Digipak Feedback

We recieved feedback from classmates and from friends of the age group the music video is aimed at. We recieved the following feedback:

- Design 2 was deamed as more fitting because of the clear relation to the attitude of the group. Also the inside cover would then be visually more similar.

- Design 1 is definitely a more abstract appraoch, but is less suitable for the final design, regarding the target audience. Teenagers may not be interested in such a cover.

- The font spelling the word 'Attitude' was said to be a good idea, and the accompanying imagery which is cut in the same style has a solid theme.

- The shoes provide a stomping effect, and some may identify the statue as David, a figure of male perfection. This reference is subtle and would go down well with any audience members who recognised it.

- The elements should now all be put together to see how it works as a physical digi-pak.

- It may be a good idea to include an insert, so it provides more of a reason to buy the digi-pak rater than download the song digitally.

- If the newspaper is going to back the mouth, or be on agazine advert, it should be faded out to not take too much emphasis away from the test and main images.

- Ancillary tasks are good so far, now do some further developments on the magazine advert.

Digi-Pak Cover Designs

For the front cover we created two different designs with different themes. We recieved feedback form both our class and target audience to make a decision of which one we would use.

Design 1

This is the first design that was created. It follows the theme of artists such as Avril Lavigne, with an abstract approach but the attitude and theme remains clear. The colour scheme is kept black and pink so the logo would fit well on this if chosen. We kept the idea of creeping vines with this, and they were stencilledbefore being sut out wih a scalpel. The two figures relate to the sisters seen in the video, with a broken heart emphasising the reason they joined forces in a way. I like the way that the lipstick is the only highlighted feature, demonstrating the vain attitude of the performers.

The name of the album 'Attitude' is written as a signature in the corner, adding a personal touch. I like the simplicity of the design, however I feel that maybe stylistically further development would be needed if this were the one that we would have chosen.

Design 2:


This is the second design that was created for the album cover. I feel that this is much closer to what we had originally planned. The entire cover is done via the cutting and cropping of magazine and nespaper pages with the album name written in a randsom note style across the bottom. The throns and roses definitely realte to the attitude (if you'll pardon the pun) of the group, as does the font style.

The main figures are two female shoes stomping on the iconic figure of david. I feel this is a more powerful image; an image of male perfection being kicked around by the disembodied legs. It gives off a vibe of feminism that teenagers will definitely relate to.

Back Cover Mouth Background:

This is the backing that will accompany the opening mouth along with the barcode and copyright information printed in the corners. The text is reprinted on the back in the same font as the front, just to visually relate. I like the torn newspaper, it's very typical of the stye but it works. The image is good quality and so won't lose any of the crisp edges when enlarged or applied to other aspects such as the magazine cover.

Back Cover - Designing

For the back of the album cover I started work on the mouth that will be applied to a newspaper background. We are doing different sections of the CD case and cover together and I was assigned to the back cover and logo.

The back will be an open yelling mouth of a newspaper stock photo. The band logo should be visable, along with the song name, copyright information, barcode, and any additional text necessary. I've been looking at different CD's to establish how it should be laid. I decided that a majority of the text will be in the corners of the design, with the name of the song either in the mouth, or written around it .

This is the image in development in photoshop. The layers which mad ethe mouth were merged together an place on a back with the text overlapping. It was made on Photoshop CS5 and elements 5.0.
This is the mouth seperate from the background. Made on several layers with different shading and effects overlaying. This is what will be cut out and stuck on a design of choice. Most likely worn text or newspaper, to keep it in similar style with the image of the band, and other material involved in the digi-pak.

This is the finished design without the newspaper background. This will be added later. In the right-hand corner is the copyright information an barcode. The barcode was draw and the text was copied from the back of an existing CD: The Script - Science and Faith. In the left corners are a web address (which is fictional) and the band logo.

This is an enlarged version of the band logowhich will appear on all material related to the band. The groups title is 'Little Black Dress' with a broken heart for obious reasons. As standard the logo is black and pink, but this will be changed to best suit the other colours present, such as in the back cover above where it is all white.

CD Analysis and Ideas - Part 2

As I have shown a more typical example of a digipak, I feel I should analyse one with a more abstract design, to get as broad a range of inspiration as possible. The album here is 4x4=12 by Deadmau5. The intentions of the artist are not clear, and it is this sense of wanting to know what it’s all about that would, in a shop, entice people to carry on reading about the CD until they come to a decision about whether or not to buy it. The first obvious elephant in the room is the neon mouses face set against black in the centre of the cover. Even as a simple image on it’s own, it’s a very cool and slick design that could be used as a symbol for the group. It gives off little information about the songs it holds, but in a way clues the audience into the fact that the songs are electronic. Looking at the robot like face, one wouldn’t imagine that the CD would be full of acoustic music, but more of an electronic, modern nature, which it is.

