Friday, 26 February 2010

Digi Pack

Promo Pack - What is a DigiPack?

When advertising your new album or single, there are many different branches you can take. Many artists like to create a theme in which their album and all the other aspects can link to. For example, Lily Allen generally wears brightly coloured dresses and these will appear in her videos, on posters and even on her album cover. Different elements of the artists the mise-en-scene such as costume, setting and the use of colour can help create this link.



When we began brainstorming about our different ideas, we wanted to create something similar to Lily so therefore we are going to use the same costume for the adverts, album and video (as does Katy Perry.) The coherence of the material in Katy Perry's 'I kissed a girl' video is a clear example, due to the theme of pink/retro that continues throughout. This is called a Promo Pack.



Digi Packs play an important role in the making of a Promo Pack. A digi pack is the packaging in which the CD, or in this case a DVD/CD will be held. Generally, they are made from card stock or other heavy paper or cardboard like materials. There are many ways in which the digi pack can open, for example it can flip open like a book, only have three parts with the CD in the middle section. Most of the time,the digipack that holds the CD is made of plastic such as a traditional jewel case CD - the paper or card is attached by small hooks. However, our digi pack will be printed on hard card and with have grips holding the DVD/CD in place.





Two CD covers by other Pop artists.





I have chosen Katy Perry's 'One of the Boys' to analyse as part of influencing ideas for my Digi Pack. Katy Perry is a successful Pop artist who uses her feminine appeal to attract both male and female audiences. Men lust over her and women want to be her. For this album she used a pink and retro theme throughout her video, posters and album cover. As she is a single artist, she is placed in the center of the frame and the other aspects are around her. Her name is straight above her head and is written in a hot pink and uses a diner type ice cream type font. She is wearing a 1950s type of swim wear such as high waisted shorts and a reddish pink crop top. She also is wearing red lipstick and has loose curls that fall on her shoulders and wears a over large blue hat that matches her shorts. In the background, the audience can see a picket fence that runs along the length of the shot. This background is also used in her advert. Katy is sat on a fold up white metal bed with a pink blanket covering it. The use of colour which appears on this album cover are also going to be used in my digipack. I will be using blues to create a link. I will also be having my artist center of the frame however i will not be having a reality-like background such as the flowers, blue sky or sense of distant towns.







As my second CD cover, i am going to analyse Florence and the Machines 'Lungs' album cover. Just like Lily Allen, Florence is a pop/indie artist and so this genre is key to creating the right Cd cover for my song. One thing that i initially like about this cover is that it is a medium close up of Florence. She is wearing a silver top which hangs off her shoulders in strands that is similar to the vines on the tree. Her hair is wavy but tied in a bun. The background is simply what looks like tree which is black and covered in vines and flowers. Florence looks to the right of the frame and has her eyes facing down. She wears black nail varnish which seems to match the black darkness of the tree. The main feature of this picture is her necklace,which is a pair of over sized lungs (linked to her Album name.) This is an important link because immediately the audience can tell which album it is, also because it supports the Promo Pack idea. The font used is simple and in white with stands out from the dark background. The font is also thin and therefore corresponds with the strands on her top. Some aspects that i will be using in my Digi Pack is the boarder that surrounds the image and the use of a close up.






Flatplans of 3 DigiPacks.







Digi Pack 1

This idea was based on an urban, city life theme. I wanted to use a brick wall theme to symbolise an industrial environment. However, i wanted to show my Lily as being happy and positive, disguarding any of the negatives in her surroundings. For the three main panels, for example cover, back and inner left panel, i wanted to use a block boarder saying Lily Allen. On the other hand, I feel looking back that this would not work because it is not clear enough who the artist is. The brick wall in the background would be dark and dull but the writing and images would be bright to create a contrast between good (sober) and bad (drunk or high.) On my front cover, i would use a box detailing that the CD offers 'Everyone's At It' and including the price. On the back cover, i will use a bar code and make a list of the feature my Digi Pack has to offer. This will include 'Everyone's At It, The Fear and The Exclusive Video of Everyone's At It.'








