A2 Media Studies: Digipak Production

1. Digipak Production
Sarah Green

2. When creating our digipak we used a
template that was provided to us by our
college. It was available to students on our
course on the college system via the
programme, Blackboard. The template
made the process of the digipak a lot
simpler as it gave us guidelines of the
sections of the digipak layout. However,
once we had completed the basic outlines
we were able to remove the template.
Initially we used the visibility tool next to
the layer it was on, we decided to do this
opposed to deleting it incase we were to
need it again.
The text of the digipak is in a font called
“Fast In My Car”, we were able to
download it from the online font website
“dafont.com”. Originally we were unable to
download the font when producing the
magazine advertisement due to college
security systems not granting access to
unlock a zipped file, however, during the
construction of the digipak we were able to
do so. The font was then added to
Photoshop. Although, an issue we came
across was that it was only available on the
one computer it was downloaded to.
This resulted in us having to do most of the Photoshop work on
the same computer in the classroom. Our time availability was
reduced due to this. To maximise the use of the time we had, we
made sure we had added the parts of text on the one computer
during lesson time and then outside of lesson we placed the other
details . This saved us a lot of time and in ability enabled us to
develop and enhance our time management.

3. To mimic the Paramore symbol we decided
to create our own by using pictures of band
creating the album. We thought this would
be a good idea as it would give the audience
an insight into the creation of the album.
As there were so many different photos and
layers in our Photoshop document, we
coloured the layers according to which
column that particular image was situated
in. This was very effective as due to the
sheer amount of layers it was time
consuming at the beginning of the
construction to find the layer we wished to
edit. However, near the end of the building
the digipak, we discovered the auto-select
tool which was very helpful as when we
wished to adjust a particular element, we
just had to click it and the layer would also
be selected in the sidebar.
Originally the photos in the Paramore bar logo were in colour. We opted
to change them to black and white as it would carry on the synergy and
house style we had created for the other two elements of the promotional
package. The black and white images also reflect the conventions of the
rock genre. It could also be argued that the black and white represents the
simplicity of the rock and roll lifestyle and the grey areas depict the
undertones of rebellion.

4. We designed the front of our digipak to
mimic the magazine advertisement. We did
this to create a link between the two
products. Initially we had a photo of the
band which challenged the conventions of a
typical rock video, however we then decided
to replace it with the image of the amp from
our magazine advertisement.
The band name and album title are placed
on the font cover also in the “Fast In My
Car” font as it is recognisable and
associated with Paramore as a band. This
also created a synergy between our
products. The decision to make the text
angled was down to conforming to genre
stereotypes of rock being associated with
rebellion and disorder. We feel that the
angle also takes away from the
manufactured professional look and in turn
gives the digipak a more authentic design.
Near the end of our production we realised that we had not left enough room on the back
cover of the digipak to place the barcode and record label information.
In order to place these where we wanted, we had to remove two of the singles on the CD
and two from the DVD. The record label company logo used is identical to the one we
used on the magazine advertisement. We felt this was important as the record label would
need to be represented and the placing looks smart and professional.