CD Digipack
Understanding the text
The text below is copied from wtsduplication.com. The original online article can be found by clicking here.
The first disc records, ones that we would recognize as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.
In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensible to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.
Beginning in the 1930s the record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.
Alex Steinweiss the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design. (Of course signing Frank Sinatra may have helped a little too).By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.
The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.
Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.
As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.
Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.
In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.
Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.
In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.
In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.
Research: Iconic album covers (codes and conventions)
A album cover will have things such as pictures, titles, names of songs, etc. and these are the type of things the public expect to see, these are called conventions.
This site features the top 50 iconic album covers according to Imagine Games Network (IGN), each album cover has a brief description under it. 
This album cover by ACDC does follow the codes and conventions of a an album front cover. The name of the band is there and also the album title "Highway to hell", they are in two different fonts, the name of the band is in the colour red and a staggered font, this shows edginess to the group. The phrase highway to hell is in capital letters and in a cream font, this could be because the band wanted the name of the album to stand out as much as the name of the band. There is also the picture of the band which is usually expected of artists to have, the male at the front dressed as the devil represents that the album could have a some danger related songs within it, it shows that he is the leader of the band as well, the males at the back aren't as important and are likely drummers, guitarist, etc. From the front cover of the album you can tell what the genre of the album is because of the font and the image that has been used.
This album cover by The Beatles has only got one convention, the name of the band. There is no album name or image to represent the band. At the time of this album, the band was at a very high time of their career, they didn't need as much help advertising as some of the other bands would've needed. The album would sell because they were so well known, they wouldn't of needed to spend much money on producing and advertising it.
Research- Album cover research into existence
Me and my peer were looking at the conventions of a music digipack, we looked at a range of albums and looked at what they had on them and compared them. We could see that the most of the digipacks have a track list on the back the back of it, small print- this will include producers name, copyright and the record company. On most album covers that we looked at, the images were wrapped, so that the picture continued on the inside. On the front there is usually an image, album title and band/artist name. There was an album where that had "no.1 selling single in the UK" with the name of a track that made it to the UK number one.
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| Comparing the albums |
own digipack, also I will be able to pick what sort of things I need to portray the codes of my genre of music that I am representing. My chosen artist is an pop/indie artist, I should take into account that the digipack shouldn't be too over the top because her music is very relaxed, I think I should try something like Gabrielle Aplin as I think this represents the genre very well.
Decoding CD digipack
This Florence and The Machine digipak is a good example of how a digipack should look. The images that have been used have been made on photo shop to create the effect. The digipack goes well with the genre of Florence and The Machine which is indie rock.
Whilst decoding the image I can see that it has the artists name, record label, production notes and song list. The continuity of the both photos being the same creates an impact as they
The font that I used is vintage looking and is the colour white, this relates to the group as they are indie rock, the group indie is portrayed as being different and in this case I think the digipack is different to most others that have been produced. The colours of the image are dark and dull, this also relates back to rock genre as that as seen as being dark and doomed. The image of the Florence on the font goes very well with the trees behind her, this would've been made on photoshop, I could create something similar as I will be creating my digipack on photoshop as well.
I used powerpoint to created this presentation, on decoding a CD digipack. This took a lot of time to pick out the most vital points of the digipack. I have never decoded a folk/hillbilly genre before to it was interesting to see what they include.
Research into an artists album covers
When looking at an individual artists album covers over time, you can tell what has changed over the years. This could be due to their success or them not doing so well. The artist I'm going to look at is Beyonce, she has been in a group called 'Destiny Child's' which split up in 2006, then became a solo artist and done very well. Out of the girls in the group, Beyonce has been most successful.
This is an album cover that the group had when they were together. Beyonce is in the middle of the two other females, this could show that she is more dominant within the group, this may also relate why Beyonce has done so well after the split of the group, due to her being most popular in the group. In this album over there is a colour scheme of white and silver, the clothing that they are wearing is rather revealing, but this could be down to the fact of trying to get the publics attention.
This was Beyonce's first album cover after the split with her Destiny Child's group. The album covers main focus is Beyonce, she looks like the alpha female to society, very beautiful and made up. Her top is low which shows her assets, this could be because she is trying to create publicity to the public that she is now a solo artist. This album was released in 2006, which was straight after the split.
This is what I would like to be the front cover of my digipack, the mask will be in a part of my video so I think it is important to portray it in the album cover. If i was to make more than one music video I would more than likely use the mask in all of them, this will make it into iconic prop within my artists album.
