FINAL DIGIPAK

Digipak Images- Album Cover

A few weekends ago I took and edited some photos for my digipak. Having looked at current Digipaks for pop artists who have a similar persona to our own I have discovered that they often have 1 theme going throughout the CD material, which is often from one photo shoot. I had been planning to include pictures from shooting in my digipak however, I have been struggling with doing this and keeping it looking professional and as if it was a real product. This is my main issue at the moment with the production of my digipak.

This weekend I tried to face this issue, taking and editing two photoshoot's that I did myself. Again after much research into similar artists, in particular Kesha, I discovered that image manipulation where the image is mirrored is particularly common. EXAMPLES AND WHAT I DID IN EDITING.

Xena Typeface.

Artist Name

Today we decided the name for our artist. We wanted a powerful name to match the persona we have created. Originally we were going to keep my original name, Katy, but decided that it wasn't strong enough. To find names we searched a number of things, for example unusual names and mystical names.

 A few we liked were: 

Isadora
Cleo/Clio
Sadie
Flora
Amber

Ember
Flora

Cecily
Aurelia
Tamsin
Rosalie

 Iris

KT

Katie

Xena is the final name we choose. Some of the other names we liked we decided were too floral and natural, which we didn't really think fitted well. We wanted something unusual, which Xena seemed to fit.

We also thought about adding an extra bit to the name like in Marina and The Diamonds or Florence and the Machine, however we couldn't decide on the Xena and the name, and decided that Xena was strong enough on its own.

Star Image in Music Videos and Websites- Kesha.

While designing my website and Album Cover I have been taking inspiration and looking to the artist Kesha as she is in the same genre and has the kind of star image we want to promote in our artist. Kesha is rebellious, punky, sexy, and is a pop artist. These kind of traits are something we have tried to incorporate into the marketing of our artist, who is also of the pop genre.

Kesha's first album "Animal" shows her against a dark background which is scratched and eroded. This shows her style to be quite dark, and that she is quite a grungey artist. This grunge element is something we have been incorporating into the marketing of our artist. Therefore I will be thinking about adding in similar effects in my current album cover design so there is unity between the promotional materials.

This album cover ultimately still has bright features such as the type which is written in glitter. This provides a nice contrast to the dark picture which might suggest a rock them if it was not paired with the text which brings it back to the pop genre of music. 

Kesha's next album is Warrior. This album cover has a completed different color palette however, there is still a similar style to her last album cover. The color of this Album markets Kesha in more of a pop artist way, with the bright bold colors, however elements of her slightly edgier music are visible, for example in the dress she is wearing and background. Also the typography of her name which is clearly shown on all of her products connotes a edgier artist, as it is made up of harsh lines that are very graphic.
When designing my Album cover I have thought about using bright colors also as this demonstrates the music to be part of the pop genre.

Kesha's website has a similar feel to her album covers. With the background being black with areas that have been eroded. This gives a similar messy, carefree and slightly rock and roll image to Kesha.
Also on the website are pops of color, mainly the lime green hints that are present in her name and highlight titles. This in-keeps with the pop genre, but also the color of green is an acid green, further suggesting erosion and decay.

Photos for my Digipak booklet.

Planning my backcover for my album.

While shooting part of our music video we went to Lime Street, where there are some sculptures by Robert Indiana. I thought it would be effective to use these on the back of my album cover for the  song names, creating a synergy between the music video and the songs for the audience, also the colors are very bright and bold which i think would tie in well to the pop genre.

I edited the original pictures to make them brighter and to limit the same colors being repeated. I also cut out the backgrounds of the numbers. Some of the edges are still a little rough and I plan to touch up this later.

Album Cover- First Draft

Today I took some photos for my album cover experimenting with paint on my face to match the main scene in our music video. I decided to use an extreme close up, as I noticed in my research that pop artists covers often feature this. In editing I airbrushed my skin,  increased the saturation to match the colourfulness of pop videos.  I also added a pink tint, because we are marketing an female artist.

 

In the second image I altered the amounts of pink, as I wanted a stronger colour.  

Conventions of Album Covers

I looked at the key features of Album Covers and found that these were common features.

Front:

• Main image 
• Name of artist 
• Title of Album 
• Band logo

Back: 

• Track list 
• Special features 
• Another prominent image under the text 

Institutional Information: 

• Bar-code
• Record Label 
• Year of publishing 
• Copyright
• Individual track writers, composers, engineers, producers etc.
• Reference Number 
• Band Members
• Guest performers  

Spine:

• Name of artist
• Title of Album 
• Record Label
• Reference Number 

Inserts: 

• Futher insitutional information for each individual track 
• Song lyrics 
• Photographs of Artist 
• Thank Yous

I have shown some of these features on Lana del Rey's "Born to Die" Album. 

DigiPak ideas

This is one of the pictures I have edited a a possible cover for my Album Cover. I really like the slightly faded out and chemical burn effect round the edges. I think it conveys the genre effectively and the star. However, there is something that doesn't look quite right for an an album cover.

DigiPak test.