There is a strong digital vibe, reinforced by the numbers both in the artist name and the album name. Even the equation is wrong, the cover is confusing, however it’s this that will make a potential buyer question it’s motives and in turn maybe purchase the CD to shed some light on the subject. This is personally exactly what happened in my case I actually saw this album on the shelf and had heard about Deadmau5 before, but I thought that I was missing out on something, and that if I listened to the music everything about the album would make sense. This is perhaps a risky marketing ploy, however they seem to have hit the sweet spot with presenting just enough disjointed information to keep people guessing.

It takes a lot of thought to make something so twisted work, so I’m not sure if we should travel a route in which there is such a small room for error. We would either get it spot on or fail.


The back cover is similarly minimalistic, giving away nothing else but the names of the songs and copyright information. The mouse’s head logo is again repeated in the corner, something which I took a liking to: using smaller instances repeated in the digipak to keep its contents related. The fact that only two colours are used looks very slick in my opinion. Green and black has actually been quite popularly with digital culture in recent years, being the colours of many popular cars, and even the colours frequently used by Microsoft, even the games console Xbox 360. Whilst it may not register on the spot, I feel this colour relation would assist in appealing to a teenage audience, maybe aimed at the higher years as those are who come into contact with many digital applications and appliances on a regular basis.


Whole case is actually made of card with no inserts or attachments, folded in two places to make a sort of thick leaflet with a leaflet stuck inside. It gives a very no-nonsense feel: ‘here’s the music, play it.’ It seems almost arrogant to simply display merchandise on the first cover, but I like this style. Arrogance is perhaps the wrong word: ‘to the point’ would be better. Personally I’m impatient and want to get to the best bits, so this works in my favour. There is a strong graphic feel as even the merchandise is centred on the mouse head, with yet another more colourful version of the logo next to it. The fact they have merchandise indicates a successful artist or group with a big fan-base.

As we are working with a single song of a group who is no-where near as popular, a more humble approach is definitely needed. The graphic look is wonderful and this could easily be translated in our on designs.


This is what the buying would be looking for, the CD and information about the artist. The CD takes very similar concepts from the cover artwork, but the accompanying biography is what would grab the audience. Although he is revealing a paragraph of information about himself, his face is covered by yet again, another mouse head. It is this sense of mystery and a hidden figure that would trigger a buyer to find out more about his songs and personal life, most likely leading to another purchase. To fit with the colour scheme, a black and white photograph is used. He is shown in jeans and a shirt in a shopping centre, hardly attire you would expect to see a successful artist in. This helps to relate to the audience and establish more of a connection with the listener.

We wouldn’t need to take such an elusive approach, but at the same time, neither of these CD’s has shown the artist face, so we may not have to do this in any inserts we would include in the digipak.


Here is the album completely folded out. It’s composed quite nicely and evenly. The images on the left and right help to balance each other around the CD. This is a great design all round, and whilst we should take elements from it, it would be risky to try something like this to such a degree; we should focus on using more typical, mainstream designs rather than trying to re-write the rules of advertising.

CD Analysis and Ideas - Part 1

Before we start to design our own digital pack we need to get a better grasp of how they are constructed, and the basic design ideas that are frequent in most CD cases. Going with the idea of shoes as a focal point for the cover, I thought that the imagery present here would be quite appropriate. As this is a compilation CD, there are two discs covering the ‘grooviest’ of 70’s music. Whilst the genre is not relevant I feel that there are a lot of stylistic choices that we could follow up and incorporate into our design.

The name of the CD here is in big block letters in a variety of different fonts, lending to the 70’s theme massively, alongside a huge platform shoe on a huge platform shoe. The idea is very clear here, to immediately present to the audience exactly what kind of music is on the CD, by using an iconic symbol that to most people would be relevant to only one point in time: the 70’s. I feel that this clarity is something that we should take heed of. With the target audience of teenage girls, we can’t afford to differ too much from what would be expected. We will bring our own ideas to the table, but we’re not going to risk alienating potential buyers just because we want to go all deep and meaningful with the cover.


As expected, the back of the case lists all of the songs included in the CD, along with an even more striking show on the right. This is a nice composition as the shoe is as high as the list and so makes the presentation more even. The text itself is fairly standard, with copyright information and a bar-code. I think we should include false copyright information and a price code just to make it look more like a professional product. The text and imagery has been laid out well, but interestingly, all colours and designs are restricted to the shoes. This forces the eye to look closer and in turn read the information to find out more. As our track is a single, will we most likely focus on imagery over information, as only one song has to be listed on the back, or front for that matter.

