What have you learned from your Audience Feedback - Digipak

Audience feedback is an important aspect when designing a new product and so after the final draft of my CD digipak cover, I issued a questionnaire to ten people in order to gather opinions and feedback on my design that would help me to make future decisions and alterations in the next ancillary task. The questions I asked were as follows:

1. What aspect of the digipak design did you like best?


2. What aspect of the digipak design did you not like?


3. What would you change about the design?

I summarised the answers they gave below.

What aspect of the digipak did you like best?
Looking at the answers to this question, many people stated that they enjoyed highlighting the musical references and links on the cover with the use of musical notes and the band's name being Amber RHYTHM. One respondent wrote that they "...liked the band's logo because of it's use of graffiti in the name..." This showed that one of my original ideas to use graffiti font in order to reflect and appeal to youths and being expressive worked. Many people wrote about the fact that they believed the cartoon image of the band's lead singer "...made the cover look more "fun" but also not too serious..." as cartoons are often presented as childlike. Some commented on the use of dark colours, the purple and the black musical notes giving the cover a more dark tone, which they found was present in other pop/rock album covers. One participant liked the way "...the red of the word Amber contrasted against the darker background, making the name jump out at you...", while a female participant added that she really liked the composition of the cover, as the band name and image were set out perfectly and that "...it doesn't look so confusing...". Finally a few commented on the fact that I had used a Parental Advisory sticker, and stated that it made the cover look much more professional.

What aspects of the digipak did you not like?

When asked this question, many participants stated that the image of the girl did not stand out enough on the cover itself as both the background and the picture were dark colours. However on closer inspection you can see that I have blended in the girl's top with the background so she looks a part of the action going on behind her. Some of the participants commented that they "...didn't know if Amber Rhythm was the band name or the album name..." while another wanted the album to have a name. I later informed them that as this was the band's debut album, it was self-titled. Other participants felt that the cover "...looked too plain..." and thought the exposure of the purple background dominated their view, making the cover appear too dark and moody.

What would you change about the design?

Most of the participants replied to this question saying that they would change the colour of the background as it was too plain and not a lot was going on. They also said they would "...adhere to the conventions of pop/rock genre a little bit more by adding subtle hints, but I do like the musical rhythm notes..." Other suggestions included giving the album a name, to personalise it more and to also make it more memorable in the market. Others suggested I should of kept the cartoon theme running along by creating the whole cover itself into a cartoon layout. I never considered this originally, and quite like the idea and so will hope to maybe use this in my next ancillary task of a magazine advertisement.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? - Digipak and Music Video

When designing my own digipak, it was important to consider the ways in which the combination of the music video and digipak were effective. This is otherwise known as synergy and would allow the audience to build a relationship and spot connections when viewing the music video and digipak design.

Digipak

Music Video
Our group's own music video production to the song "Superman" portrays a strong female protagonist in control of who she wants to date, and so I wanted to further reinforce that theme onto my digipak. I used the image of a young female as the face of the band "Amber Rhythm" and as she is presented on her own and as a main focus of the front cover of the album, she is seen to be independant just as our female character in the video is presented. However we did include a male gaze in the video, the female's chest area highlighting the female stereotype, and so my images for the digipak show this, particularly the third cover, albeit hindering the female's dominance of sorts.

The theme of love is involved in the storyline of our music video and so this theme was also something I wanted to integrate onto my digipak. The heart on the cartoon image of the artist symbolises the love of music as the musical notes flow from within it and in the music video the CD's are placed in the shape of a heart to portray connotations of love.

The scenes involving the female protagonist and her "superman" playing on the swings in a park emphasised the childlike tone to the video but also highlighted the freedom the youth have. And so my digipak portrayed this feeling too with the use of graffiti to create the logo of the band's name as it is seen as an expressive tool to create art.
I created cartoon images on my digipak to reinforce the idea of the song's title "Superman" as the video itself uses aspects of cartoon effects inspired by Marvel comics, the creators of Superman. It too highlights the youthful aspect of both video and digipak.

Analysis of Advertisements

After looking at the conventions of magazine advertisements it would be important to understand and recognise the decisions I will make in the creation of my own advertisement. I have therefore analysed two magazine advertisements. Jamie T's Kings & Queens and Blur's No Distance Left To Run.

