Construction Post 5: Digipak Post Production

To create our Digipak album cover we used Adobe Photoshop. Below is the template we used for the front and back outside panels. A similar template was used for the inside panels too.

Outside panels template

Outside Panels
Below is a picture of what our final outside panels looked liked.

Outside Panels

The back cover doesn't match our original flat plan as the layered effect we were trying to create didn't work that well. 

Our Flat Plan

As a group we decided to change our idea to something more simplistic yet striking. We spoke to our target audience about the layered photo and our substitute photo and they preferred the substitute photo we chose and said that it worked well with the front cover and looked more slick and sophisticated. 

Before: Our layering attempt

After: The substitute idea we used

I added the album title, artist logo and the song names as well as adding some effects to the main photo of AJ on the front cover.

Me editing the front cover of the album

To create the album and song titles and also the artist's name we had to download two new fonts called World Conflict and Questrial-Regular. We chose World Conflict for the artist's name because we really liked the edgy, street feel the font had and the fact that it looked like spray paint, adding to the street art, gritty vibe we wanted for the album cover.

World Conflict font preview

We chose a simple font like Questrial for the album title and song names because we wanted it to look classy yet sharp but not distract too much from the photo of AJ on the front because it is a debut album and we wanted to focus on introducing AJ as an artist.  To really make the words stand out I used Blending Tools to add shadows to the letters, helping them stand out more and giving them more shape and dimension instead of looking flat.

Questrial font preview

We chose grey, grungy backgrounds for both the front and the back because we were going for something simple yet effective. We felt that this really followed genre conventions of having a plain, one-toned background, similar to existing covers such as Jason Derulo, Mary J Blige and our inspiration for this panel Amy Winehouse.

The background we were inspired by

One the back cover we had to ensure that we had all the institutional information like the artist website, record label logo and a barcode as well as all the relevant copyright material so that we were following album cover conventions.

Inside Panels

Below are our inside digipak panels

Inside Panels

Our inside panels consisted of a side profile photo of AJ's head filled with the words that describe what the album means to him as well as words that represent his personality as it is his debut album and we wanted this to show who AJ is as a music artist. This album is AJ's way of expressing his emotion, his memories and his problems. The aim of this was to give the album a more personal touch and make it meaningful which would hopefully make it more relatable to the audience.

The right hand panel where the CD would be only consists of a simple, graded photo of the back of AJ's head as we didn't want anything too distracting or bright as that wouldn't fit with the rest of the album. We also didn't want to put something meaningful like the collection of words as it would be covered by the CD. 

We went with this image as we felt it worked really nicely with the other three panels. The photo ended up black and white which gives it an almost vintage, old school feel about it. This is effective for our album cover as the genre is contemporary R&B but we wanted AJ to be able to bring back the old school, traditional style of R&B music in this album. 

Audience Feedback

After speaking to members of our secondary audience (people aged 12-25) I have collected to following feedback about our final digipak cover.

• The colour scheme and dark, grungy theme works really well and they like how is consistent across all four panels
• The logo is a really cool font and looks very artsy and edgy at the same time
• The photograph on the front cover is really effective and the lighting works really well
• The institutional information adds a more professional, realistic touch
• Some people did not easily recognise it as an R&B album cover

Overall I am really pleased with the outcome of our final digipak. I have really enjoyed editing the photos and putting it all together and I love the style and theme of the final product. My personal favourite panel is the inside left as I love the concept of the words inside his head and the words themselves as I feel it adds a personal touch to the album and for me that links to what music is all about - expressing yourself.