Layla Rawson Media: Development of my Digipak

Throughout the process of creating my digipak, it was essential for me to keep in mind the two important factors; all the slates must link together (front has a match with the back) and to make sure that the digipak reinforces the image of my artists campaign. Brand identity and target audience establishing is essential within all three products of my campaign; music video, website and digipak.

After watching my music video, I felt that a large majority of they shots used had he involvement of my artist playing the guitar, which reinforces the artistic and authentinicity of my artist, therefore this image was important to communicate to our creativively poetic and uniquely bohemian target audience therefore I wanted to interpret the use of the guitar within the digipak and not go down the route of using a "Star in Text" method as I felt that this would decrease the image of my artists musical authenicity and reinforce a artificial image.

Moreover I came across on the internet a image of Oasis's "Acoustic Radio Sampler Volume VIII" digipak and it inspired me revolve the main basis of my digipak theme around the different fragments of a guitar.

My Brand Identity to fit my target audience:

Bohemian

Authentic

Poetic

Artistic

Creative

Emotional

Grungers

Sentimental

FRONT COVER

It was important and sensible for me to start my digipak process with the front cover as the remaining slates would then have to follow the theme ran by the front cover, slightly giving me a starting point.

I initially thought of the idea of writing the title of the song on a close up shot of an guitar pick, however I didn't feel that this had a strong link to my music video. I also thought about writing the title of the song and the artist's name on a notebook as if it was a songwriting book to add a personal touch to the album, however I felt that this could be perceived as too "girly" and once again this had no involvement to my music video. Therefore, I converged my stubborn idea of having some sort of rough "doodling" writing on the front cover and got my male friend (as I needed masculine looking hands) to pretend he was playing the guitar, and wrote the title of the song on his hand with a marker whilst I would write the artist name in a clearer font using a font software later within the process.

I took a variety of shots for the front cover, to ensure that I had a choice.

In the end I decided to choose the shot below as I felt that is the most central shot that presented the writing clearly:

I went through the editing process by using the photo editing software BeFunky which allowed me to heighten and decrease visual aspects such as sharpening, contrast, temperature, hue, etc.

Below is my process of my front cover step by step:

I decreased the beautify option to crate a duller look rather than a vibrant orange tone.

I intensely decreased the brightness of the picture in order to start the process of the grungy image and to heighten the clarity of the dark details of the image, for example the marker written text is darkened and clearer.

In addition to my last editing technique, by heighteningt eh contrast option on the front cover, this allowed for the dark details of the image to be presented in mor detail and created a rustic vintage look as it reinforced the fridges, scratches,etc of the guitar to give off bat authentic image I wanted to achieve.

I slightly increased the level of exposure to create a imagery of a natural lighting rather than a orange tone that didn't give off a vintage, bohemian image.

I increased the hue of the image as it gave off a slightly green tint to the image which reinforced the imagery of a grungy colouring and a vitage atmosphere.

A effect that I felt really made a huge impact into the final result of my front cover was the decreased level of saturation on the image. By decreasing the saturation, I gave the image a gray, dull tone rather than a warm colouring.

However, although one of my main priories was to obtain a dull tone, by slightly heightening the temperature, this showed a different between the tone of the guitar and the artists hand, whilst additionally giving the image a overall more professional look.

The use of sharpening on the front cover I felt gave the image of a oil painting slightly, reinforcing the factors of my brand identity being artistic and rustic.

The shadow effect created a intense focus not the centre of the vignette framing, involving the last part of the editing process of the front cover to make that final professional touch to the front cover.

To write the artist's name on the front, Inused the software 'InstaText' which was a quick and easy process, and provided me with the correct font that I desired.

Below are a few of the initial font ideas that I previously thought about using:

Overall, the font that I used in the end was perfect for my front cover as it linked in well with the writing on the hand, it looked very professional and not fake, as well as the font choice mixed in with my previous desire of wanting it to be of a doodled style to create a personal feeling to the album to which I think this album cover certainly does!

CD SLATE

From the very start, I wanted to interpret the idea of the centre of the guitar body as a close up, as the background of my CD slate, with the additional idea of the CD playing the part of the hole within the guitar and when you take out the CD, the background, but of a slightly smaller size will be behind the CD.

Like with the other digipak slates, I took a variety of shots of the centre of my guitar:

However, in the end, after asking from general feedback, I chose the following shot as it followed the rule of thirds the most whilst being the most central with the hole of the guitar.

I then contied with process of editing ( mainly involved within the colour grading sector) of the CD slate through using the BeFunky software.

BACK COVER

It was essential to make sure that the front cover linked with the back cover as well as the rest of the digipak. Therefore, I made sure that this was a priority of mine, but I also thought that it would be a interesting idea to have the CD slate majorly link in with the back cover as the on either side to each other. Therefore I decided that the CD slate would be the front of the guitar, whilst the back cover would be the back of the guitar, creating a nice link.

Once again, I started off by taking a variety of shots: