Final Digipak

 

I thought this was complete until I showed it to my class mate who said "The middle page of the inside of the digipak works well with the circle of the hat representing the space where the circle shaped CD should go, but the colours of the bricks dont match those on the two pages either side."

 

So I edited the saturation and brightness of the background layer of the photo using Photoshop and ended with something that looked a lot better.

 

 

Results From Vote

Considering the votes came in as even and all voters gave valid reasons for their choice, I decided to combine both to get the perfect product.

I took the photo from my second idea as it allowed me more space underneath her face than the first photo and then I put the lettering in the layout from my first idea on top of it. It meant I could do the repeated line shape at the bottom of the image rather than having one banner which looked too random to me, but now I can incorperate the layout I wanted and the banner by simply changing the photo. I think I should have planned for this by taking my photos further away to plan to crop once the image was in InDesign rather than trying to get the photos perfectly framed because ideas can change and things might not work out how you wanted them to

 

1

 

 

 

2 (Origionally taken for my poster)

FOR THE ATTENTION OF POP FANS

After a lot of fiddling and manipulating I have managed to create two different choices for my digipak. Although they arent dramatically different, I am struggling to decide which looks most effective and professional.

Where my first idea's downfall was the lack of space for the album title due to the positioning that I wanted the artists name to be in, leaving it in a banner at the bottom which left me thinking that it framed the photo wrong, I much prefered the placing of the letters to how the second was layed out.

COMMENT TO VOTE FOR
IDEA 1

OR
IDEA 2

Poster and Digipak - 1st DRAFT

Whilst deciding whether to change my song or not, I got started on my Digipak and Poster using Adobe InDesign. I was already farmiliar with this software from using it for my AS magazine project so found it easy to create what I wanted to. These were the first drafts I came up with in an hour to roughly plan what I want them to look like.

 

The Digipak I am the least happy with. I don't think it is lively enough for my target audience who I think would like bold colours and shapes from looking at Cher Lloyd's Swagger Jagger which has multiple shapes, colours and designs and the straight white box with black text doesn't fit into this effect. I am also considering changing the photo as, by using this one, her face is mostly covered by the text. The text was origionally supposed to frame her face in the bottom left corner but I haven't been able to do that with this photo. I like that in both photographs, my model is facing to the side, as if looking off into the distance. It gives the view of these images a sense of voyerism as they study and appreciate how pretty she is. 

 

 

I don't think I need to change much on my poster as I managed to acheive the effect I wanted. The stripes of text across the bottom of the screen frame the photo well. Similarly to how Vampire Weekend's poster highlights the model's face, mine highlights the top half of her body which includes a bare chest and beautiful face so again adds to the voyerism feel of the photograph. I chose this colour scheme purposely as the yellow matches the wall, blue matches her top and pink is girly so come together to look "pop"y professional, along with the professional pose and styling which come together in this poster to be exactly what I was hoping to acheive.

Initial Digipak Ideas

After seeing this album cover I decided this was the effect I wanted for my own digipak. It makes the artists name so bold and easy to read whilst at the same time also including her face. I think it looks so modern and matches her style of music which is punk, having a font that makes an impact and looks professional. The colour against the black and white photo makes the colour bold and therefore the album title "Pink" Friday stand out more.

 

I would similarly like to have the text overlapping a photo of my artist that is translucent so that you can see the image underneath. I am not going to have my photo in black and white as the key point of my branding is the many colours included and I would also like to have the text in various colours to add to this.

 

 

EXPERIMENTING

These are a few ideas I came up with just after looking at Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday album;

I was experimenting with the ways I could include a heart in the word. Origionally, as you can see in the top left corner, I wanted to use the heart instead of a B as I think that when it's tilted to the side it resembles the letter but when I asked my classmate what they saw, they didn't argee. Although my favourite of the 4 at the moment is the one in the bottom right corner, I don't think this one is the best idea as the line cuts through her face, making her fall even further into the background. But all in all, I love this general layout and the way the colours work together to acheive the exact look I was aiming for.




After reviewing these 4 ideas, I decided I wanted all the letters to be different colours instead of just pink. One reason for this was that I couldn't match the colour of the heart and the letters which, although looks good in number 2 because otherwise the heart would blend in, I don't like the effect it gives in the others, especially number 1 where the heart is supposed to be considered a letter too and therefore should be exactly the same colour. So I tried all of these 4 layouts again but instead used 3 or 4 colours and I think these were alot more successful and suitable because I wanted to include more colours in the first place, this way the image looks more vibrant and girly like most of the other digipaks by pop artists which are attractive to young girls who like them. I will be improving upon one of these ideas for my final idea.. which one it will be? I haven't decided yet..

 

Reflection on Branding

I decided that this font didn't suit my idea as it wasn't girly enough. Instead, I want the letters to be bubbly and rounded.

I played around with a different way of writing the name Katy B, and realised I could simplify it to just 3 letter which, when ready out, sound exactly the same as Katy B; KTB. With this, I can focus on making the letters look a cool shape with different layouts and how to fit a heart in, as I know I want to include one somewhere because it's a girly shape.

My favourite of these is the one in a square, I will have to try out how the heart will look on the programme I will be using to make the poster and digipak, called InDesign, as it may not work as well as I plan it to.



I have also decided against using one colour as the brand theme as I don't want my limit myself to only one colour. Instead, I want the brand theme to be that there are lots and lots of colours, this way, all of my products can be multicoloured and have the lively effect I had always wanted.