Conventions of an Advertisement

When researching a number of magazine adverts it was clear to see the conventions included in the design of almost all of the advertisements I found. I hope that the conventions I picked out will help to aid my own design in promoting my band's, "Amber Rhythm" own mag advertisement. These will be the most important features of my own design.

• Artist name and album title
• Release date
• Web address
• Product content - extra DVD footage, bonus tracks
• Magazine reviews/endorsements - NME, Q, Atmosphere etc.
• Name of Record Label
• Tour dates
• Images - photographs/graphics/combination
• Outlets in which available - HMV, Amazon
• Slogan/Tagline "Freedom to be who you want to be"
• Limited edition. Digipak/standard
• "Out now"/"debut album"
• Offers - free download if you sign up to ... website
• Stars *****

Ancillary Task Two - Magazine Advertisement

Our second Ancillary Task is to design a magazine advert for our digipak and so in order to prepare and research this task, I have looked at other examples of advertisements that will help me decide what to include in my own creation. My magazine advert and digipak need to demonstrate an correlating relationship. This is achieved through:

• Research - looking at designs, colours, images, font type, layout, mise-en-scene, texture used in other magazine adverts of the Pop/Rock genre.
• Using similar (if not identical) designs, colours, images, font type, layout, mise-en-scene, texture in your magazine cover as you have for my digipak.
• Being able to show links between my digipak and magazine advert with our music video.
• Making my digipak and magazine look as professional and realistic as possible.

When looking at these important aspects to include in my own magazine advert design, there are a few extra ideas that could be included to create a correlating relationship between the advertisement and digipak. These are:

• An image to act as a teaser for the audience.
• A colour scheme running throughout.
• Continuity of the font type.
• Connotations of the language.
• Intertextuality - Propoganda.

Using, developing and challenging forms and conventions of a Digipak

When looking back at my own album cover it was clear to see that I used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of a digipak, as well as an album cover from the pop/rock genre.

Used Conventions
The main similar characteristics I found within my own product included the use of a female artist's image. Not only does this attract a male gaze; as I found in my questionnaire male participants preferred the Lily Allen album cover of "Alright Still" where the female artist is the focus of the cover, but many albums of this genre include an image of their artist or band such as Pink's "I'm Not Dead" and Katy Perry's "One of the Boys". Also the fact that the artist makes eye contact with the audience was important and was a convention I applied as it creates a personal connection between the buyer and artist. The band's logo/name is graffited/graphic art which is similar to "Alright Still" maybe highlighting the fact that it creates a sense of freedom and rebellion amongst our young target audience. The Parental Advisory label conveys the conventions or traditional album covers, placed on the right hand side. It also states that content may not be suitable for a younger audience, a theme reflected in the genre of pop/rock e.g Lily Allen and Blink-182.

Developed Conventions
The constant ongoing use of musical notes was something I took from Paramore's "Riot" album cover where the word of the album is reinforced all over the cover. However I used the musical notes to highlight the band's love of music as well as it's importance to their image, with the word rhythm used in the bands name.

Challenged Conventions
In contrast, there are certain areas of my own album cover that did not conform to the conventions of traditional pop/rock album covers. Firstly, album covers such as Lily Allen's "Alright Still" seems very busy compared to my own, which is quite basic and simple. I find this a lot more effective as I believe simple designs are more likely to catch the eye of an audience because so little is happening. Secondly the image of the artist has a cartoon effect attached to it. Although other artists such as Pink have used "real" images for their album covers, I wanted to create synergy between my digipak and music video. The use of the colour purple seems very dark in mood when compared to the pop/rock genre that is usually aimed at a young female audience. Although artists like Pink use pink and other girly colour schemes, I wanted my band to be more mature in their outlook by using the dark purple. Dark colours were also a popular choice with my audience.

Using, developing and challenging forms and conventions - Music Video

Our music video was based on the conventions of Pop/Rock music. But there are instances where we have challenged these forms, as well as developing them in our own production.

Used Conventions
Our song "Superman" used conventions of a pop/rock music video. Firstly our video is mainly a narrative, which is based on love. This theme is popular and most common is Pop videos. We used archetypes/sterotypes of different types of characters, that have been exaggerated for humour and recognisability. These were the Hunk, the Punk and the Geek. As Pop/Rock is mainly aimed at a younger, youthful audience, over exaggeration is common in the music videos of this genre to make them more humourous. Lip synchronisation is a traditonal convention and we incorporated this into our own, having the female protagonist sing along to the chorus, dominantly shown in Pop videos like Pink's "So What". Furthermore, it is traditional for these types of videos to use an illustrative narrative where the lyrics are accompanied by an illustration. We used scenes that literally followed the lyrics such as "the devil did him a deal". Two shots emphasised the theme of love and the relationship between the characters, something that is employed in other Pop/Rock videos.

