The document discusses the design of a digipak for an indie rock artist. It explores how the design draws from conventions of the genre while also diverging in some ways. The front cover features a simple closeup shot of the back of the artist's head, using rule of thirds framing and allowing focus on the typography, as is common in indie rock. However, the bright sunset backdrop subverts expectations. Elements were also influenced by The 1975 album packaging which keeps the artist anonymous. The color scheme and layout reinforce themes of depression and isolation through dark tones and silhouette, while still conforming somewhat to indie rock conventions.

1. We have followed the generic
convention of indierock artist
throughout our digipak.My initial
development came from my interest
in how images of the artistareused
to injecta message. I explored
digipak’s thathave utilised faces to
make an audience feel a specific
way; such as Trey Songz ‘Trigga’and
Beyonce’s self titled album. However
I wanted the protagonistfacingaway
from the audience.
The front cover displaces a simple
mid closeup of the back usingthe
ruleof third to the frame the image.
This is a common feature seen
within the indierock genre to allow
for imagination to occur. The
simplicity of the design allows the
audienceto focus on the typography
as ImagineDragons are known for.
However itcould be argued that the
contrastof the background subverts
the ideas of indierock convention as
it’s a bright sunset and not typically
used my indierock artist.
To some extent it could also be
argued some elements of our digipak
was influenced by The 1975 of
keeping the artist faceless, perhaps
this is due to the themes within the
music, as well as keeping it relatable
to their target audience . Although
The 1975’sdigipak has no image, but
only a white illuminated light around
a rectangle which brings the artist
name to the forefront . We therefore
wanted to mimic this in our print
production in similar way.
Colour scheme
An indie rock genre often uses dark muted colours in both the
digipak and music video and predominantly black and white
contrasting one another. We went against the codes and
convention by having the sunset as backdrop but still putting
emphasises on the dark silhouette of the protagonist facing
away from the audience. We wanted to reinforce the themes
of depression and isolation which created a synergy
throughout both productions. However I feel that we have
used colours such as black and white and a grey tone in our
finished product which conforms to that of the genre.
‘The 1975’ consistently use black and white colour scheme
throughout their digipak to reflect their hidden ideologies and
concepts in their songs for the audience to find, but especially
for the audience to find ways to relate them without the bands
public sphere to get in the way.
Conventional layout
As I previously mentioned we wanted to carry the same themes in the music
video throughout e.g depression and her smoking to imply addiction. So
therefore we included this in our back cover with smoky effect added at post
production.We didn’t want anythingoverly complicated or too futuristic rather a
simplelayout still using the generic layout with exception of the back drop of the
sunset. However we dramatically lightened it to reflect the genre. We included
copyright Information to give it a professional feel and also the bar code on the
left hand side in a small size font. Most importantly the use of social networking
logos to attract audience.
Similarly both Imagine Dragons and Bastille’s digipak had similar layout of the
back cover and we were inspired by them. They still used dark colour to reinforce
the themes in the music. However ‘Bastille’ placed their barcode in an
unconventional way placing it down the right hand side of the cover in a portrait.