A lengthy explanation of decisions made for the digipak and album advertisement.

1. Design Process of Digipak and
Album Advertisement

2. Design Process – Digipak Front
Cover
The first step was to choose which type of document I want
to create my digipak. I have chosen the standard, empty
document so that I can work with an empty canvas on a
typical digipak CD packaging design layout.
The programme I have chosen to design
my digipak on is Nero Cover Designer.
This is because I have previous
experience using this software making cd
packaging in the past, hence why I feel
confident that I can make my band’s CD
packaging on this programme. I will also
be using Photoshop, however, to
manipulate my images.

3. Image Manipulation Process
These were a couple of images from the test shots I
captured during the filming session. I purposefully
decided to use the same location from the music
video onto the front cover of the digipak to
demonstrate the link between the music video and
the digipak. I practiced placing these images onto
Nero Cover Designer to have some insight into what
these different shots would look like on the front
cover. Having practiced, I noticed that I preferred the
shot which includes only Arnas – the lead singer –
looking, whilst the other two band members are
immersed within their performance. They have slightly
more serious and concentrated facial expressions in
this shot than they do in the second shot which I
prefer because it indicates that even though it is their
debut album, there are extremely serious about their
work, and intent on successfully making it into the
music industry.

4. The programme I have chosen to manipulate my
images on is Adobe Photoshop CS3. This is because I
had previous experience using the software during AS
which made me more confident to use it to
demonstrate the progression of my skills.
Image Manipulation Process
The image was of standard quality, given that it was
taken on a Canon 700D camera, however, in order for
it to be suitable to place on the front cover of a
digipak, I needed to enhance the contrast for higher
clarity.
This was done by using the tools on the right hand side of the programme, and adjusting the
contrast levels, as well as certain brightness and hue levels.

5. Image Manipulation Process
I then placed the album name – as this is
a key convention of all digipaks – onto the
image. This is the same typography that
was used for the music video which,
again, indicates the link between the
music video and the digipak.
I began experimenting with the positioning of the album
name. I began at the bottom because it looked neat,
but soon after realised that I preferred it at the top.
The general convention for the album
name on digipaks would be in the top
right corner, such as The Script’s ‘#3’. I
was constantly referring back to my
research into existing pop-rock digipaks,
and wanted to conform to this
convention. This motivated my decision
to place the album name in the top left
corner..

6. I didn’t feel completely confident in
having the band’s logo on the digipak the
way it was, and so went back to
Photoshop to remove the background
shape and image to simply have the
letterings in plain white. This would
enable it to contrast better with the
background.
Image Manipulation Process
Indeed it was much more effective, and would contrast better. In this way,
I experimented with the positioning of the artist name, as well as that of
the album title to make them interrelate with the scene more creatively:
I placed the artist name in the top left corner to conform to the
conventions I had seen from other existing pop-rock music videos.
However, I believed the white would contrast better against the dark green
hedge, and so this is what I decided to do. Simultaneously, I thought that I
could utilise the mise-en-scene of the image more effectively, and so
changed the arrangement of the album title to fit within the confines of
the pole in front of them. This indicated my creative use of space.
In this way, I was listening to the responses from my digipak questionnaire
in terms of using an image of the band; as well as a combination of dark
and bright colours to represent the pop-rock genre, and so this was the
outcome that I had for the front cover, thus far:

7. Design Process – Inside booklet
The process for the inside layer was much more simple as I knew
that I wanted to make the inside much more simple and
minimalistic. I referred a lot to Coldplay’s digipak at this stage
and noted their use of dark colours contrasted with a more
colourful aspect.
I really liked this principle and so attempted to reflect this in my
own design. In this way, I used a dark block colour – the chrome
dark grey – and placed the band’s logo in the centre – similar to
that of Coldplay. I included the colour aspect through the
placement of the album title ‘PARADISE’ which is customarily
colourful, as this is what my group and I decided for the music
video opening credits, and something I wanted to continue to
use in my digipak. This had to be edited via Photoshop, because
the quality and standard of Nero Cover Designer didn’t allow me
to placed the logo directly onto the booklet, despite it being a
PNG image, thus showing the limitations of using this software. I
also included the ‘in’ to make it appear almost like a story and
thus make it more interactive and personal – thus developing
some conventions. The font I have used here as well as
‘Georgia’ which is the font I have continued to use throughout
the more official texts that I have included.
These were the elements I have chosen to use, given that the
conventions for digipak inside layers are to be rather
minimalistic.

