Planning digipak

Planning Digipak

Digipak's are deluxe and bigger versions of an artists CD that costs more to make and to buy, but gives more content for the consumers and the artists audiences. It is a special style of packaging that is used for single CD's or albums and they typically consist of a gate fold (a book style), paperboard or card stock outer binding with or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside generic. It is different to a generic, jewel CD case as CD cases are three piece plastic cases with the artists liner notes and a simple back card. They are constructed into 4 sides where the information about the CD and songs is on either the front of the back, whereas with Digipak's, the information is displayed on lots of different sides as is a lot more detailed and useful for the artist. Jewel CD cases have been used ever since 1982 and are what we think off and expect to see when buying a CD. However Digipak style cases were introduced and became very popular in the early 2000's amongst record labels and recording artists. This is because Digipak's allows the artist more opportunities to show off their artwork, information such as lyrics and their promotions. This way the artist has more chance of appealing to potential buyers as they see the digipak's as collectable items, in comparison to the classic jewel CD's which are seen as very basic and contain less information. However, Jewel CD's will often contain lyrics of the artists so that the buyers know what they are getting and have an insight to the type off songs and content they will listen to and relate to the artist more. The artist also benefits the artist as the digipak will often have content that relates to the artists character and what they represent, as well as their predominate genre. It will likely embody a message or theme that the artist is trying to show and what they represent, increasing their image for audiences allowing them to increase their popularity. The digipak also exemplifies the artistic and creative approach is artist is taking and showing throughout his music. All aspects of the digipak, brand image and music video all interwoven together so that they all share a similar theme and share the same objectives as to how they make the audience feel and how they want to perceive themselves. They also benefit the artist as their music as digipak's are promotional aspects of the music industry that help to bring awareness to the artist by selling the artists representations and encouraging consumers to buy and listen to all their music. By buying a digipak, consumers and audiences are almost pledging their loyalty to that artist as they are paying more for more content in order to get as much as they can from that artist and I will be creating my own digipak for my artist Kerry Boyne and have taken inspiration from digpaks made by similar artists such as Gabrille Aplin and birdy.

 My Digipak consisted of 6 slides which all shared a similar structure, layout and all consisted of conventional colour schemes and images that related back to the indie genre and representation of my artist. The representation I was aspiring for was to show our artist as down to earth and fragile with her relationships, yet showing signs of youthfulness and star quality in order to appeal to a wide audience and grab audiences attention for the Digipak and in return, make it more successful. My Digipak consisted of a main front cover which shows the name of the artist, a picture of her and the album name. A back cover showing the legal works of a Digipak, record label name and a list of all of the songs on the album supported by a image from a narrative of the song 'panic cord'. It also includes two images of the artist and different settings of the songs videos that we took when shooting our music video to give fans extra content and special features, as well as a customised CD cover and personal messages to the fans, making it unique and giving it more content then an ordinary CD. The first thing I looked at when creating my Digipak covers and the design of each part was which colours to use and what suitable colour scheme I should follow. For the majority of the Digipak, my main colour used was red followed with yellow and blue to help bring out the red and give it a brighter edge towards it. I chose the colour red as red is a connotation of danger and love and those are two of the main concepts of the Digipak. It is used on the artists clothing to show she is passionate and stylish and blue and yellow are also used here as they are connotations of joy, peace and stability, three representations of our artist in her songs which we attempted to draw comparison with in the Digipak to show that conventional link and for audiences to memorise it. The colour red is also seen on the memory box and love hearts used in each shot as red is the colour we associate with love and how her love breaks down in a number of her songs also portraying the daring romance and excitement of both her character and the Digipak. It is also used to highlight and put a filter on the personnel message speech bubbles to show the messages are deep and meaningful and this is supported by the black and grey (dim colours) as the background for most of the sides of the Digipak as they give it sophisticated and powerful feel for the audience. These colours are conventional to the indie genre as it shows the artist as having a number of different sides to her character and someone who is spontaneous and creative, much like many successful an popular indie artists.

The conventions of the indie genre is also something I looked at and took inspiration from many other indie artists posters and album covers in order to put them into mine and create a similar, conventional feel towards it. One of the main conventions used in my Digipak was the front cover where it displays some conventional camera shots as the artist is shown in a close up. This is conventional as it is the first thing our audiences sees when picking up my Digipak and they are able to relate to her expressions and emotions. It shows the girl as pulling a straight yet unsure/sad face expressing her and the Digipak as emotional and meaningful, also giving the audience an insight into what to expect from the songs and content inside. This is conventional to the indie genre as close ups are a popular and good way of expressing emotions and deep meanings. We also included conventions of the indie genre in our Digipak through mis en scene and the setting and iconography included in the background of the shots. This is seen in the back of the album shot where we see a picture of the memory box which Is potrayed as indication and main souviner of her realtionships and past showing her as thoughtful and down to earth as she dwells in to her past and isn't afraid to open up about anything. Portraying iconorgphy in shots and in the Digipak is conventional to the indie genre as it gives audiences an insight into her music and character and indie artists and artists in general want to give audiences back as much as they can and make them become hooked more, as well as trying to sell themselves and the product. In terms of the setting, both our images displayed in the Digipak show images from two settings in our panic cord video, the open garden fields and bridge, and the bonfire scene. These are conventional to the indie genre as they are natural, loving places which portay a lot of meaning and make audiences dwell into thought while listening to the music. Other images we used in this Digipak included all of the small fillar memories and images of the couple that are seen on the CD. These are placed there to make the CD look more inventive and creative whilst giving the audience a idea of what the couple and the artist was like and a insight into her personnel life and character away from music.

The typography and language of my Digipak is kept simple in the way that the only language it consists off is to help give the audience information on the content of the Digipak and artist and the main one being the personal message to the artists fans. The front cover reads 'Kerry Boyne, Panic Cord' which is the name of my artist and the name of the Digipak. It is displayed in bold black writing with sharp edges to show connotations of mystery and stability in the artist character and what she aspires to create from her music. This is supported by the heart beats in the background which link up with the language and these are created and placed there to show the ups and down of her relationship and how she has many sides to her character and this isn't a ordinary Digipak. The audience are able to relate to this as it shows the artist as a more passionate and meaningful person who likes to take things seriously and not keep things simple. The other main piece of iconography and language we had was the personal message. My personal message reads 'dear my fans... thank you for your endless support with the new album memory lane. You are all my inspiration to create music you have made me who I am today. I wish every single one of you love and support in everything you do and cant thank you enough for what you have done for me, love Kerry xxx'. This whole passage represents her loving and caring side and how much her audience and fans mean to her, allowing the audience to dwell deep and feel more emotionally connected with the artist and feel more appreciated. It is also all written in red and in a feminim font to help portray it as compassionate and sensitive. This is conventional to the indie genre as indie artists tend to remember where they came from and appricate all there love and support and really care about their fans.

In conclusion, I will use my research to inform my planning by taking on  board what I have learnt about the layout, typography and structure of a digipak and apply it to my own. For example, my research showed that a digipak has 6 sides to it and each one has a different purpose so therefore I will make use of each side and apply to necessary features to my own, e.g the text styles and layout of the front cover, the style of the CD and how the background looks around it and also what conventions I can add so make it relevant to the indie genre and a successful digipak. I took my inspiration and research from digipaks who were similar to my artist such as Gabrielle Aplin, Birdy and Ed sheeran so there ideas would be suited to mine and mine would look for conventional. Some of the ideas i took from theres and my research that i will include into my own are the colour schemes which i will match for the majority of my sides and also the style of pictures in aplins digipak which i can take and recapture for my artists.