Final Back page!

Creating my disk!

Now I had finished my research and had a clear idea on how I could design my own, I could begin the process! Firstly I started off by selecting a plain disk template from google images that I could work from. I then selected the paint bucket tool to create the black background. This can be shown below.

Next I wanted to add in the band's name. I wanted this text to match the housestyle of the rest of the digipak so I chose the Minion Pro text.

Above you can see where I have placed the text. I thought it would be a good idea to have the name at the top to make it stand out and show its importance. I also felt the white looked good against the black background. However I thought the text looked too simple and I wanted to emphasise the important of the band's name even more to make it stand out more so I thought it would be a good line to have it underlined. This would again relate to the front cover of my digipak as I also chose to underline the band's name there too. Below you can see that I have done this.

I also did not like the text in bold so I decided to change it to 'regular' as I felt this looked better. My disk research also showed me that it would be a good idea to include the album name on the disk. This would help show the target audience clearly that this disk belongs to my CRASH digipak.

Above you can see where I have placed the album name. I did not like this text in small case letters as I felt it looked less important particularly as this text is smaller than the band's name, which is something I still wanted to keep as I have done this on the front cover of my digipak. I decided to change this to capital letters to give it emphasis. I also thought it would be a good idea underline this to match the band's name above. After I had done this I still thought that my disk looked too plain. I therefore decided to add in the copyright terms and conditions that I had created for my back page. This can be seen below.

I thought this looked effective as it filled up a lot of the empty space at the bottom of the disk. Because I felt the background looked slightly dull just plain black I thought it might be a good idea to try out different effects on the disk background using the filter- artistic pencil tool. I decided to choose the 'plastic wrap' effect as I felt this made the disk more realistic and didn't make it look so dull. Below is the final disk design.

Disk design- research

After creating all of the pages for my digipak I also thought it would be worthwhile to create a design for the disk. This would make my digipak seem more realistic, I also thought it would draw in more attention, rather than a plain dull disk with no design. I first decided to research disk designs from existing artist's CD's to give me an idea on what mine could look like.

The first disk I looked at was from You Me At Six's album 'Sinners Never Sleep'. Below is an image of the design.

As you can see this disk is quite simple and not too over-packed with writing. It simply has the band's name in large writing at the top of the disk and teh name of the album below. Below this are the copyright terms and conditions. I have already included the terms and conditions on my back page of my digipak. I like how this design just uses a black background and there is no image. I feel that this may be something I will try with my disk as it will fit nicely with the black and white theme of the rest of my digipak designs. I feel that if I was to use another image for the disk it would be too much as I have used photographs on every page of my digipak which is why I feel it would be an effective idea to just go for a more simple design.

 

 

 

Below is another disk from one of You Me At Six's album 'Hold Me Down'.

 

This second disk uses slightly more colour to fit the rest of the album. The front and back of this album are a light brown colour. They have matched the colour of the disk to the colour scheme of the rest of the album. This is why I feel it would still be a good idea to use the black background for my disk to match the colour scheme of mine. This disk uses a nice floral pattern on the left side to fill up the empty space. This again matches the style of the rest of the album. A pattern like this however would not fit in at all with the style of design of my digipak. Again it uses the band's name, the name of the album and the copyright terms and conditions.

 

 

 

Process of Inside page!

Lastly now my front cover and back page are complete I can work on my Inside page. Below is the process of me making this part of the Digipak.

 

Firstly I started off by creating a black background. I did this because on my drawn plan I have planned to use a small image at the bottom part of the page so this would leave the rest of the page colourless or with no background so I thought it would therefore be easier to have a background already there for when I added the image in.

 

 

 

 

The screenshot above shows where I have added in the image of the band.  I have made the image smaller so that there is space at the top half of the Digipak for the text to go. I will leave the original image in colour for now to see what this looks like once I add the text in.

 

The above screenshot shows where I placed the text. Again I have used 'Minion Pro' and have made the text white so that it matches the style of the front and back covers of the Digipak. I made the writing big enough so that it filled the majority of the empty space. I like this page as I feel it gives the audience the opportunity to feel like they are communicating/ connecting with the boys in the band when reading their messages. They will feel like the boys are talking to them when they say thank you to their fans. I felt this was a good wat to target my audience through my digipak.

 

Above are the messages I have created from the boys. I wanted to make each one slightly personal to make it seem more real. I included thanks to family members, fans and girlfriends etc.

 

Once I had added the text I didn't like what the picture looked like in colour and I felt it would make the Digipak more professional if the style matched the rest of the digipak which is why I then added in the affect of black and white. I also liked the use of the black and white as it matches the dark colours that the boys were wearing in the photographs. However even though I had decided how I wanted this part of my digipak to look I realised that the background of the photograph was still showing. I thought this looked un professional and wouldn't usually be something that is seen on a digipak. I then decided to use my knowledge of cutting things out of images from previously using photoshop for other productions last year to help me remove the background curtain so that the whole background of the inside of the case is black. The image below shows the picture again but without the background where I have edited it out.

 

 

Aspects of back cover of Digipak!

