Monday, 17 December 2012

Digipak- Evaluation

Our front cover of the digipak was completely black and because our song name is 'footsteps', we came to the conclusion that we were going to have an image of an outline of footsteps on the front cover. On the front cover we have included the name of the band 'The Jefferson Brick' and the name of the album 'Footsteps'. The font we used for the name of the band is plain but easy to read. We were going to have a more scratchy and hand written font, however after researching into different fonts used for indie bands, we decided that the more scratchy fonts are more associated with the genre of rock. I am pleased with the font we used at it stands out well on the front cover. The font used for the band name is very plain and simple, however I think it stands out the most of the front cover and therefore draws attention to the name of the band as soon as you lay eyes on the digipak. This will encourage our target audience to purchase this digipak. By using photoshop I edited these images to make the contrast between the black and the white chalk, in order to make the footsteps stand out on the front cover. Our front cover is very simplistic which is suggesting to the audience that the band image and members are far less important than the music they are producing. This relates well back to our genre indie and the digipaks are more focuses on the name of the band, the name of the album and the songs they are producing-rather than their band image and fame. 

On the next side of the digipak we had the composition of the lead singer singing on the front where we had amps in the background, this page also included the name of the song and their lyrics. We also kept to the theme of black and white throughout the whole of the digipak and also having little information on it. We decided to have all the relevant information on our digipak, but we did not go into much detail. This is because of research into different digipaks, where majority of indie digipaks were having dull and simplistic having little if any information about the band on there. Therefore we decided to follow this trend by making our digipak very simplistic to go with the genre of indie. We used the same font for the name of the song and the lyrics as we did on the front cover of the digipak. This relates well to the theory of Star Image, as these certain fonts, in particular the font we used for the band name 'The Jefferson Brick' which will be widely recognised and associated with the band. I think this image we used works well, I like the lighting in this image, the setting we used was in the drama studio where we managed to use the lights. We created a shadow being the singer on the walls, I think this gives our digipak a more indie and eerie edge to it, which I think will attract our target audience to purchase and listen to our digipak because they will be drawn to more indie covers rather than the digipak being bright and more 'in your face' like other genres digipaks are  itsuch as pop music. 

On the next side of the digipak we decided to use a close up image of an electric guitar. As soon as you see this image you automatically know that a main element of the songs on this album is going to be an electric guitar, suggesting to the audience immediately that the genre of their music is indie. I edited this image on photoshop still continuing the theme of black and white. This image is very aesthetically pleasing and I like the how the light hits the guitar showing all the different silver patterns on the guitar. We purposely made sure that the guitarist is not shown playing the guitar, which is suggesting the our audience that this album is all about the music they are creating and suggesting that these band members are not interested in the fame and publicity- they are simply in it for the music. This is one of my favourite images on the whole of the digipak because even though there is no colours used in this image, it is still very striking and has a high impact- which I think will drawn customers in to want to listen to this album. 

On the next side of the digipak we have used an image of all three band members, however you cannot see the band members faces as the photo is taken from the back. This again is suggesting to the audience that they are not bothered about the band image and fame from producing this album. All they care about is the music alone. I think this image works well as it is suggesting the audience that they just want their music to be heard and that it does not matter about the image and personalities of the band members who perform and produce the music. This relates well back to our genre of indie as most existing indie bands such as The Black Keys and Arctic Monkeys rarely have images of the band members used on their digipaks. In particular Arctic Monkeys are recognised through the font they use for the band name, rather than known for  what the band members look like. By having the band member facing the back, I think that this suggests that they want their music to be listened to and that this encourages their fans to go and see them performing live, which will be one of the few times you will actually get to see the band members. 

The image we used behind the CD was our setting where all their music is going to be produced. We have equipment in to such as guitars, amps and a microphone on a stand. When taking this image in the drama studio, we used the lighting in order to highlight the equipment. This relates well back to our genre indie, suggesting that it is all about the music and also showing the instruments used to produce their music. By having amps and guitars automatically suggests to the audience that this is an indie band, as these are the main instruments used for indie music. 

The back cover of our digi pack is a plain black background, which I then added footsteps on the edge gradually getting smaller so it would appear that they are walking. I added the relevant information on the back of the digipak cover such as the song names, price and their record company. We decided the overall price should be £7.99 because this album has 8 songs, after looking at exising album prices for similar indie bands, we found this was the average price for an album with this amount of songs. The font we used for the song names is written in white, which stands out well against the black background. The font we used is simple, bold and easy to read which will appeal to our target audience being teenagers. They will not go to the effort of having to concentrate in order to read the song lyrics. They would prefer the digipak to be straight to the point, having all the relevant information on and being easily visible to the eye.

We chose to have the theme of black and white throughout our whole digipak, due to our research on different examples of digipaks for our chosen genre indie. We discovered that majority of indie bands use dark and dull colours and very rarely have images of the band members. I think this works well and fits the overall theme of the band 'The Jefferson Brick'. Overall I am really pleased with the digipak as I think it fits the genre of indie perfectly and shows how we gained inspiration from existing digipaks produced by similar indie bands. A main aspect of our digipak is the fact you cannot see the faces of the band members which I think reinforced the genre of indie and suggests to their target audience that they are just in it for the music.

By Amy Thrush

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