Developed Conventions
A number of conventions were developed in our music video since the genre was a mix of pop and rock and so we used conventions from both genres, carefully mixing them together in our production. We made use of special effect editing techniques, such as the cartoon effect, which are present in Pop videos. And we used the speeding up technique, creating short quick transitions between scenes, seen in Rock videos.

Challenged Conventions
The group challenged the conventions of Pop/Rock a lot throughout our production. Watching 50 Cent's "P.I.M.P" video, although not of the same genre but a predominant theme seen in a lot of other music videos, allowed us to the challenge the conventions of the role of a female in a music video, where she is portrayed as weak and an object of the male gaze. However in our own video we used the female as our protagonist and showed her in control of her male counterparts as she made her choice in who to date. We emphasised this by using close up's of her face to show the emotion in her decisions. Also the urban setting of the video, with flats in the background appeal to an audience of a middle class background living in an urban environment.

Spine

The spine of the album should always be noticeable so that when on sale in a shop it is distinguishable to a buying audience. My own spine design is shown below:
The spine has been designed in a basic way intentionally so as to remove any source of distraction to the audience. The name of the album is "Amber Rhythm". This is a traditional theme in that the debut album is named after the artist or band as they want to make their imprint on the music industry and therefore make their name memorable. Instead of using a font, I kept the image of the bands logo to reinforce their name and image to the audience. The same background is used to allow for the continuity and flow of the digipak itself. I also kept the same background of purple cloth so as to again allow continuity but also so that the background does not distract the buyer from the name and logo of the band.

Back Cover

When designing the back cover of my digipak, I had to consider all the information and features that are included in traditional digipak designs. I researched Artic Monkey's Favourite Worst Nightmare album cover and found that this includes the barcode, website of the artist or band, record company and producer name and of course the song listing. My design is shown below:
My back cover continues the theme of musical notes that were used on the front cover as well as the inside, allowing it to remain a constant theme. The font for the song lists is a "handwriting" effect. This makes the album seem a lot more personal, allowing a connection between artist and audience. The silver colour contrasts the purple effectively, instantly catching your eye. I have included the bands logo, although a larger size to again reinforce the name of the band as an important feature of the product. I have made the feature single "Superman" the third track as when researching other digipaks, the albums debut single seemed to either be track 3 or 4, unlike the stereotypical first track. The barcode is a conventional trait always portrayed on the back covers of albums. Its size is not too big, making it less distracting. I included the record company logo as well as the bands website. This information was made compact as it is not usually read by the customer but it is also discreet so as not to take away from the digipaks overall image.

Inside Covers - Second and Final Draft

I was not entirely happy with my first attempts at the inside covers. I decided to experiment further with my second and final drafts. The final inside cover is shown below.
This is my second attempt at the first of the two inside covers. I had decided to mimic the layout of a comic book with the different sized panels in order to continue highlighting the connotations of a comic book. Furthermore this would appeal to a teenage audience, as comic books have always been associated as childlike. The red and blue colour creates synergy between the digipak and the music video, as these are the colours always associated with Superman. I have kept the musical notes to include the flow between each cover, as well as the love heart symbolising the love of music.
The second inside cover continued the idea of the comic book layout. The colour background is different however, a lighter purple than the front cover. The upside down image of the female artist creates a feeling of surrealness, as well as dizyness as I have blurred her feet and creates the idea that she has been swept off her feet by her superman. I have incorporated the band's logo so as to almost drill that logo into the audience's mind so as not to forget. Once more, the heart with musical notes has been included to reflect the love of music. However after more thought, I changed the design of my inside covers for a final time. The results are shown below:
I have changed the background back to "cloth purple". This was done to create a flow and familarity throughout the product. I have also used the musical notes again to continue a flow and to make it constant. However this time I have included the bands logo in a more recognizable place on the layout, in the center. I have cut the logo in half as it will continue across onto the other panel, reinforcing the image of the band on the customer. The blue glow adds to the comic book/surreal effect.