The photographs I used for my Digipak were all original however there were some images that I had to use from other sources, these were the barcode and the virgin record label as this already existed and I could therefore not make my own.This blog  post will show the links from where I found certain aspects of the back page of my digipak. I needed to include a barcode and the Virgin records label to make my Digipak look professional and more like the real thing. A barcode is always required of a digipak in order for the product to be sold. The record label is also needed in order to show the producer label of the record. Below are the images I used and their links on the internet..

Barcode;

http://goo.gl/A7wIe












Record Label;
http://goo.gl/noSXj



Process of back page!

Now I have made my front cover I can start on the back page. Below I have blogged the steps I took to make this part of my You Me At Six Digipak.

 

 

Above shows the original image I have chosen to use for this page. I liked this picture as the boys are taking up the majority of the left side of the page which leaves room on the right for the tracks on the album where I have planned to place them in my drawn plan. I again made a background copy of this image incase anything went wrong with my editing.

 

Above is a screenshot to show how I have edited the original image. Again I used the black and white effect which can be seen in the screenshot below also. I used this effect again as I thought it would be a good idea to make the front cover and back page match in a way. This I thought would make it look more professional as my research on Digipaks showed that many other Digipaks have similar designs on their front and back covers.

 

Next I added the barcode. This is an important aspect of the Digipak as if the target market want to purchase this it needs to provide them with a barcode. I have placed this in the right hand corner as this is easy to locate and this is the side that is usually looked at first when it comes to scanning the code, therefore it is easily found. My next blog will show the link from which I found this image.

 

I then added the record label. I have already stated that I have planned to use the Virgin record label as this is already the label that You Me At Six uses. This again made my Digipak look more professional. I placed it next to the barcode as my research showed that this is somewhere that it is commonly placed around. Having this record label also advertises it to the target market as they will recognise it from the band's other CD cases/ Digipaks. I will again blog later on where I found this image.

 

The screenshot above shows the text I have edited in. This is the tracklist of the album. It is important that this is included on the Digipak so that the target audience know what they are going to be listening to. I have again put this text in white font and used Minion Pro just like the front cover to keep the same consistent house style.I placed them here as this space looked too empty. The songs were made up be me using words from other existing songs and mixing them up and others were kept the same. The tracklist I created was;

Crash (Obviously)

Underdog

Dilema

Little Lies

Under your thumb

Bite my tongue

Behind closed doors

Playing Games

Turbulance

I blame you

Your colours

If I was you

 

The screenshot above shows where I have added in the copyright terms and conditions. It is important to have these to show that no copyright laws have been breached and that the Digipak is available for purchase. I researched other terms and conditions from other Digipaks and used these as a guideline to write up a set for my Digipak. This can be shown in the image below.

 

I first placed the conditions on word to ensure that there were no spelling mistakes or grammar errors as you can see below there are, these I then corrected before putting them onto my Digipak.

Making the front cover!

I can now blog the process of me using photoshop to create the front cover of my Digipak. I have never made a Digipak before, however I felt prepared when I was getting started with it as I had my drawn plan to use as a guideline and I had the research I had previously used to help me.
Firstly I chose which image I wanted to use and set this as the background layer.

This screenshot shows the original image before I made any changes to it. Next I made a background copy of the image so that I could start editing it. This meant that if something went wrong with this copy I could use the old one for back up.

 

 

The picture above shows how I have edited my original image to make it suit the genre of music on the album. I planned to make this image black and white which is exactly what I have done. I also thought it would be a good idea to include the black and white effect as because the album name is linked to our music promo for 'Crash' we also used the black and white effect in some shots, I therefore thought that the viewers that have watched the video may recognise this similarity and relate the two together. If they liked the video they are likely to like the album and be interested in it.

 

 

 

The next image shows me adding the band's name. This is something that every CD case/digipak includes as it is promoting the artist. I want the target market to be able to recognise straight away who made this digipak. This is why I have placed the band's name in the top right hand corner so it is easily noticeable and readable. I have made it white so it looks nice on the black background. The screenshot below also shows the font I have used for this text.

 

 

 

The above screenshot shows the next text I added in. This is the name of the album.'Crash'. I have already stated that I have named it this as this is the track we used for our music promo and my research showed me that You Me At Six have named their other albums after songs on that album. I have placed it underneath the band's name as this again is something that many other Digipaks do. I have made it white in order to keep the same consistent house style as the other text on the page. The screenshot below again shows that I have used 'Minion Pro' for the text font. I feel that by keeping the same house style it creates a professional look. 

 



 

At first I was going to leave the final front cover as the previous screenshot of the whole page. However I thought it would be a better idea to underline the band's name to give it more important. I also liked this a lot better as it made the name stand out a lot more.



 

 The screenshot above shows what my Digipak would look like with the original image and without the black and white effect. I wanted to see which idea I would like better out of the two. I have decided that the black and white front cover looks better as it makes it look more professional and suitable to the genre of music. I feel if I kept the original image the same way as it was at the beginning this would look rather dull and boring whereas the black and white affect adds a bit more interest to it.