Branding

I'd like to design my own unique font that I will use on the digipak and the magazine advert and also a shape that I will consider my logo. I would like to try and include this in the video somehow aswell, either by super imposing it at the beginning or end, or by having it somewhere in the setting; written on the floor, on her clothes, etc.

For example, I experimented in powerpoint and came up with this an an initial idea but would like to improve on it.

 

Along with this, I wanted a small shape that would be used as a logo that clearly matches the font and style of the whole package.

 

I like Ed Sheeran's logo which is a simple and although is almost completely irrelevant, adds a characteristic to the artists image being cute and unique.

He also associates himself with the colour orange, a theme he always sticks to, and to take inspiration from that and adapt it to my own, I am going to use pink as my theme throughout as I think it goes with the girly style of the clothes and the artist and I will use a girly shape as the logo.

Digipak Plan

 

 

House Style

I plan to ensure that the digipak and magazine advert both mirror the themes, colours and styles that I used in the video. To do this, I will be taking the photos for the digipak and advert in the setting and clothes that I use in the video, possibly even taking still from the actual video.

Like the clothes in the video, I would like the fonts, shapes and images to be lively and fun. The colours will match some of those used in the video and also be bright and colourful like the main theme of the video.

I like the fact that some bands have their own brands. For example, Alt J whose name was chosen when they realised pressing Alt and J on a mac keyboard that a triangle shape came up and therefore then let this triangle shape become their logo. They are widely recognised for being associated with this this shape (click here to see my pinterest board on Alt-J for various album covers, posters and photos of this trademark).


I also like it when artist use the same font throughout all merchandising and advertising. Eminem does this by using a backwards E in the second "e" of his name everytime he writes his name, also always writing it in capital letters to make the mirrored Es more effective, similarly to Abba who always write their Bs mirrored He sometimes also includes this backwards letter in other words in his graphic images, click here to see some examples of this.

N-Dubs use the same font through their imaging also, a font that looks almost like graffitti which helps with the branding of the artist, relating to their urban style of music.

Digipak Research

Along with the music video, I also need to design a Digipak to go along with the promo and the single, in this case, for Katy B's song On A Mission.

A digipak is basically a paperback version of the more commonly seen jewel cases. The have at least 4 panels, simply folded in half but can be more creative and intricate, incorperating more plastic trays for space to hold more than one disk and other panels for images and text.

Rihannas album cover is very simple, only including a photo of herself, set in the costume and setting that her song is, just the letter R assuming that people know who she is anyway, and the name of the song printed onto her arm, tattoos being popular amungst her young target audience and to show the passion she has for her music.






I am going to take alot of inspiration from this album cover because I think it effectively presents the artist as a fun, artistic artist and suits the song that I have chosen as it is just as lively and upbeat. I would also like to include various colours, nice clothes, the artist posing and shapes that make the album cover look girly and bubbly.

Reflections on research

Although from the existing artists of silmiar genres I found that most have very basic styles and branding, I would like my artist to have a much more "pop" style. I'd like to ditract from her existing garage style and head towards the girly side of her music as I think this better suits the song. I think this will be easy to do as I agree with Robert Stam's theory that genre doesn't exist, that it's an invented concept that we can manipluate through taking conventions of others in the genre, opposingly supporting Rick Altman's theory that everything in one genre looks the same so trying to make sure mine looks like other pop videos.


 This is her existing album cover. Although this simplicity of the cover clearly fits into the garage style like other garage artists, I'd like to make her look more like a pop artist by: changing the way she dresses, I don't think she looks girly enough in this photo, by changing the way that her name is written, this font is boring, and by including more colours as I think her song is alot more lively and bold than this cover makes it seem.

Instead I am going to look at some existing pop artists and how they promote and brand themselves for ideas of how to design my digipak, poster and video model.

Target Audience

When I looked into the genre that Katy B is associated with, I found the most commonly mentioned were UK garage, house and R&B. To get ideas about how to brand my artist and song for this project, I looked at other artists of the same genre that would have a similar target audience in order to see what it is that makes them sucessful and what techniques they use to appeal to this audience.

Someone that I always compare to Katy B due to their similar style is Disclosure, their style of music is very similar to hers in the way that it is also garage house music and I think fans of them would also like Katy B.

I like their album cover for their version of coconuts and think I can take inspiration from this as I would also like to use bright colours and doodle-like shapes on my digipak. The face outline is actually Disclosures logo. This logo can be seen on all of their merchandise and I think it's very effective as a branding technique as it is very recognisable.







What I like about this album cover is that it is so simple; one colour, artist, title, and their logo. I think that simple is very fashionable at the moment and modern. I also consider it being very arty as it does not stick to the usual albums on the market, most including a photo and bold fonts and colours. I'd like mine to be arty too as I think that most artists of this genre are considered unique too but I know that bright colours are alot more girly and I'd like my artist to have a girly style.



Another artist that I think would have a similar target audience to Katy B is The Streets, a UK garage group. The Streets is made up of londoners whose brading is largely based around that fact. They include lots of images of London and build up areas like it and have even named their band after the areas that they and their style of music are associated with; "the streets".

This album cover (right) includes two bright colours but the rest is simple. The band also have a logo that represents their style of music as is a very urban object that is often seen on the streets.