8. Design Process – CD
One aspect that I picked up from my questionnaire on the
conventions of pop-rock digipaks is that many people believed that it
was more suitable to have a minimalistic design for the CD as well as
the rest of the digipak. This is something that I am inclined to agree
with, given that, through my analysis of existing digipaks, the most
effective and professional CDs tend to be more minimalistic.
With reference to my drafts that I have hand drawn, I kept the same
block colour for the background of the CD, much like Coldplay. I then
typed the album title, in large, across the centre of the CD, in the
same font and colour scheme, but much bigger than the rest of the
digipak. This is something that I noticed, especially with pop-rock
digipaks, such as The Script: the album title tends to be the largest on
the CD. The issue that occurred, however, is that I couldn’t place the
album title image directly onto the CD via this programme, and so
had to colour each letter separately.
Moreover, I realised that the dark grey chrome block background
wasn’t as effective here, and so I adjusted this to a sharp black
background. This appeared much more effective, especially as I could
contrast it to the band logo at the top, and the record label logo and
copyright information at the bottom of the CD. These details,
including the record label and copyright information are key
conventions of CD’s in digipaks, however, they tend to be the smallest
aspects of the CD, hence why I conformed to the convention.

9. Design Process – front cover
progression
Having created the inside booklet layer, I really liked
the minimalistic effect that it had. This made me
inclined to revise my design for the front cover, and
make it more minimalistic like this. From one of my
layouts that I hand drew, I still really like the idea of
having the logo on the front cover, and in large, to
cover up most of the space. This would be an
interesting way of introducing the band to the
public.
Having opened the logo up again on Photoshop, I
experimented with the ‘magic wand tool’ on the
logo so as to remove the background of the letters
in POLAR.
Then, I placed the image of the band, the original
image that was to be used, below the logo so that
they would be seen through the cut outs of the
layouts.

10. Design Process – front cover
progression
I used the gridlines to help me place the album title
onto the image as well. Using the same block colour
as the inside layout of the booklet – the dark
chrome grey – I placed the album title on the
bottom, in the centre, bellow the band name. This
conforms to the conventions of pop-rock digipaks,
given the combination of colour as well as dark
darks.
Before After
In this way, this is the progression of my digipak front cover. I
prefer the way in which I have edited the logo to have
glimpses of the band looking through it. Since I will be using
this image for the album advertisement as well, it was
pivotal to create an effective front cover image that will be
rather iconic and noticeable. The key information, which is
the album title, artist name and the image of the band is all
that shouts out in this image, which contrasts to the dark
background colour. Overall, I find this simplistic design much
more effective and professional-looking.

11. Design Process – front cover
progression
Having had the fundamental design created, I thought to
experiment with the texture of the background, as Coldplay
had done with their own digipak. I did this on Photoshop by
experimenting with certain filters.
These were some of the filters I experimented with, including ‘glass’ or ‘marble’. I quite like them as it looks
somewhat edgy, and perhaps rather old-school, branching out to the effect of an old VHS take background or
CCTV, which have obvious negative connotations, such as A$AP Rocky’s digipak that I have also analysed. In this
way, these textures tended to conform to other music conventions, but not so much for pop-rock, whereby the
block colour did much more effectively. In this way, the last image is indeed the final design for the front cover.

12. Design Process – back cover
One of the design ideas I had for the back cover was to
use the other image I was going to use of the band in
Portobello Road because it was similar to the front
cover image. This would have been symbolic in terms of
the way in which I would used a similar image to
present more of the story they wanted to tell and
effectively link the music video to the digipak. So I did
experiment by using this image, however; due to the
form and nature of the back cover – the rear layer of
the digipak – I realised that this was not a suitable
image to use. Not only did the image stretch too
unnaturally, partly due to certain restrictions of the
software itself to prevent me from manipulating the
image effectively, but also because it wouldn’t allow me
to add the list of tracks that I so wanted to, the way in
which I planned on my blog. In this way, I used the
same block colour from the front and inside layers of
the digipak, as this was gradually forming into the
house style of the band’s digipak.

