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.