Research and Planning - Drafts of Digipak

Drafts of Digipak

Our class were required to create a brief design/draft of what the album for our music artist would contain. In particular with my groups campaign we needed to create a digipak to would fit the conventional needs to our duo artist campaign. Creating drafts benefited us highly as our end result was to create a final digipak that would go along with our music video production which would help sell the artists.
Draft 1 image:

Feedback:

Positive

- Colour scheme very good

- Clear consistency and style

- Good images provided and used

-Typography is good and suits style

Negative

- DefJamRecordings logo goes on the back

- Production company details missing

- Inside panel is not white

- CD looks a bit boring

Draft 2 image:

Feedback

Positive

- Front and back compliment each other very well.

- Good artistic style and theme to the video.

Negative

- Inside image does need to be circular, distracts from the CD panel.

- Lyrics are blurred and looks odd

- Think about what else you could put in the inside panel.

Draft 3 image:

Feedback

Positive
- Really good consistency across all panels.
- Layout and artist image is conventional to the genre.

Negative
- Album name on front
- Some green noticeable on MD's face on the front. 
- Instead of ''Ying X Yang'' on the inside, can you think of any other words you could use?

Conclusion

Creating these drafts was really beneficial because it helped me and Amani to develop into creating a professional looking campaign for our artists and music video. Creating several different drafts allowed me to experiment with new ideas and even implement different designs, color schemes and theme ideas from existing products that me and Amani researched in to. As well as myself and my partner giving each other constructive criticism on our drafts for my digipak and his adverts, we also received feedback from students and peers who were interested in the Grime/Rap genre.

Research and planning – Digipak: Identifying conventions and analysing existing digipa

Planning: Digipak analysis

Me and my group analysed exiting artists digipaks with similar representations artist representations to our artists. By analyzing existing products by successful artists we consider and implement some good key points that are in their work which could help apply a similar structure to that of ours. 

For our digipak analysis we choose to look at:
The End Of The Beginning - Skrapz

Blueprint - Jay-Z

General findings:

• Bold outstanding colours.
• The title of the album is also labeled in quite a big bold outstanding sized font.
• Artist image is apparent however it is slightly being lost in the darker lighting.
• Parental advisory symbol is present.

From this research here is some key factors that I am looking for in my project:

• We want a close up shot of both of our artists, in in order to best present star image.
• Lighting will also be brighter in order to enhance the star image of both artists.
• We will be using contrasting colors throughout the digipak (white for 1 artist black for another) this will again make our artists stand out within the digipak equally. 
• Facial expressions that will be used we be quite serious to present the themes of professionals being in their element which helps to build the anticipation of the digipak visually as it must be considered as the visual interpretation of the albums tracks.

Overall, I believe that the digipak is extremely important when promoting an artist as it is considered as the face of the album and the entire musical campaign to an extent. This is why we must create a visually satisfying logo of the album to attract and engage both artists target audience to best capture the primary themes of the album.

Planning - Digipak Information

Digipak Information

Album Name: Ying & Yang

Artist name(s):

SWEENEY - (Amani)

MD - (Michael)

Track List:

1. Differences. (INTRO)
2. You Are.
3. Squad Only.
4. Wavey
5. (MD)MA.
6. P.H.A.T.
7. Trilla.
8. Spectre.
9. Lost Tape.
10. The Equilibrium.
11. C.R.E.A.M.
12. Paypa Chase.
13. LEGO City.
14. My Fung Shway. (Feng Shui)
15. The Mirror's Edge. (OUTRO)

Music Institution: DefJam Records.

Production Company: KAJE Records.

Parental Advisory Symbol: Present

Planning: Creative brief for digipak

Research: Creative brief for digipak

Product Overview: My two artists are already well known and established Hip-Hop artists that have decided to merge their talent and fan base together to create a cross over album.

The Album Concept: The crossover album will be known as Ying & Yang this is similar to that of Drake and Future's Album 'What a Time to be Alive'. The overall concept that we are looking for is to play off of the idea that these are indeed to different artists with their own style MD (Jeremih cover artist on Like Me) sings and SWEENEY (Durks cover artist on Like Me) raps, hence the reason why we have come up with the Ying and Yang concept as these are two different elements and energy types of Music coming together to create one product. 

For that reason the digipak that we create will be heavily influenced by this theme and the music video will also have the same influences and themes. a comparable that has already been mentioned is 'What A Time to be Alive'.

Because we have two different artists collaborating together for this project they will also be merging fanbases together which means this product will be aimed at R&B, Pop (because MD) as well as Rap and american drill (because of SWEENEY) meaning that the reaction we want from this will come from multiple genres and produce multiple sales from a wide range of people.

The launch date of the Albums release will be shortly after the release of the music video as we need to create hype around the album by releasing the top hit 'Like Me' before hand.