This document discusses ideas for ancillary products to promote a fictional album called "Restraining Insanity" by Gnarls Barkley. It proposes designs for a digipak and poster. The digipak would focus on the theme of mental health, with images representing various emotions and words related to conditions. It would also feature artwork and messages about seeking help. The poster design would center around gambling by using the image of a poker chip with details from the album's music video about that theme. Both aims to creatively represent the themes explored in the music and encourage fans to listen to and purchase the full album.
2. Themes
Mental Health
Drugs
Gambling
Emotion
Depression
Personal issues
Debt
Stress
3. Digipak Idea
For the digipak, we want to focus on the theme of mental
health because it’s such a broad topic and will provide us
with a lot of creative freedom when making our product.
Mental health covers many issues ranging from illnesses,
such as anxiety and depression, to feelings that a person
may adopt as a result of these illnesses like extreme sadness
and loneliness.
The title of our album will be called ‘Restraining Insanity’
and the reason for this is that we want to use the idea that
mental health can cause a person to go insane and it
requires unbelievable amounts determination and
perseverance to control and be open about our feelings.
The message behind the digipak is that nobody has to fight
mental health alone and that if anyone can relate to the
themes discussed in the album, they must know that they
aren’t the only ones who feel this way and that there are
ways of getting help.
4. Dikipak Design
For the front panel of the digipak, we are going to have a close-
up shot of a strained eye and around the pupil we will write
words that relate to mental health such as ‘pain’ ‘fear’ and
‘anger’. Above this will be the name of the album ‘Restraining
Insanity’ and then below will be the name of the artist ‘Gnarls
Barkley’. The idea of having words relating to mental health
around the images will remain constant throughout the digipak.
As you open the digipak, the centre panel will contain a close up
of three faces merged into one all looking in different directions.
This is to portray the variety of emotions and personalities a
person with a mental health issue may have. They may go from
being totally fine to extremely upset within a matter of minutes
and this panel highlights this to give our target audience a better
understanding of this topic. Our target audience ranges from
young adults aged between 18-25 to older more mature adults
aged 40+. The American soul genre is usually associated with an
older generation however Gnarls Barkley add their own modern
spin on it and that is why the age range is so big.
5. Digipak Design
The two panels either side of the middle panel will contain a
picture of the artist sat at a table looking towards the middle
panel. The artist will be surrounded by drugs and empty beer
cans to show the dark and depressing environment a mentally
ill person may be living in.
We also want to have a panel with a simple but uplifting
message on so that it portrays the idea that no matter how hard
life gets or how demoralised a person may feel, there is always
hope. We would simply have the words ‘Limits exist only in the
mind’ filling the panel.
Finally we would have the song list on the back panel of the
album however, the way we would present it would be to have
the songs written on the walls of a rehabilitation clinic. The
rehab clinic has strong links with mental health as it symbolises
change and new beginnings. The words would be on the outside
walls which represents the concept that you can leave your
feelings of depression and anxiety outside the clinic and go
inside feeling positive and motivated to create a start a new
chapter of your life.
6. Poster Design
For the poster, we want to have a strong link to our
music video and focus on the theme of gambling. To
do this, the idea we have created is to have a poker
chip filling the entire poster. On some poker chips,
the name of the casino is imprinted onto the centre
of the chip. Instead of the casino name we would
have the album name ‘Restraining Insanity’.
Underneath would be the name of the artist ‘Gnarls
Barkley’ and below the album would read ‘New
album out now’ with the ‘Spotify’ and ‘Apple music’
logos positioned in the bottom right of the poster.
The poker chip would also have the faces of the five
actors that featured in the music video positioned
around the edge. The actual song ‘Crazy’ is Gnarls
Barkley’s most famous track and so when the
audience see the music video, they will be able to see
the connection between it and the poster so will be
interested in listening to other songs by Gnarls
Barkley. This will make them more likely to buy the
album.