Today I tried some techniques of overlaying colours and shapes over some of the pictures from London to see how it might look. I like the results but I feel more could be done to them. This has given me good practice for the package anyway.

Experimentation for DigiPak.

Today I experimented with layering up one of the pictures that we took while in London with some paint splashes images. I think that this looks effective however, I would edit it better. Possibly cutting out the background of the layer of me and making this all white so it looked a lot cleaner. Also I would prefer a closer up shot. This was more just experimentation, testing an idea I thought might work quite well.

Filming:18th and 19th of January

This weekend we planned to do our filming of London and our powder party scene. We wanted  people to be involved in the shooting so we had to find a way of organizing them. We used a number of technologies to do this such as Facebook and Whatsapp.

Friday night we made a quick decision that we simply had not got enough people for Saturday for it to look good. Therefore, we unfortunately had to cancel and decided that the filming would just include me. Relying on people to turn up on Sunday for the Paint Party.

However, after filming all day and still having little to no response about Sunday we decided to cancel it. We plan to reschedule this to the next weekend, giving us a little more time to get a larger group of people together for a better end product.

Luckily filming on the Saturday went well and we got lots of good footage and pictures that we can use in digipacks. We had a number issues with transport as the Northen line was down, meaning it took longer than expected to travel around. We also had issues with lighting, eventually having to give up on our final location, Camden Town as it got dark really quickly.  

We also had to find areas to change and do re do makeup, this took a lot of hassle and time. 

One of the most annoying things by far was the fact that we arrived at 99 Bishopsgate Street to discover that the Love sign we had hoped to use had been removed. However, there was no warning of this anywhere on the internet, with it claiming to still be around into May. We will try and find out if it has been moved anywhere and see if we can still go and film there. This issue meant we had to go find some extra shots. 

Though we had a few glitches, overall the day was very productive and if we need any pick up shots when we are editing we will be better for our experiences of this trip.

Inspiration for Digi Pack

Recently the group has been playing with the idea of glow sticks in our music video. While reading a magazine I saw these shots, which have a similar kind of feel to the music video. Personally I think this is great inspiration both for the video but also for my digipack. We are creating a promotional package for the artist, including shots from the music video creates a brilliant link and adds a wholeness. Lady Gaga recently used a shot from her music video as the album cover for Applause. Doing something similar could be effective. 
I really like the look of these photos. I think they provide some great inspiration. 

STAR IMAGE

THEORIES ON STAR IMAGE:
Andrew Goodwin on Stage Image in 'Dancing in the distraction factory'.

• The creation of character identities for stars provides a point of identification for the audience/ spectator which is especially important when lyrics often lack depth. 

• The construction ofstars is cental to the economics of the music industry- only stars guarntee sales and long careers.

• Star Loyalty is a key ingredient- fans are loyal to the star.

•  The audience knows its own tastes but the music industry has long been able to work around this- the construction of stars is one of the ways they do this. 

• The record industry is very dependent or stars- many record companies rely on a few big stars (or even just one) to provide stability. 

 Example of Star

Beyoncé has been a pop star for many years and she is regarded as the queen of pop. Thoughout her career in order to maintain being successful she has had to change her image. This keeps people interested in her and and human beings crave neophilia so it is necessary for her to show her creativity. 

She began her solo career in 2003, after being a part of the girl group "Destiny's Child". She has been very successful releasing 4 Albums since then. 

Beyonce's Albums from Left to Right: Dangerously in Love, B Day, I am Sasha Fierce, 4

.

Beyonce's Star Image.

I think Beyonce image is 'the perfect woman'.

She is portrayed as a sex symbol, she has an incredible figure and this is often shown; lot of skin showing, but she is also very 'real' her body isn't that of  a runway model, she is curvy and I think a lot of her audience (in particular women) are inspired by her. She connects to her audience as they can relate to her. Beyonce is also hugely successful, she is a singer, model, actress, and business woman. A lot of her fans can also admire those sides to her. She balances being a sex symbol with being powerful and smart. Beyonce is also a mother and wife, again providing another level of reality to her. She demonstrates that it is possible to be successful and have a personal life. Beyonce also does good, she is altruistic, doing events for charity etc.  

Beyonce with her baby

A shot from her famous song Single Ladies.

One of her adverts for her perfume.

Sex Symbol

With her husband J-Z being a normal couple.

Some of her charity work

What Elements could we borrow from Beyonce image that we can apply to our artist?  

• I think it is important to try and create the image for our artist, as someone who is real, who has a connection with their audience. This connection sells, as the audience don't feel that they are buying the material.The sale is more personal than that. I think this friendliness and openness is one of Beyonce's key selling points. Our song "I love it" is all about not caring, and being reckless, if we show the artists image to be like in our promotional package we will attract a young audience. This reckless tone doesn't easily lent itself to being sweet and caring. However,  I think that done a certain way the two could mix. 
• Beyonce's image is quite glamorous and sexy, while I don't think it would fit our artist or song to be shown as glamorous I think that ultimately sex sells, so there need to be aspects of that in our music video.

Discuss what ideas do you have for your artist/band's star image- a mix of an existing artist/band's representation and something you have constructed to create a unique artist.

Album Art