The final inside cover is shown below. Again the musical notes have continued across onto this panel to reinforce the constant theme throught the digipak, of music. The second half of the bands logo is placed at the top of the cover, immediately drawing the audience's eye. And the speech bubble again reinforces the theme of cartoon and comics, due to the bands "hit single" Superman, creating synergy between the video and digipak.

Inside Covers- First Draft

I wanted my digipak to flow throughout and so I contemplated using the same background but felt that the purple became too bland and boring to be used over four covers. I had noticed this convention in other digipaks such as Arctic Monkey's Favourite Worst Nightmare, where the image of the house and its graphics continue from covers one through to three. However in order to keep some semantics flowing in my own, I used similar cartoon effected images, as well as keeping the musical notes portrayed across the front cover into the inside ones. I wanted to reinforce the idea of the importance of music to the band. This is shown below:

I further reinforced the importance of music for the band by placing a coloured heart on a white image. This catches the eye of the audience but also highlights the strong love the artist feels for the music. I recieved inspiration of this image from Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreak digipak cover, where Kanye also uses the almost cartoon like heart on his own image. The background itself contrasts the dark purple of the front cover and so when the buyer opens their digipak it will be a shocking surprise.
For the second inside cover, I stuck with the same background again to make it flow, along with the musical notes that have continued from over the page. This gives off the feeling of continuity. The speech bubble that again contains the musical note theme reflects conotations of a comic book, which as mentioned before I wanted to maintain throughout the entire product. The image however, is not a cartoon. I have used the blue effect to create an oddness that fits in with the surreal colour of the background. The female artist is looking straight at the camera, therefore connecting with her audience with her eyes.

Final Draft of Digipak

I contemplated on my second draft and also looked back at questionnaire results and feedback and decided to make significant changes to my digipak's final album cover. Firstly I decided to change the covers main colour to a dark purple. The dark mood colour I felt reflected a more mature album cover, although our product will appeal to an older teenage audience rather than a younger. I felt it would better contrast the band name.
Furthermore I have added rhythm notes that would take up the complete background of the cover. This mimics Paramore's RIOT album cover that I used as inspiration. It also bears connotations to the band's name "Amber Rhythm" , the rhythm notes taking center stage. I removed the speech bubble due to the fact that I felt it took up too much room on the cover, but also it looked too harsh against the purple. I changed the image of the female artist but kept the cartoon effect in hoping to stick with the comic book connotations I used in the first two drafts. She is placed in amongst the rhythm notes. This symbolizes her involvement in the making of the album's music.
I finally used the by-line from my previous draft, but changed the colour of the font to silver to contrast more effectively with the purple. This made the font appear more like handwriting, making it personal but also it is a more stylish colour than the previous black.

Final Editing

The production of our music video is nearing the end and so Reena and I went in our free time to make an issue of the narrative, editing techniques and the video as a whole to alter areas which needed to be improved. Since the video is supposed to be promoted to a much wider audience, we both thought our own views into what should be inputed would be irrelevant and so we asked for criticism, both positive and negative. After showing the class our music video, some suggestions were made in order to improve our video as a whole.

More Cut-ins
It was stated that some areas of the video were too repetive with certain scenes appearing more than once, also some played for far too long. Therefore it was suggested that we should introduce more inserts to construct a more fast-paced video. In order to make this successful we made sure that the clips changed on the beat of the music. This would also conform to the conventions of a Pop/Rock music video as the clips change on the beat which creates an upbeat feel and emphasises the continuous heavy drumming of the song. The use of cut ins foreshadow the narrative of the geek turning into superman.

Lip Synchronisation

Many noticed that the image didn't synchronise with the music as the female protagonist wasn't singing in time with the music. Speeding up and slowing down the clip deemed unsucessful and therefore we decided to use a cut in of the Superman character, deleting the clips of the female singing. But the new Superman clips still played were not fitting with the music as the song played the lyrics "He's a Superman". By doing this, the conventions of a Pop/Rock music video were challenged and developed as it is common for the chorus of Pop/Rock Music videos to be lip synchronised. However, by using both a short lip synchronisation and a longer insert of another scene, the group has developed these conventions in order to improve our video.

Second Draft of Digipak Cover

I created a second draft for my digipak cover after asking for feedback from family and friends. I was told that the scattered font in the first draft looked too messy and not cohesive enough. It also was thought to be too distracting from the band/artist name, which is something that does stand out on famous artists album covers such as Pink.

