Ancillary Task 1: Digipak

Digipak Research II

Stuck on where to start for the planning of my digipak, I looked at apparently the only one I own - I don't buy music :( -The Horrors, We Are The Horrors EP.

 

         

Also, in better detail, the legal/extra information. This includes the record label names/logos, both the band and label's websites, the certification mark of the company which formatted the CD and the copyright and anti-piracy information.

I'm now starting on planning my digipak properly now. :)

Moodboard

I collected images to help me map out ideas about my work, including locations, costume, adverts, album covers, actors and logos, I also added some general imagery for how I'd like aesthetics of my work to be:

(Click to enlarge)

Advertisement/Album Art Idea

Recently, I found an old receipt that I had accidently got some perfume sprayed on it, it left little purple-y black marks where it had hit. I kind of experimented more with this and got lots of cool effects. 

(Taken with my webcam, so not the best quality)

I researched it and apparently it is due to the chemicals reacting with the ink as it is thermal paper, it also occurs if you hold a lighter underneath it. I'm trying out lots of different effects at the moment. I like how it looks and it does seem to link into some of the black and white, abstract looking album covers I've looked at; I think it could also continues a kind of dark theme, without getting too caught up in the aesthetics that heavier bands use.

Sprayed with perfume then scrunched up (left), folded and a lighter led underneath (right)

Digipaks

In my previous post, I briefly looked at the aesthetics of album covers in the genres my song falls into, of course with this I will have to create the rest of my digipak so I decided to get a bit of information about them.

A basic digipak

A digipak is a style of packaging for a CD or DVD, they usually consist of a book-style fold and often used for singles and Special Edition copies. Digipaks can vary in how many sides they have (usually depending on the amount of discs included) , sometimes forming cross shapes or simply opening out as a line.  

The general conventions of a digipak are similar to any music packaging: album cover, track listing, band information such as website, thanks to anyone else involved, lyrics (maybe), music publisher and information, the record label and other legal information. A digipak may consist of more album art, and more than one CD. 

Looking at some similar band's digipaks may help me think about what images as well as information I will need to include in mine.

Album Covers

Looking into album covers in preparation for the creation of one of my ancillary tasks: to make a digipak for the given artist. It looks like it will be quite hard to create my own being inspired by others because unlike some music videos fitting genres, a lot of album art within the same genre still varies lots! However, so far I've looked at the likes of Radiohead, Massive Attack, Tricky, Tool, Placebo, Portishead, Sneaker Pimps etc.

An example of a pop/rnb cover

I've already noticed I naturally pick pictures with a colder temperature and darker rather than warm ones, so that might give me a place to start, if I look at ones like that.  :)

In comparision pop or r'n'b albums seem to hold a lot less focus on selling the idea of the artist's face/body, and rather on matching artwork to the music. The images are be darker, blurry and seemingly unrelated to the title of the album.

From looking at these, I think I'd like my album cover for my digipak to remain quite dark, and perhaps take a still from my video or something similar and mess with it on photoshop to look blurry, alternatively I could look into making the album cover just the band's logo and simplistic design like Burial's albums and the single for Stupid Girl by Garbage.