The insert is a big part of a physical CD. In a world in which media is becoming increasingly digital, there has to be an incentive for people to leave the comfort of their own homes to go out and buy something that could otherwise be enjoyed by download. This particular insert delivers the names of each song, along with the lyrics for each. Including additions like this, that aren’t available with downloadable content, may be enough to gain a greater number of buyers by however small a percentage. I’m not sure whether an insert would be appropriate with a single CD; we’ll have to do some designs first.

I do like how the artwork on the insert is treated as filler rather than focus. The typography used is enough to keep the eye moving but not enough to completely steal the attention from more important aspects of the Digipak. I think that we should use a similar technique on theinside of our CD case. From experience this is usually how I have found CD covers set up, so keeping to the formula will give a more professional, recognizable outcome.

As this is a two disc set, I’ve displayed only one of the discs, as the other is hinged underneath on a blank background which isn’t very appealing. The inside of the CD has used the same artwork from the front of the case with the phrase ‘Dig it!’ pasted above the shoe. It’s clear that the design of the case has been kept constant in all aspects, to the extent of re-using different aspects of the artwork. It could be seen as being lazy, but honestly a music industry isn’t going to do a half hearted job on selling merchandise, so it’s obviously a design choice; one that I think we should follow. For our own product, I think that re-using the same picture may be seen as not putting enough effort or thought in, so if any material is re-used, it will be smaller aspects such as a logo or the ‘filler’ as mentioned earlier.

The disc itself has been given a lime and pink colour scheme. This doesn’t meld with the colours used on the front and back cover, however it does very well to continue the theme of the 70’s over, using almost pop-art funky colours that were common of the era. Over all the idea of this CD is to revisit past music hits. As a result it’s clear a lot of thought has been put into evoking thoughts of nostalgia rather than trying to establish the next big music hit. Although of a different genre with different intentions, the material shown here can definitely be interpreted and used in our own digipak.

Magzine Advertisement - Research

The image of the band is a girl group with an attitude. I thought that this would be something that is commonly depicted in a stylish magazine such as ‘Vogue’. With this in mind, I began to seek out advertisements which use similar ideas and themes to what we are looking for. Whilst it would be very difficult to find an album advertisement in such a magazine, I’m confident that we can get a demonstrative group of images and ideas from it.

This is an advertisement for the massive fashion industry ‘Chanel’. This really caught my eye in terms of colour and composition. I feel that they have used a double spread exceptionally well. It seems like the entire advert could have been hosted only on the right hand page, with the name in the same place. However, an extra page was added even with a very blurred background just for the name to rest on. The aim of the advert seems to be a display of importance. There are no other words at all besides the company name on the left page. The company are just looking to flaunt their popularity and remind the reader of their industry.

The use of black and white works well. Whilst colour hasn’t been removed entirely, the scenery surrounding the character has certainly been de-saturated. The clothes themselves are black and white, so the only warmth from the image is evident in the skin and hair of the model. It’s interesting how they have chosen a tree with such markings speckling its bark. It really relates to the clothes and gives almost a chameleon effect. It seems to make a ‘stand out from the crowd’ appeal.

I certainly appreciate and very much like the near pompous attitude of the advert. I hope that we could recreate a similar vibe by using techniques shown here. Whilst I think the use of a single word on this page-spread, I feel that this is not a good idea for what we hope to achieve. We are advertising a very specific product and details of its release along with the artists involved and any companies that had a part in its release. It would be good if we left some star-ratings on our advert. The aim is to try and sell it to a target audience so we need to find a good line between visual impact, and including relevant text and information.

This image appealed to me in the ways of the subject and colours. I spoke before in the initial ideas of how the image we use for our magazine advert may involve shoes and will be cluttered. This captures both of those aspects in one shot. The shoes themselves are over the top and a fantastic colour. It’s a mixture of moody mauves and purples that could really be incorporated into our own designs. Ordinarily it’s common to see shoes aligned in a pristine fashion, so it’s eye-catching and almost refreshing to see such elaborate footwear strung up in an ‘I don’t care’ manner. An attitude has been established without a person even being involved. I think this is very effective, and definitely something we should think about.

The deep mauves and purples bring out the characters attitude nicely, and the feathers I fell would have a place in our advertisement. The text layout is fairly typical; a big title at the top with accompanying text explaining the advert ad the bottom. Our article definitely needs to be informative, so we will no doubt need to include blocks of text in various locations. We don’t want to make them immediately obvious but they need to display vital information clearly.


