Our Digipak;

Research into Digipak's

A digipak is a style of CD or DVD packaging, often used for special addition CDs and DVDs. They are one of the first alternatives to jewel cases and became popular amoung recording artists in the 2000s. Digipaks typically consist of a book-style paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. They are less likely to crack compared to jewel cases, but the plastic teeth used to hold the disc in place inside the packaging is brittle and can easily snap and break if the digipak is trodden on or crushed in some way. Digipak manufacturers are trying to make the digipaks more environmentally friendly by introducing recycled components into the product.

A Digipak is digital footage of the band either CD or a DVD sometimes it contains both.A digipak consists of various special edition content e.g.

• extra features
• interviews
• making of
• posters
• vouchers
• bonus tracks
• track list

ANALYSIS OF A DIGIPAK-

Artist Representation

- No image of artist on cover, just fuzzy pictures of instruments

- Aimed at maybe a more

dedicated fan base who know who the band is, as it doesn't really represent the artist in any promotional way.

- Mysterious because of no images of artist.
Mise-en-scene

- Fuzzy images of instruments, looks like tv screen

- Very simple, bland, just image, band name, and the album name,

- Album name is more interesting than anything else on the cover making the audience get drawn mainly to that.

- Track names on the back, and special features

- Company details, barcode, etc.
Attract Target audience?

- This Digipak seems to be targeted mostly at existing customers rather than new customers.

- Probably audience between 30 - 50.

Conform to convention? Special Content?

-Convention of rock/indie artist

-Moody, dark

- Special features (new track, commentary)

Pictures taken for idea's:

We took a variety of photo's to see what would work on the front of an album cover.

Overall, we liked these five picture's the most and selected two for the back and front.
We found the first picture of Sammi effective but not really what we had in mind. The sand timer and the models face was seen but we thought to keep it in the same theme as the other products especially the video that the model had to look distressed. Also that the sand in the timer should just be about to run out as it keeps in the theme of 'time is running out'. We also felt that the model was taking the focus off the sand timer yet we didn't want the cd cover to just be a picture of a sand timer. The second picture Sammi and I felt that this was a perfect picture due to the placing of the timer and how the model is set in the background yet you can still see her face. The sand is at the right point in the timer as well which makes it even more effective. We decided to use this photo for the front cover overall, but cropped it out to zoom in more on the timer and also blurred out the face of Sammi to place the bands name and album name. The third photo was to try something different without the models face seen. We didn't think it was a good front album cover so decided to use it for the back. We felt that there was too much going on in the fourth picture due to the models head in the background, the models hand and timer in the foreground. It was difficult to see where we could place our albums name. Therefore we didn't use this photo. The last picture was another experimental piece. If the placing of the hand, with the timer in it, was placed to the side we may have considered using this. Yet we felt that the other picture was a more stronger picture to use as the back of the digipak, where we could place text other the top.

FRONT:For the front cover of our Digi Pak it will feature a photo of the Sammi posing as the model looking at a sand timer in distress. The sand timer will relate to the name of the album and the single 'Time is Running Out'. As Muse has very simple album covers we decided to have the main focus on the timer and Sammi, the model in the background, blurred to take the focus off her. The photography was taken by myself. I made sure the sand was near to the bottom to again, relate to the album and song title. We decided to keep the same band name 'Muse' and used their logo on our cover, with the title underneath. We placed the title to the side, making it eye catching as well as the main photo. The use of the image will look effective as well as Muse's original CD Cover's.

BACK:

For the back cover we have used another photograph that we took for the ideas for our front cover. This picture again connects to the song title. We have placed all Muse's songs on the back like typical album's have to show the buyers what will be included in this certain album, including the song 'time is running out'. We decided to include the bar code and dvd sign to make it look like a real album.

INVERT:

This part of the digipak is fitted behind the front cover, next to the placed CD inside. We decided to place lyrics of the music video inside relating to the audience. We have also placed quotes from famous magazine's to promote the album and for audiences to want to buy it.

Final Outcome;

Sammi and I thought we did an fantastic job with this digipak. Although the front of the cover does not appear with the band, it still looks effective, like Muse's existing CD covers. We decided to stick with the idea of Muse's front covers as we love how different they are.