13. Design Process – back cover
Much of the inspiration of the design for the back cover came from my research into pop-
rock digipak designs. I was constantly referring to exsiting digipaks such as from The Script
and Coldplay. I was particularly taken my Coldplay’s minimalistic design and attempt to
develop this idea myself.
The idea to have each track name in a different colour – the multi-coloured
track list – was partially inspired by Coldplay’s own digipak designs, but also
from what had been decided for the music video opening credits. Each
colour is a representation of the track, such as ‘Blue Sky Thinking’ in blue,
or ‘Paradise’, the titular song, being in green to represent that of nature
and a utopian society. Overall, the rainbow colour scheme helps to
highlight that of the ranging emotions explored by the target audience –
given that they are young adults – who are still trying to find their way in
life, and much of these tracks are somewhat self-reflective and certainly full
of raw emotion and experiences, thus creating the link from music video to
digipak.
The font used was ‘Georgia’ which is what I have tended to use for
important pieces of information for the digipak (other than artist name and
album name).
What is more, I then included the artist name on the spine of the cover,
along with other conventions, including the record label icon and band logo
in the bottom right corner, with the artist website, bar code and legal
information in the bottom right corner, as this is generally where these
features go, which demonstrates my conforming to these conventions,
having analysed different types of digipaks.

14. Final Digipak Designs

15. Design Process- Album
Advertisement
For the design process of my album advertisement, I chose
to use Adobe InDesign, purely because I had used the
software before during AS Media when constructing music
magazines, so I had some skills developed from then that I
could for this ancillary task.
The basic first tasks were to set up the document that I
would be working on; I chose an A3 empty document as this
is generally the size of an album advertisement, although in
a general music magazine it would be A4. Then, I placed
guidelines that would make it easier for me to place the
front cover of the digipak onto as well as additional text.
Having done that, I placed the front cover image. I have
chosen to use the same image for the front cover of the
digipak because this is generally what is used in album
advertisements, hence why I am conforming to this
convention as it is an effective way of representing the link
between the digipak and album advertisement.

16. Design Process- Album
Advertisement Although I had brief plans of the layout and the type of information I wanted to include
on my album advertisement, I still constantly referred back to existing album
advertisements, particularly from the pop-rock genre, as well as my codes and
conventions table that I filled in that would help me decide which features to conform
to.
One of which was the black table at the bottom of the advertisement which takes up
about a fifth of the space which includes the availability date, a comment and other
information such as the record label and artist website.
Noticeably, The Script’s album advertisement, along with other musicians’ that I have
analysed have kept their album advertisements rather minimalistic, and this is exactly
what I wanted to do with mine.
The additional information such as the record label icon or the artist’s website were in
the bottom corners, in the smallest size so as to reveal the even more important
information, including the artist name, album name and availability.
The comment ‘THE DEBUT ALBUM’ is also a huge disclaimer for the public, and with the
interesting way in which I manipulated the logo and image of the band together, it
almost creates a sense of curiosity for the wider public who may be interesting in
finding out about the new band. For this information, I used the font ‘Franklin Gothic
Demi’ as it is extremely bold and contrasts very well with the black of the background of
the textbox, as does the date. I chose to make the date slightly smaller, but still clear
enough to read, which is The Script had done in their own album advertisement; it was
something that I wanted to develop.
Further, I included an accolade as this is quite a prominent feature to find on album
advertisements. Particularly as my band aren’t that well known just yet, it helps to
have a review from a well-known musical media outlet, such as NME, which I
expect my target audience will read. And since it is just the start of the year, to
have quite an iconic statement about a debut album is quite an achievement. I
used the font ‘Rockwell’ here as it looks almost old-fashioned, but with an air of
authority which is what NME have – many potential consumers will respect their
opinion.

17. Final Album Advertisement
I believe what I like the most about this album
advertisement is the obvious link to the digipak, which is
exactly the type of professionalism that I wanted to adhere
to; due to its continuity, potential consumers will be able to
make the connection to the product.
There are some obvious differences as well, such as the
comment, accolade, availability date, website and record
label, but this has all been justified as well as consolidated
from the responses I received from my Digipak and Album
Advrtisement questionnaire, in which the majority of people
believed that there would be some differences in terms of te
information that was shared.
Overall, I am very pleased with the progression of these
designs as they certainly conform to the conventions of pop-
rock digipaks and album advertisements, and having utilised
the responses from my questionnaire and constantly
referred to existing digipaks and album advertisements, I am
confident that these products would be rather key for the
success of POLAR’S debut album.