Planning Digipak - Miss Miller

Digipaks are different from jewel CD cases fro several reasons, one of these noticeable differences is that Digipak's often include more content than a jewel CD case, digipaks have 6 sides of content for the audience to look at and read so there is a lot more artwork for the album than just buying or purchasing the normal jewel CD case. Digipak's are very important to an artists image as it shows their audiences they are appreciative of all this support they have been given, it also shows that they have a lot of content to give audiences because of the digipak. Digipaks also include extra songs as well as better picture quality than CD's, this encourages loyal fans to buy this digipak for this extra content they're getting from their favourite artist. For this task i will be creating my own digipak for me and my group's artist "John Spencer" but before this digipak i will plan the pictures that i want for me my groups digipak, the reason why i am planning it is because it will give me and my group a good idea of what pictures we should take while filming.

In my digipak, i have tried to use colours effectively within my digipak whilst trying to keep them to a minimum. Within all the 6 photos the audience can see colour, green, blue, brown and red as well as some colours like white, grey or black. The colours are also quite faded, meaning the audience can just about see the colours. These colours are designed like this so that the digipak is more appealing to the audience as they add more life to the digipak and so that it grabs the audiences attention when they start looking at it, however the other colours i mentioned are quite dull and lifeless which is a direct contrast to what i just mentioned about the colours, this contrast in colours could connote that the artist is comparing his old life to his new life in terms of fame and that he made it into the industry and talks about the hard times in the digipak. The colours therefore appeal to the audience because they will understand this hidden connotation and will start to think of all the troubles our artists went through in order to become famous as the dull colours used convey a sort of realistic perspective of the digipak and the audience are able to relate to it more.

Typography in my digipak has been created to follow the conventions of the indie music genre so that indie audiences find the digipak more appealing. The tyopgraphy in the digipak is simple but hand written as well, however, there is one use of typography that contrasts to this writing, this is where the album title "Rock Bottom" is. The typography is supposed to be hand written for a purpose or connotation that the audience should understand, the reason it's hand written is because it conveys that the artist actually wrote all of this, showing that he cares for his audiences and that the digipak is very personal to himself, meaning that the album may include songs that talk about the artists past. This promotes our artist as fans will appreciate that this is personal to him and the efforts he has gone through to make sure his audience know that the digipak means a lot to him. This would differ from a jewel CD case because there wouldn't be as much writing on the case as there are on the digipak meaning that the digipak has more content from the artists themselves and the fact it looks hand written by the artist was done purposely so that the audience can build up a relationship with the artist.

Language is used quite differently throughout the digipak for several reasons, some aspects are kept simple yet some a bit more complicated. Most of the language used in the digipak is kept short giving basic details to the audience about the artists name, the digipak title as well as the songs name, however the language becomes a bit more colloquial/informal where the artist has written a message to his target audience explaining how thankful he is for their purchase and continued support of his music where it says "from the bottom of my heart, thank you" clearly showing that this is the artists opinion. This appeals to our target audience as they will feel flattered that he has actually addressed them and has appreciated their support over the years. In a jewel CD case, you wouldn't find this sort of message, meaning this little note acts as a reward for the purchase, the artist thanks the audience member for being a respected and loyal fan for the artist. This again just how personal the digipak is for the artist as he thanks the target audience for the purchase. The colloquial language is implying that the artist doesn't consider them users and consumers that buy into an artists lifestyle for the sake of it, but he is instead thanking the audience for their support which is what makes audiences feel flattered.

I would say that my digipak follows the conventions of an indie as I tried to create it this way and it does follow standard conventions of the genre very well. Firstly most of the sides of the digipak use the typical convention of showing a guitar to emphasise that it's an indie music digipak for the indie target audience that our artist is trying to appeal towards, another use of an indie convention is the artists clothes, they're supposed to be the same clothes he wears in the music video showing the artists particular style that the audience will be able to associate with later when hearing one of his songs. This appeals to our indie target audience as they will respect the artists for applying himself to these conventions and to show audiences this is the type of music our artists produces. The digipak promotes our artist as the fact that he is an indie artist will generate hype and buzz surrounding that particular fan base. The use of conventions is to build up a relationship between the artist and the audiences of the indie genre as they will normally be the first to listen to the music to see if the artist is any good.

The images i created for the digipak were also used effectively in terms of the genre conventions. As stated earlier, i used the guitar to evoke the meaning that the artist is a indie artist which gains him credibility among that particular audience, the images also include the artist in 4 different locations, a blank page and a picture of some rocks. The rocks first of all work in tandem with the digipak title "Rock Bottom" as the rocks in the picture are at the bottom of the picture, this means the songs on the album will talk about his bad times in the past as the phrase rock bottom always has a negative connotation. The 4 pictures of the artist also connote that the digipak will be personal for the artist and it has many different high quality pictures of himself inside, however the fact that the locations are all different connotes that the artist had to leave his old neighborhood in order to become successful and sometimes when he did this, it didn't always work his way. This therefore appeals to the indie target audience because it shows he follows the conventions of the genre, the audience will pick up on this and associate him with the genre. This differs from a jewel CD case because the CD case won't be able to include as many pictures that the digipak offers therefore making it less meaningful for the audience and a lot less personal.

The layout and design of the digipak was also very important to get right because if it wasn't done to a presentable standard then it would mean that our artist wouldn't be successful in the industry. The front cover of the digipak is the first image in the table and the last image is the back cover of the digipak with a list of songs, the other very important image was the 3rd one as this image is where the disk will be located in the digipak. The layout of the front and back of the digipak is important because this means that people will assume that the songs on the back are well known songs from the artist that are available to listen to on this digipak. Some audiences may see the song names and think that they haven't heard a particular song before and will purchase the digipak for this reason. The other pictures are all personal pictures of the artist as well as a personal note that he left for the audience member that purchased the digipak, the digipak illustrates that the images inside the covers are all to suggest the personal tone of the songs towards the audience. It promotes our artist effectively as the audience will respect the fact that he's talking about his past and all the troubles he faced in order to accomplish his dreams of becoming successful in the music industry, this therefore makes the audience feel as if they have been thanked for their continued support and encourages them to spread the fact that the artists music is very personal to them which builds up more of a relationship between the artist and audiences which in turn encourages them to buy into his lifestyle.