opinion. These include music magazines Rolling Stone and NME, along with online music magazines AllMusic, Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound. I also included UK newspapers The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. The most unorthodox inclusion was a score from TheNeedleDrop, a YouTube-based music reviewer with over 1.3 million subscribers. In the modern age of the internet and social media, TheNeedleDrop is one of the most popular and successful music reviewers in the world, and so I viewed him as a worthy and progressive inclusion. I made sure to colour the ratings themselves, whether they be stars, scores or grades, in a soft gold tone, so as to make them stand out from the black background and grip the viewer’s attention.
Underneath these reviews I included three quotes from reviews. I viewed quotes as being an extension of reviews, which would further solidify to the audience that they are being offered a product of high-quality. Of the three quotes, one was fabricated by myself, however two others were taken word-for-word from retrospective reviews of Rubber Soul. This was also the case for the scores given above. I made this choice as I believed it would give a sense of authenticity and legitimacy to the reviews.
The album artwork was placed above the review scores. This was so that, upon their eyesight being initially drawn to the glowing reviews, consumers would next be drawn to the imagery of the album, thus creating an association between the high scores and the visual representation of the album itself. The artwork is at the top of the poster, as it is the ‘main feature’, and is placed as if it is ‘at the top of the pyramid’ so-to-speak.
Down near the bottom of the poster is placed the album title, artist name and release date. The album title is the largest and most bold of the three, as it is the most important. The title was written using the font Abril Fatface in size 52. After sifting through the selection of fonts available on Canva, I was drawn to Abril Fatface due to its bold nature when presented in uppercase, which made it an appropriate font for the album title.
The artist name and release date were placed above and below the title, respectively, and both in size 17. The artist name used the font Trocchi, while the release date used Montserrat. This was because I found that Montserrat presented more discreet, simple lettering in regard to numbering, and so was more appropriate for a date.
At the very bottom of my advertisement I placed three internet-based services. The first, on the left, was the handle for my artist’s Twitter account. This was included to encourage social media interaction between the artist and audience, and to push the more progressive, social-media approach to advertising that I adopted by using a review from TheNeedleDrop. Over on the bottom-right corner, I placed labels that inform consumers that the album is available on the two most popular subscription-based music-streaming platforms in the world: Spotify and Apple Music. While many of the existing album advertisements that I observed offered shops from which to purchase the music, I realised that in the current state of music, streaming is by far the dominant form of listening - especially with younger audiences. Other artists have noted this shift also, such as Kanye West, for example, whose 2016 album The Life of Pablo received no physical release, and was instead only available for listening using streaming services.
In conclusion, I believe that the combination of my digipak and magazine advert is very effective, and would also be effective in achieving their targeted purposes. The advert aims to create an association with consumers between the art of the digipak, and high quality as expressed through the reviews of respected journalists. The digipak itself then aims to be an interactive experience with the audience, by including all of the lyrics, and establishes synergy with the music video by its themes of youth and insecurity. The digipak, I believe, also accomplishes it’s final role, of being a visually striking and intriguing visual representation of the music and the music video.
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