Digi Pack 2

For this idea, i wanted to use a bright colour theme. Bright colours are a connotation of pop music and as part of Lily's audience is the pop market, i wanted this Digi Pack to appeal to them. The Digi Pack is aimed towards a younger audience due to the bubble writing and simple shaped images, for example the panels not being too cluttered. However, as the song I am promoting is about drug use, this Digi Pack would be a unnecessary, as it would attract children rather than teenagers. Another thing i would change, would be the front cover images. Instead of again using the unclear block writing repeating Lily Allen, i would have used a picture of her so that the audience could see the artist clearly. Again i used a bar code on the back of the case to make it look more professional and used a dotted boarder to enhance the songs on the CD. Overall i dislike this digipack because i believe its audience is too young and does not demonstrate the songs theme clearly enough.





Digi Pack 3
For this digi pack, i wanted to make bright colours the central theme. I also know that neon colours are connotation of drum n bass or dance songs so this contradict my audience intentions. The top right panel is bright pink. Ive used the same image of the brick wall and bench as in my first digi pack, i did this to hint toward the urban, city feel. I have broken up the picture in different parts, which is to represent the destruction drugs can do to someones life. In the bottom two panels, i have used monsters symbolising hallucinations. The face is made of different shapes and features, a montage, this was to demonstrate all the different affects of drugs. Even though, i really like this digi pack idea, i do not think its suitable for my target audience. As i previously mentioned, neon colours are connotations of other genres of music so i believe if i wanted to use these colours, i would need to change my artist. I like the idea of the montage and the use of monsters however it may look childish.





Final Digi Pack



This is my final digi pack. As you can see, i decided to use the brick wall, urban theme. This was because i believe it suited the theme of the song and suited Lily Allen's persona. To make my digi pack, i used Photoshop. I found it difficult as i had never used Photoshop before but i managed to cut, crop, highlight and darken certain parts of my images to get the effect made.


For the top left panel, i used just a simple picture of a brick wall as this is where the CD will be so i did not want any important pictures or information here. Moving clockwise, the top right panel just a mid shot of Kelsey dressed in more streetwise clothing (the hoodie.) The image itself is a lot darker than the front cover of inner tray panel, i will come to explain why. My bottom right panel is going to be my back cover, i have used a font called Ransom which i found on Dafont.com. I wanted this type of effect because its related to crime and in London, there is a high crime rate. For my other information on the panel, i did not want to use this font as it is quite over bearing, so instead i used a font called Tempus Sans ITC. At the bottom of the panel, i have used the EMI (Lily Allen's Label's) logo. Under that, i have written some information about copyright as I had noticed this done of other researched CD cases. I put a black font for Lily's name and for the copyright law because even though it is important, i did not want it to become the text your eyes were immediately drawn to. The song information however, i used a white colour which stood out dramatically from the dark bricks. For my front cover, i decided to make this bright and simple. I used a picture of Kelsey and used the 'magnetic' tool to cut her out of the original picture, then moving the layer on my brick picture background. I used the Ransom font for all of my texts because there is not much information on this page and both bits of text are of great importance. The reason I decided to make the front cover light and the back cover dark and vise-versa inside the case was due to making the contrast between reality and fantasy. This idea came from Lily's video LDN, where she sees everything is beautiful but in reality, its dull and grimy. The front cover, Kelsey is dressed in a glittery silver top and has red lips and the sun shining on her however the inside right panel is dark and depressing.


My favourite parts of my Digi Pack are my choice of themes and font. I believe each create a connection with eachother and portray a certain image that would appeal to my teenage target audience. However, if i had to change something about my digi pack, i would perhaps change the font of the song information on the back cover. I believe it does not suggest my theme as well as my Ransom font and looks rather childish which would appeal to my audience.


Feedback

To gather feedback about my Digi Pack, i uploaded it onto Facebook, a social networking site, and waited to see what type os replies i recieved. I thought Facebook would be the most suitible place to gather feedback becuase it used a wide range of ages, genders etc.
From reading therough my feedback, i discoverd that many people have the same likes and dislikes as myself. Many people have commented on my choice of font and the brick theme used throughout.
There is one thing my reviewers commented on in which i could change. They liked the idea of having the font look like it was printed on the wall itself and on my front cover, 'LILY ALLEN' overlaps Kelsey's hair. This would not have taken much to change but i did not want Kelsey's hair to cover up the end of the name, as it is the most important. However, if i had perhaps moved the main picutre slightly to the right, this problem would have been avoided.

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