I have kept the image of the female artist to stick to the results of my questionnaire, where most people felt that an album cover with a female image would be the cover to catch their eye, due to the male gaze. I have used the pencil effect again to show the synergy between the digipak and the music video, sticking to the connotations of comic books.

The speech bubble that holds the name of the band is similar to those shown in comic books too. It contrasts against the orange background, making it stand out. This time i have included a star portraying the album name. The star itself reflects the pop art conventions found in comic books. It too stands out against the orange background, although I was told by my teacher to change the font of the band name as it does not "professional" enough. I will change this in my next draft.

Finally after more feedback, it was highlighted that I should include a by-line or a catch line for the album to draw an audience in even further. I have done this by including a "Featuring the hit single Superman" in black italics, a preferred font, allowing it to be eye catching.

Editing

The music video is now beginning to take life, and is almost complete. In this editing session the following transitions and effects took place:

Cartoon Effect

Once again the cartoon effect was applied to highlight the comic book narrative connotations and influences. This effect was selected only on certain clips where the "Superman" character appears. We used unusual camera movements, including showing the character spinning around as the camera follows him, and can be related to the superheroic character as Superman changes into his costume.

Speed

Similar to the techniques used to express powers in comic books and cartoons, we sped up some scenes to create this effect. As the scene showing "Superman" changing into his new clothes, the original footage was too long and the pace too slow and so instead of cutting the clip, we sped it up.

Fade to Black

In order to end the video, we applied the fade to black effect in the final shots, which continued to play as the music ended. This effect is also applied in other pop/rock videos that we researched and shows in our own video that the characters' relationship is ongoing even after the music itself has ended or can be implied by the viewers own imagination as to what will happen next.

Editing

In the continuing process of our editing. Clips, although uneditied were placed in the correct places so it would be easier to edit in future. During this editing session, new effects and transitions were introduced, including a cartoon effect in keeping in tradition with our comic book theme.

Cartoon Effect

As mentioned previously, the cartoon effect was added to support the narrative as the song is called "Superman", who is associated with comics. Also, due to bad, grainy lighting in the speed dating scenes, this effect brightened up the shots a lot more as we changed the contrast settings. Futhermore, the cartoon effect reflected a sense of imagination as it is applied as the female protaganist imagines scenarios, highlighting her own imagination. Some scenes showed an ordinary shot fading into a 'cartoon' shot, and so it was important that the scenes showed continuity. This was achieved by cutting the scenes into two clips, then applying the effect and transitions.

Jump Cut

The jump cut was used as the beats of the song occured, which meant the shot changed to the next, making the scenes faster and more exciting. This was due to the sharpness of the cuts on the beat.

Reverse and Speed
Towards the end of the music video, as the female protaganist chooses her "Superman" (the geek), the Hunk and the Punk are shown going back down the road in reverse, achieved using the "reverse effect". This highlighted that these characters were walking away from the female's life as they were not chosen in the speed dating scenes. Speeding up the reverse added humour to the scenes, appealing to a more youthful audience.

Romantic Effect

The bad, grainy lighting mentioned previously was becoming difficult to manage and so although not intended to be a romantic scene as such, the romantic effect was added to the shot of the Hunk paying off the Devil. It lightened the shot and created a difference between the date scenes, this scene and the female's imagination.

Front Cover of Digipak - First Draft

To create the album cover for my digipak I decided to use "Macromedia Fireworks Photoshop". The Photoshop programme was a new experience to me as I have never used or come across it before and so it took time for myself to get to grips with its techniques. I however understood the advantages my digipak would have in using the programme due to its different styles of effects and colours as well as layout.

I used the Internet to search for images to incorporate onto my cover design and tried out different layouts. This was my first draft:
As this was my first draft, I knew I would only be experimenting with the programme as well as my own ideas. The lettering of the album name I felt however was too jumbled on a second viewing although I was pleased with my placing of the band name, at the top, in large font making it distinguishable from the other text. I wasn't pleased with my image of the band's singer. I used the lasso tool to cut around the image and the final product showed the edges were rough. I thought this would add to the idea of the band's youthful audience in that the rough edges would appeal to teenagers themselves having a "rough edge".

The orange background has connotations with the band's name "amber", the amber colour symbolising to "get ready" at traffic lights. This could also suggest that the audience should "get ready" or prepare themselves for the band's debut album. The image of the band's singer I have used the cartoon effect for. This creates a synergy between itself and the music video of "Superman" due to the connotations of comic books.

I will however develop my ideas further in the coming days.