COMP 3: Digipak Research & Development

 A Level Media Studies

Here includes all my research and development of the digipak. This blog post is written by me (Sharon).

Research

Digipak Cover

I have done individual research on the digipak cover on female pop artists since our star herself is covering a pop song, 'Feather' by Sabrina Carpenter. The following shows my research on digipak covers that I find interesting and that I believe match the overall vibe of our bright and calming theme.

I admire these portrait shots of the artists that feature a medium close-up shot. I believe that these shots are significantly attractive to the audience's eyes. I like how Taylor Swift's 'Fearless' cover (2nd picture from the first row) and IU's 'LILAC' cover (3rd picture from the last row) depict a sense of freedom, which is the message we are going for.

Below are the pictures Nayana found on Pinterest that she believed would match our concept best. We considered that these pictures would illustrate the star's personality of being soft-spoken, calm, and free. A simple, elegant shot is what we are going for, such as wind-blown hair, hands in the air to display a sense of 'freedom', and either looking directly into the camera or looking away with simple, nature-like colour tones.

The pictures below are compiled by me (Sharon).

The pictures above of Korean artists and singers include a feature that I believe would be a great addition to our digipak, that being along the lines of "The 1st Mini Album" text. This could allow the audience to check our star out and her skills as Kiara establishes an identity in the music industry. I suppose the text may deliver the message of that our star is ambitious in growing her career as the text "The 1st" suggest that she will be releasing more albums in the future.

CD Cover

Below, I (Sharon) have compiled all the CD covers that I think to suit the theme of our music promotion package best. All these CD covers show a calming feeling to them, such as through the white birds spreading their wings to suggest 'freedom' and purity of new beginnings, which is the message we aim to deliver upon the star's break-up with her ex-lover. I would like to experiment with photographing the feathers instead of the white birds, although I believe it would be too difficult to have them stay up in the air. I like all their simplicity without doing too much over the top. As for Lana Del Rey's CD cover (the last picture), I would try using a picture of the sea or the sky.

Back Cover

My research on the digipak's back cover includes artists and bands from the 1960s. Despite the fact that the following example was albums from years ago, we would like to add elements of retro albums, and I like the idea of having an anecdote on the back cover, especially for new artists and singers releasing their first album, which is the same as Kiara (our star). This could provide the audience with a general overview of the artist, such as any past achievements in the star's career.

Development

Layout Planning

Nayana has planned the 4-page layout for the digipak:

1. Cover
2. Tracklist
3. CD
4. Small anecdote on the back cover
5. Hand signature
6. Social media information
7. QR Code
8. Barcode

Below is the sketch/draft Nayana created for the layout

Anecdote

Nayana requested Maxi for a small anecdote regarding the star, KIARA. Below is what he wrote:

"After rising into the limelight of public attention at the age of just 13, 17-year-old Indonesian singer-songwriter KIARA continues to push the boundaries of what the music industry considers feasible. Feather - her newest album - debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 32 different countries. Hailed by both the public and the industry alike as one of the most creative and inspirational talents of her generation, the end of KIARA's rise to stardom is seemingly nowhere in sight."

Tracklist

Below is the tracklist Nayana made, in which she combined the actual artist's, Sabrina Carpenter's, songs as well!

1. Feather
2. Just Say Yes
3. Nonsense
4. Actin'
5. Boy(friend)
6. Nowhere Near
7. Idyllic
   
   

Digipak Cover

Here, I (Sharon) have compiled all the mock-ups we (Sharon, Nayana, and Timo) made in Canva. We trialled with a variety of fonts, designs, and placement, all with the same picture. After many revisions and feedback, we have decided on the first picture (circled in green) as our digipak font. It seems elegant and lightweight through the cursive font, as we wanted, which I believe could provide a radiant and eye-catching effect to the audience.

However, as we had more photoshoots in all the filming locations, we did more mock-ups with these photos. We experimented on the placement, ratio, and pictures.

On the first three (3) rows of mock-ups, we kept the pictures and the placement of the title in the same exact position, where we only trialled on the writing at the top of the cover, some stating "The 1st Mini Album" and some simply stating her name "KIARA". We also experimented with different colours, such as light blue, navy, and green. This is due to we wanted the writing to stand out, where navy shows a darker shade of blue from the ocean in the background, but we also experimented with green that matches with our inside cover of the digipak - illustrating the green park. All the fonts that we chose were still following our theme, keeping it soft, elegant, and simple. We experimented with solely writing "KIARA" on the top of the page to prevent overwhelming the audience with too much writing and/or information since we aim for simplicity and elegance.