This image is not an advert for a particular product, but is part of a larger article. I wanted to included this in primary research because of the clear attitude of the image. The clothes and scenery are exactly what we are aiming for. Whilst looking slightly more ‘rock star’ than the performers in our music video, I think that the idea of a tarnished background. I would like there to be an element of decay in our advert. The theme we’re going for at the moment is fairly gothic. Blacks and purples with roses and thorns. Whilst I think this is fairly generic and not drastically original, we don’t actually want it to differentiate to far from what the audience expect. We need to include our own material, but also keep to the winning formulas of advertising so as not to alienate potential customers just because we want to be different.
The Character is positioned interestingly. She is standing next to a vertical line and leaning to one side. Almost as if to be purposefully different from whatever surrounds her. Al of the text on the page is listed on the right hand side. As the background is otherwise empty, it balances out the composition with the electrical pipe. This advert has made me think about how we should compose our own advertisement. It’s not just what is involved that will attract customers, but positioning and layout is just as essential. The more professional we can make our advertisement look, the better.


This advert is obviously for a perfume endorsed by Julia Roberts. This advert stood out to me more than most. The positioning of the bottle gives an ‘in your face’ vibe. It’s a subtle product, but as it is completely central it draws the reader’s eye immediately. I also noticed that the first line of text isn’t the product name, but instead a slogan ‘Now, Aura is our science.’ I think that this is something that should be used in our advert. It goes against what the audience expect to see ad with the right phrase we may even attract additional customers. Our advert is bound to be very visual, so the ext included shouldn’t contrast too wildly with the surrounding clutter. The next step is to work out some font, logo and colour schemes.

With regards to the colour scheme of this advert, we want to go in the opposite direction of those seen in the above perfume advert. Gold and pink dominate the picture, both very dainty and beautiful colours. We need to appeal to our target audience with some darker, heavier tones such as purple black and red. The theme being something pretty turned nasty.

First Thoughts - Magazine Cover

This is a very rough design of what our magazine advert will look like. We will work on these designs in colour next. For now we’ve highlighted the key elements involved and labelled the most important. As this is just a rough version we decided to include the basic visuals. Vines creeping around the side forming the band name as mentioned previously. It was decided that the band name would be ‘Little Black Dress’. Although replacing the ‘B’ with a heart is very cliché and generic I feel it works here. We are growing towards the idea of using only the legs of the models in the advert as it presents some mystery to the audience.

Attitude is the name of the album the song will make its debut in, so this will be written on a ransom note and snagged on a thorn. The shoes and various small items will be dowsed in sharp colour, whilst that which surrounds them will be dark and tertiary. Mostly black and grey.

First Thoughts - Logo

The title of the band is ‘Little Black Dress’ as mentioned before. Here’s a quick sketch of how it will look once fully done. I like the idea of the letters turning thin and spindly at the tips. This will be incorporated into the magazine feature, and the digi-pak.

First Thoughts - CD Backing

We were thinking of just using the same image on the back slightly faded, but decided that a different image entirely would look more eye-cataching. So far we thought of having a yelling mouth with the song titles inside. For lack of better song ideas, the titles listed here are ‘Everything I’m not’, ‘Big Booties’, and ‘Sexual Healing’.

The mouth will have piercing and bright lips to match the rock style. These will most likely need to be Photoshopped on, as no female in our group has a mouth piercing.

First Thoughts - CD Covers

Following the same style as the magazine article, the CD cover itself will use similar typography and ideas that were used in the magazine cover. Following the theme of attitude and broken hearts (A load of emo fluff) the CD name will be wound into the vines, and trinket and medallions will be caught up in the surrounding vegetation. We’re looking to go very vector with the design, keeping lots of crisp, clean edges despite the business of the design.

We haven’t fully decided what the main pictorial focus of the CD shall be yet, so for now it was just depicted as an eye. Hopefully we will be doing something not so obvious as I think this would much better if we went against the generic, over-used depiction of girl rock bands. The front and back of the CD will also need designing, keeping to similar visual stimulus.

Mood Board

In order to best go about the first ancillery task we decided to create a mood board of different ideas from a variety of magazines. We have tried to make it clear how we would like the cover to be themed. Elements such as dusky colours and vector artwork are sure to play a part in the final design. We like the idea of contrasting elements of the performers with the background. Such as making only certain areas and sections appear in colour. We're currently experimenting with different clothing ideas to achieve this.


We thought about having only the performer's legs in shot with the shoes in striking colours, opposing a black and white background. I think this idea has good potentially, especially if it is combined with equally robust visuals. To mimic the attitude of the musicians and song itself, we would like to include rough collage work, and also had the idea of creeping vines coiling around the edge of the page to form the band and song name. Various trinkets and jewlled items will be included in its branches, and the idea of a randsom note display information about the band and/or song seems a good idea also.

The feminine nature of the artwork will be evident through the fluid curves and edible colour scheme. I think the biggest influences for this will be the advertisements and art of attitude-fuelled musicians such as P!nk and The Veronicas.