Digipak artwork development

Digipak artwork development

During this post I will discuss how I approached the design of my digipak via photoshop as well as other external software. Firstly, when producing my front cover, I needed to take new photos to in order to follow my draft design. During said photoshoot I took a range of photos each from different angles and lighting styles to allow me more choice of images when working with my front cover. Below are 10 examples of the various photos taken to use as possible photography to work from for my front cover.

 

Alternative covers from wolfgang13

My decision for choosing the right photo was based on the type of lighting (whether it was too dark or the robot face wasn't visible enough ), composition of the image (did the image feature my desired chaotic look and draw viewers attention towards the robots face) and how easy it is to work with in photoshop (overall image quality.

Finally after deciding on the most suitable photo based on these features I started to edit my image via photoshop as well as using a bit of  adobe after effects to which I will explain more when discussing how I produced the look of my internal panels.

Front cover

Firstly In Photoshop I adjusted the lighting of the photo to further direct viewers gaze towards the computer and the imagery around it by adjusting the levels of the photo and then selecting the area in which we see the toy soldiers ( which I envisioned as where the glow of the computers light would lie) and increased the saturation of this selected area in order for the soldiers and mess to stand out more for audiences view.

I then imported the image to a 5.5 x 5 canvas (the dimensions of a digipak) and decided to move onto type. However when reviewing the image itself without any type I felt that the image was too dark and didn't feature enough visual conventions to communicate not only the bright tone of my video but also connote an electronic based genre. So using my knowledge of the visual conventions of electronic genres, I applied a glitch effect via After effects to convey not only a brighter look to my front cover but also a neon light effect to communicate the glitch themes of the music video. Moreover, this would communicate the energetic sound of the song attached similar to how other electronic genre music graphics use this visual style of vibrant colours and neon lights like many of electronic ads I had previously analysed.

Next, I started to work on the type for the front cover by firstly altering the font "true lies" on Photoshop using its text wrap features to adjust the font to look more like my artists logo. After this I then applied the album name with the title of the artist "burnin fever". After experimenting with a range of fonts in a previous post I decided the font best suit the artwork of my album would be TIFAX.

Tifax example

 As previously experimented with I felt that Tifax's  simplistic geometrical style didn't clash with  so much that was going on in the image as well as conveying a computer aesthetic. After choosing the type I then applied a small gltich effect to the type to be consistent with the theme presented and then applied a scanline filter to bring more vibrancy to the colours to further convey this electronic genre look to my front cover.

Internal panels

Above is an example of how I would approach the design of my internal panels for my digipak. Firstly I would correct any mistakes I would find in the image via clone brush tool. In this case I didn't quite like the part of the sink seen within the image. I would then export the image into After effects and use the gltich filter used in my music video on said image and finally export the image back to photoshop for me to overlay onto the original to create a more saturated and distorted image. Then I would apply a mosaic filter onto said image making the image look intentionally pixelated. The intention behind this was to make some sort of software or video game graphic look to the image as previously established in this post. I then applied a black background and type to convey a classical video game hud look to the image. One point worth mentioning, is that in these internal panels where it says "time left:" and there is a number attached, the number attached refers to the time taken off the full running time of my video 3:52 mins to the exact or similar frame in which you see the image in said slide. To put it simply if you were in this example remove 18 seconds from the running time of my video on some sort of video player it will refer you  roughly to the image of seen in the internal panel. This was done for the purpose of pushing the synergy between the two products as well as add some significance to the numbers chosen.

*Not the best example it seems I am 2 seconds off - this will be rectified in my final draft

Back cover

Inspired by Commadore 64 graphics I decided to stylise my back cover in said theme in order to continue the computer based theme of my digipak. Using photoshop I mainly worked with vector shapes and pixelated type to recreate the style. In terms of other graphical features such as the record label logo and barcode I simply recoloured theme to fit in visually with the overall style of the image. Additionally, I added the artists contact details to allow for audiences to contact said artist similar to how other digipak's include such a feature to constantly promote the artists works and allow audiences to follow said artist. Moreover I also included a simplified image of the robots face to link in with the imagery of the front cover as well as to constantly promote my artists "substitute image". Finally, I added a scanline effect to the image to make it look like it was set within a computer screen.