DigiPak Design Front Cover
-Planning-
The front cover of a DigiPak is always the most important part - it is the first thing people see and is the factor that helps them decide whether to purchase or not (especially if they are not part of the returning audience of the musical artist). As a result, it needs to look professional and appealing and a lot of time and care needs to be taken in order to make it as good as can be.
The first idea that we had when considering the DigiPak was to showcase the band and to apply our synergy theme of fire to the frame. This is what we had planned out in our DigiPak design plan - the frame in question shown above. However, as we had rented the band equipment, we had to use only existing pictures/screenshots - which lead to a big problem in that we hadn't taken any specific photos for this purpose as we had been focusing on filming the band sequences on that day. So we looked through the footage and chose an image that worked in the format we wanted it to; however I personally didn't like the photo.
We used Photoshop to add a text and fire overlay to the image. The finished product did not meet the standards that our group had set for ourselves - we'll call this the trouble of perfectionism. Whilst it may have been 'good enough', we wanted it to be better than that. It has to be eye catching, professional and intriguing enough for a potential audience member to pick it up. What we had produced did not fit this, so it was time to go back to the drawing boards.
In a previous post I spoke about using a double exposure technique for our DigiPak, however we had decided to do this for the inside flaps. Despite this, I though we could use it again for the front cover but in a different way - instead of having only Jordan we could have both characters overlaying one image. To be able to achieve this we would have to replicate the practice that I did, at least to a similar standard.
The first step to achieving this technique is to take the photographs. We tried taking them with a multitude of different backgrounds as we were struggling to separate the subject from the background when using something like the green screen. As a result we went for as close to a white background as possible (ignoring the blue at the bottom), which would allow for the Photoshop process to be a lot easier. We took the photos using an Iphone 8, as it produced a very good image and it was the best camera we had on hand at that point.
We then produced one double exposure, this time without the face showing (so it was silhouetted). We decided instead of spending a lot of time doing both, we would ask a focus group what they thought and what they preferred, as at the end of the day it doesn't matter what we want if it doesn't sell to a target audience.
The front cover of a DigiPak is always the most important part - it is the first thing people see and is the factor that helps them decide whether to purchase or not (especially if they are not part of the returning audience of the musical artist). As a result, it needs to look professional and appealing and a lot of time and care needs to be taken in order to make it as good as can be.
The first idea that we had when considering the DigiPak was to showcase the band and to apply our synergy theme of fire to the frame. This is what we had planned out in our DigiPak design plan - the frame in question shown above. However, as we had rented the band equipment, we had to use only existing pictures/screenshots - which lead to a big problem in that we hadn't taken any specific photos for this purpose as we had been focusing on filming the band sequences on that day. So we looked through the footage and chose an image that worked in the format we wanted it to; however I personally didn't like the photo.
We used Photoshop to add a text and fire overlay to the image. The finished product did not meet the standards that our group had set for ourselves - we'll call this the trouble of perfectionism. Whilst it may have been 'good enough', we wanted it to be better than that. It has to be eye catching, professional and intriguing enough for a potential audience member to pick it up. What we had produced did not fit this, so it was time to go back to the drawing boards.
In a previous post I spoke about using a double exposure technique for our DigiPak, however we had decided to do this for the inside flaps. Despite this, I though we could use it again for the front cover but in a different way - instead of having only Jordan we could have both characters overlaying one image. To be able to achieve this we would have to replicate the practice that I did, at least to a similar standard.
The first step to achieving this technique is to take the photographs. We tried taking them with a multitude of different backgrounds as we were struggling to separate the subject from the background when using something like the green screen. As a result we went for as close to a white background as possible (ignoring the blue at the bottom), which would allow for the Photoshop process to be a lot easier. We took the photos using an Iphone 8, as it produced a very good image and it was the best camera we had on hand at that point.
We then produced one double exposure, this time without the face showing (so it was silhouetted). We decided instead of spending a lot of time doing both, we would ask a focus group what they thought and what they preferred, as at the end of the day it doesn't matter what we want if it doesn't sell to a target audience.
So, out of the four people we asked, three of them liked the new design and fifty percent liked the silhouetted versions and the other half liked it with the face. The praise was that the images were 'simple but powerful', which i'd like to say is what we aimed for. So, if they like the double exposure that's what we will use. However, we had only produced one with one subject, our actual idea was going to contain two - which makes the process twice as hard.
So we had our images, now all we needed was to pick the right fire. The idea was to utilise one that could act as both a fore and back ground, as we would be blending it outwards. This is why we decided to go with the third fire, as it had a deep contrast between the flames and the hard black background but it also included the sparks - which we found really aesthetically pleasing. Now we just needed to photoshop it.
We finished the product rather quickly and we all agreed it was far better than our original one. The process consisted of double exposing the two faces separately so that the flames showed over the top of the two subjects. We decided to make Jordan (the main character and lead singer) be on the right hand side as this would be where peoples eyes would be drawn to after reading the title (as you read from left to right). We also had him be a lot larger than Jack, simply because he is a lot more important to not only the song Bonfire but to the album in general - as he is the lead singer. We decided to use the font as it was both bold and professional. We went for the black background as previously stated so we could blend the two images together. So, the front cover is finished - or so we thought.
When we came to constructing all 6 frames of the DigiPak, we stumbled upon a rather large problem. The boxes did not look right together, they were a blend of different colours, backgrounds and images. It looked like it was just mish-mashed together. As a result we decided to conduct a full design change, adding a purple background with an orange glow to all of our frames so they synergised with one another. The product looked so much better afterwards and it really gave our production its own bit of spice. Here is the front cover, and the rest of the DigiPak will be in a later post.
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