Individual Digipak- Miss Miller

Individual Digipak

I have created an individual digipak so that I can promote and present my groups music video to the audience who would buy the music. The reason I have done it individually at first is so that I can use all of my own ideas and have no outside interference, and when we come together as a group to make our final digipak we can take the best ideas from each and use them to create a better digipak. This would result in a much improved digipak than if we were to do it individually as we have more people to give their opinions and views, this would help with constructive criticisms.

I have decided to use these particular colours in the digipak as I believe that they are very conventional to the genre whilst making the digipak interesting to the audience. This is done by using high levels of contrast on pictures which accentuate lights parts of the picture , which contrasts against the very dark patches, which was done on Photoshop. This appeals to the target audience very much as it appeals to the uniqueness of the genre whilst still being mainstream enough that it does not put off possible fans of the genre. Furthermore the colours of the digipak reflect the song in that the black and white shows the mood of the artist and how the narrative of the music video is used with him being happy and then very depressed.

Overall the digipak is very conventional to the genre of psychedelic rock because of many things which we have used in the digipak are used in other conventional digipaks.. One example of how it is conventional is the distorted images which we have used in the digipak , this makes the image unique and very different from more mainstream genres which do not use . Furthermore the distorted images can be related to the psychedelic drugs that feature heavily in the genre which can be a way that the genre can show the effects to the audience. Another way that the digipak is conventional is that the colours used are very bright and vivid which are again related to the genre in that the genre is about doing what the individual wants and being unique. Additionally with these bright colours and very dark images side by side it can show the mood of the artist and of the overall album which gives the audience a preconceived idea.

The images which I have used are of very iconic scenes and backgrounds, however they do have things changed such as the contrast being very high which results in very bright parts alongside very dark parts. I have decided to use the images of Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street as they are recognizable to the audience yet there is something unusual about them with the editing. This is the connection with the music video in that we are seeing the scenery of what the artist sees in the video and what it would look like to him after he has taken the psychedelic drugs. This brings a connection between the audience and the artist as they can now see through his eyes which will help the artist keep them as fans. Other images used are of the artist leaning against a wall looking away from the camera, I have used this so the fans can identify the artist which will help if someone does not know the artist well. Furthermore we we can see he is alone and his facial expression is one of being sad and confused, which also shows the audience the mood of the song. I hope this will get the audience to care more for the artist as it helps visually and he looks quite different and distant than a normal person leaning on the wall.

The layout and design of the digipak is very simple , however it gives enough information and high quality pictures to the audience for the audience to like the digipak. The first panel of the digipak has the image of a rhino whilst above it is the title of " White Rhinos" and the album name of "Lonerism", this gives everything that is needed on the front cover whilst still making it stand out. The second panel is the image of Liverpool street with the contrast very high , this is showing the surroundings through artist eyes and helps the audience understand his perspective. The third panel is where the CD will be held and is a simple desighn of having the title and the outline of a rhino on the CD. The fourth panel has the image of Canary Wharf and is again the same as panel two with the hugely contrasted image , however in this image the background is much more impressive. The fifth panel is the personal message from the artist  which simply reads " thank you , from the White Rhinos", with the picture of the artist looking away from the camera, and with this picture the artists is in black and white. The final panel is another image of Canary Wharf with the names of the songs in the album along the side of the main skyscraper. This appeals to the target audience as the fans of the genre want a unique digipak which I have created , but have still out more mainstream things that would not normally be included such as a personal message.

The typography used is quite varied and many different fonts are used, the main title is bold which is so that the audience immediately can see who the artist is if they were going to buy it. In a smaller font is the album name "Lonerism" which is just as essential and very important to give fans an idea of if it is a new allbum and if they will buy it. The font on the third panel CD is again the name of the artist "White Rhino" which is bent around the hole in the CD , the font is very thick and plain black which is simple yet shows people who the artist is immediately without any confusion. The fifth panel has the words" Thank You" in individual block of colour which gives the words more power and helps them stand out and then it is signed " White Rhinos" in a hand written font. This will bring a connection between the audience and artist and helps the artist to keep their fans dedicated to them. The last panel has the simple white font of the song names of the album such as the songs "Feels like we only go backwards" or "Led Zeppelin". This font stands out against the dark background which I have used to make the names of the songs easier to see and they now can be easily seen on the back. This makes it appeal to the target audience as the information is easy to read and stands out against the background of the digipak.

The language used throughout the digipak is minimal and I have done this as to not take away the attention from the images which have been used. The only language used in the whole of the digipak are the band name "White Rhino" , the album name " Lonerism" and the personal message from the artist. This brings the focus onto the actual music and attracts the target audience as other artist of the genre have minimal information. This is very conventional to the genre as psychedelic rock artist do not like to give too much information away, furthermore it promotes the artist to the target audience in that it goes with other very successful artists.

The connotations of the digipak are very easy to see , one example of this is the black and white image of the artist, this is meant to show the moods of the artist in that he has gone from being very happy to sad very quickly. Another connotation is that with the distorted images of the scenery in that we can tell that the artist is not thinking right when he is looking at the city and that he is on drugs.Furthermore as this is a main part of the genre it can be seen as also being conventional to the genre of psychedelic rock.

I believe that my own digipak does appeal to the target audience which I am targeting , which is fans of the psychedelic genre. The conventions of the genre have been followed such as using bright colours in the images, this specifically targets the audience as they know what other artists have done and we are using them as inspiration for our own music video and my own digipak. Furthermore this digipak could appeal to people who are not familiar with the genre as it is not too extreme to alienate them from buying the digipak, which can sometimes happen with other artist from the same genre.

I used Photoshop relatively well with using contrasts and altering pictures being my strengths and designing the pictures as my weakness as it took a long time. My only serious problem happened when I was unable to use layers correctly but I managed to find out how to correct the problem using a YouTube tutorial.  However overall there were few problems and in the end I managed to become proficient at using it after having to learn from scratch how to do things, having never used it before in any other way. One of thing things I created was the front colors using the unusual background along with the bright pink rhino I believe it is very conventional to our genre, and the best slide out of the six.

I believe that creating an individual digipak will definitely help our groups final digipak as we can take a range of ideas from all of our digipaks and then make them into one. This will make the final digipak better as we can take the best bits from each digipak which will then be better than if an individual as we will have more people input. Furthermore if any of us have mistakes then the rest of the group can point this out and correct the problem.