Feedback: Our media teacher did not like how "The 1st Mini Album" and the writings underneath looked - they make it seem so full. He also mentioned how the "1st" was misread as "Ist", which we have modified through the fonts. So he suggested solely writing "KIARA" on the top to keep it simple.

On the fourth (4th) row, we experimented with the positioning of the title and the sizes of the star's figure to illustrate the best proportions. The first and third mock-ups seemed too crowded since the title and the writing of "The 1st Mini Album" were too close to one another, which I believe is less eye-catching due to the lack of organization.

Conclusion: 

Above is what we finalized. Although our media teacher suggested changing the typeface for the writings at the top, we, as a group believe that it suits the overall illustration best. We also decided to use the green to show the relation to the following pages (inside-left and inside-right - the CD cover) which we will be using the pictures at the park (green). The pose, as well, depicts the feeling of 'freedom' best through the hand gesture and the low-angle shot overlooking the bright blue sky paired with a lightweight, cursive typeface for the title in pure white.

Tracklist

We have experimented with different designs for the tracklist page with the pictures we have taken at the beach and the park. Our first attempt was the first picture without the solid light blue background, however, we believe that it would be too difficult for the audience to read the information. So, we tried adding the solid background partly along with trying out different pictures which eased us in reading the tracklist. Due to the lack of pictures by that time, I experimented with simply using the photograph of the sea and the sky, but yet again, it was difficult to read out the information and it didn't seem to match our 'calming' aesthetic. As we photographed her at the park, I acknowledged that her wind-blown hair side profile overlooking the tracklist seemed perfect. The green background of the park contrasting with the star's brown hair appears more fresh than the pictures by the sea. So, I put that into a design which we finalized on using, that being the second (2nd) picture on the third (3rd) column.

Feedback: Our media teacher suggested either removing or changing the typeface for the "Tracklist" writing as the 'L' seemed too over the top.

Conclusion: 

Above is what we, as a group, finalized. We changed the typeface for the "Tracklist" to a simpler one that I believe reciprocates with the star's windblown hair to further depict the pacifying effect of freedom.

CD Cover

Here, I have compiled all the mock-ups for the CD cover that I (Sharon) experimented on. With the pictures of the sea we took at the beach, I did not like the colour tone and it did not give much detail of the clouds and the vibrance of the colours.

Conclusion: 

Above is what we, as a group, finalized. With this photograph we took at the park of the bubbles floating around, I believe that it gave much deeper meaning to our 'freedom' theme that presents vibrant colours and in order to follow the colour scheme from the tracklist page (also from the park). What I like about the bubbles is that they show simplicity while suggesting much more meaning to freedom according to the star's life. I purposely did not position the bubbles in the middle of the page so that it seemed natural.

Back Cover

We experimented on the back cover by first adding a barcode, then adding the star's stage name "KIARA", and lastly, to give the audience a gist of who the artist is, Maxi wrote an anecdote, which he did by looking at the "about" section for multiple artists on Spotify. The following paragraph is as follows:

"After rising into the limelight of public attention at the age of just 13, 17-year-old Indonesian singer-songwriter KIARA continues to push the boundaries of what the music industry considers feasible. Feather - her newest album - debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 32 different countries. Hailed by both the public and the industry alike as one of the most creative and inspirational talents of her generation, the end of KIARA's rise to stardom is seemingly nowhere in sight."

Conclusion: 

Above is what we, as a group, finalized. The anecdote, I believe, would give audiences and fans a better insight into who KIARA is. A medium shot of the star gives a significant ending to the digipak on the back cover, overlooking the ocean.

Self Reflection: Starting off this digipak research and development, I felt lost and did not know where to start. But, as the research went on and with the help of my teammates giving feedback and insight back and forth, I was able to continue to improve these designs. The use of Canva was really effective since we could collaborate with other people, that being my group, where they could also edit the designs and create their own in the same document. I enjoyed experimenting and assembling a variety of mock-ups that I could expand my creativity on. However, sometimes it was quite challenging for me to experiment with more designs, so what I could do at that time was give feedback on existing designs. The next time a project comes up, I acknowledge that I could always ask my teammates and our teacher for further insight on improvement.