Copyright Request

I am not working with an established artist who is signed by a record label, instead i am working with a friend who is an amateur musician without any music out and i am recording the song with him and then making the video for the song which we have recorded, because of this it means that i do not have to contact any record label to ask permission for me to use their song. Because i am recording the song with him and he is featured in the music video, it is obvious that he is giving me permission to use his song for the video. But i will prove i have the artists permission on text below just to confirm.

Digipaks Template

 The first thing which i had to do to get started on creating my digipak waas to download a digipak template online. The digipak which i picked was the 4 panel CD template. This is helpful because it gives you a clear idea of where to put each image and where to correctly place the text, without it i would have found it ocnfusing as to what was the front cover and inside. The website which i got the template was - http://www.discmakers.com/templates/digipaks.asp

Digipak Design 2 Final

In this post i have put screenshots of my second digipak idea. This digipak was created with photographs i took on my second shoot with Josh, these are not stills from the video. I took these using my camera using the settings which worked best to get these shots. I then put these photos into photoshop to edit them. The way i edited them was firstly decreasing the brightness slightly and increasing the contrast quite a lot. I did this because it meant that the colours get more defined and bold in the image. I then altered the levels slightly to make the darks darker and define the image even more. I was happy with how the photo had turned out in the edit but i made one more change to it and this was to alter the hue slightly so that the yellow sunset had more of a red tint to it because i thought this looked nicer and more vibrant which is what i was going for.

The first image below is the first draft of the digipak. This version doesn't have an inside to it yet. I think my choice of photos for the front and back are good and work well. I like the front image because it is bold and really stands out, also with the colours used catches the eye which is something important for the front cover of a cd  because it means that passersby might notice it and have look. I am happy with the choice of photo for the back cover also because it still shows the artist but not as boldly and isn't the main subject of the image, also there is room for the tract list which fits perfectly in that space. I wanted to have a tracklist on the back of my digipak because it follows conventions within this genre so i didn't choose one of my images where it would look odd and out of place to feature a tracklist.  

For the text on the front cover i made it simple by having just the artists name and the album name. Because at this time i have not thought of an album name which would suit this best i looked at some familiar artists and have used one of Ben Howards album names to be put there until i have my own name. I wanted the text fairly small so that it is not taking the attention away from the image but not too small in which it is difficult to see. I have a few different versions of where i have placed the text on my front cover. I have chosen this style because i think it looks the best out of the different versions. I put the text in white so that it stands out but again not too much where it takes the attention of the rest of the cover.

For the text of the back cover i made it very similar, i set the colour to white for the same reason so it wouldnt stand out too much but still could be seen. The placement wasnt difficult and only really fit and looked good in one place. The font i used is called ..... this font was m favourite for this because its not childish but not really a boring font, i think it fits the style of the cover and the type of music.

This is the second design to my digipak, the only think i have changed on this second version is i have put an image for the inside. I have chosen for the inside links to the outside because it carries the theme of the sunset and also links with the colours. I made the inside fairly simple and minimal, i like this style the most rather than filling it and cluttering it with stuff which doesnt look good. I put the image over both sides so it stretches across joining them. I think this will look good when actually looking at the digipak physically.

For the final change which i made for the digipak was to add the lyrics of each song to spread across the inside. I did this because without anything there the inside looked bland and unfinished. With the lyrics it makes the digipak feel completed and like a finished product.

Digipak Design

This post features screenshots of the first digipak design which i have created. This digipak was created using photographs which i had taken from my first shoot in Iceland, as well as one photo which was taken on the second shoot but edited to fit the look and feel of the Iceland shoot photos. The photos used are not stills from my video. The photos were taken with this and the magazine poster in mind, i have multiple versions using different settings to see which work best and these are the best versions of the shot which i have. These photos are also edited in photoshop before i imported them into illustrator. The way i edited these photos was firstly slightly tweaking the levels to make the photos more defined and bold. Then i slightly altered the brightness and contrast to again get a more defined and stronger image, there was not a lot of editing done to the Iceland photos because they didn't need a heavy edit on them. With the shot from the second shoot (image on inside of digipak) i edited this similarly however i changed this to black and white and tweaked that to make it as similar to the Iceland images as i could.

The first screenshot shown is my first draft of the digipak, the aspect missing from this version is the inside cover side which has the cd on it. I am happy with the choice of photos for the front and back, i think they work well together and are quite bold and strong photographs. I like the first image because it is a striking image, it shows a man walking alone along an empty beach, this person is not the artist (Josh) because he wasn't in Iceland with me but anyone who didn't know that would believe it is. I know the person in the image and i asked them to walk along the beach so i could get this shot and in happy with how it turned out. It is good that the image is striking bold because this is important for a front cover,. The image is very fitting to the genre of music and works well with conventions of this genre. 

I like the back image and think it works well as a back cover. It links to the front cover because it is the same place just looking the other way which i think adds a nice effect and would work well looking at a physically copy. The image has a lot of open negative space which i believe is good for back covers because it leaves room for a tracklist to be clear on show rather than the tracklist over the top of something and blocking it out or not being able to see the tracklist clearly. 

For the text on the front cover i put it as white because i prefer white text and usually think white text looks the nicest on top of images. I didn't want to cram the front cover with lots of text because otherwise i didnt want the picture to loose its effect so i wanted the text to be there but be subtle. The white text however might be too subtle and a little bit too hard to see. I will try out black text and see if it looks better or if it doesn't look as professional. the same applies to the back text. I like how the back text looks and think that it is clearer than the front but i will try another version with black test to compare. 

Below is a screenshot from the second design of the first version of the digipak. The only think changed here is i have added the album name, because at this time i have not thought of an album name which would suit this best i looked at some familiar artists and have used one of Ben Howards album names to be put there until i have my own name. I also changed one for the inside sections colour. In the first screenshot this section is white. I changed this to test if it would look better. I drop-picked the colour from the other image on the inside and the idea was that it would look like the image carries of over.