For the back cover I would like a track list with red lips, the red lips will show the power my artist has over the audience as red is assisted with power, the track list will sit to the left of the lips. When I have produced my digipack, I will then add in the small print that is found on other digipacks.
For the CD tray, I would like it to be a plain grey with white writing, with texting show my artists name, it will be plain and simple, but very effective.
I would like to take a photo of a willow tray and put it in my digipack on the inside front cover, this is because it is called 'Under The Willow Tree' I would like to have my actress sitting under the willow tree as well.
The designs I have come up with relate to my digipack as I think it represents my genre well 'indie/pop', I will try to stick with these plans along the way. However, if they do not look right I will try other things to make it looks as good as possible for the audience.
Evidence: Photos I have taken for my Digipack
I planned to do my photography for my Digipack in my spare time, I feel that the photos I took turned out how I wanted them too, however I realised what I was doing wrong half way through the shoot.
These are the first eight photos I took of Tonicha during the photoshoot session that we had together, after I took the following photos above, I realised that it wasn't working, the lighting was very poor and Tonicha wasn't looking very natural. She looked very tense and didn't look very good.
These were the photos I took after noticing the problem that I had, these have better lighting and look a lot more natural. Tonicha looked more comfortable during these photos. For the lighting I used Continuous Lighting, this really enhanced Tonciha's features
These are the last set of photos I took, I wanted to capture Tonicha very close up so I chose to focus on the mouth and the rose.
I took a wide variety of photos, this gave me a lot more to choose from when I come to picking my photos for my digipack.
Evidence: Creating my digipack
When creating my digipack, I have to think very carefully about how I want the out come to be. This is because it needs to all link together and match to give me the best possible outcome.
I thought I would try overlapping the text to create effect however, I didn't feel that it was very easy on the eye, it looked rather confusing.
I found how to get the colour from existing parts of the photo and use it as the colour as my font.
This is the spin that I have created, this matches with the continuous colour scheme throughout the digipack.
My overall CD Digipack
This is my digipack with the guidelines I was asked to follow, all of my work had to stay with in the GREEN lines as it is the safety line, the RED line is the tramline, this is where the CD digipack would be trimmed down to put into a case. The BLUE line is the very maximum of where the images can go to, I haven't used the blue lines as I didn't feel the need to.
Digipack showing guides have been met-
Research into an artists album covers
When looking at an individual artists album covers over time, you can tell what has changed over the years. This could be due to their success or them not doing so well. The artist I'm going to look at is Beyonce, she has been in a group called 'Destiny Child's' which split up in 2006, then became a solo artist and done very well. Out of the girls in the group, Beyonce has been most successful.
This was Beyonce's first album cover after the split with her Destiny Child's group. The album covers main focus is Beyonce, she looks like the alpha female to society, very beautiful and made up. Her top is low which shows her assets, this could be because she is trying to create publicity to the public that she is now a solo artist. This album was released in 2006, which was straight after the split.
The album cover of Beyonce's album Halo, is very subtle and was released in 2008, just two years after her first solo album after the split of her band 'Destiny Childs'. I think this is due to the fact that the public now knew her as a solo artist and like her for her music, not just her image. She isn't wearing anything revealing in this album cover, shows that she wants to be known more for her music and not just herself.
This album cover by Beyonce, is her most recent one in 2014. This is very plain, this could be due to her world wide success that she feels she doesn't need to present herself on her album covers no longer as the public know her for her name.
Testing my Digipack Design with Adobe Premier Pro CS6
The images below show my initial idea of my CD Digipack, this is how I wanted it to look front the beginning of my Digipack process.
The designs I have come up with relate to my digipack as I think it represents my genre well 'indie/pop', I will try to stick with these plans along the way. However, if they do not look right I will try other things to make it looks as good as possible for the audience.
Evidence: Photos I have taken for my Digipack
I planned to do my photography for my Digipack in my spare time, I feel that the photos I took turned out how I wanted them too, however I realised what I was doing wrong half way through the shoot.
These are the first eight photos I took of Tonicha during the photoshoot session that we had together, after I took the following photos above, I realised that it wasn't working, the lighting was very poor and Tonicha wasn't looking very natural. She looked very tense and didn't look very good.
These were the photos I took after noticing the problem that I had, these have better lighting and look a lot more natural. Tonicha looked more comfortable during these photos. For the lighting I used Continuous Lighting, this really enhanced Tonciha's features
These are the last set of photos I took, I wanted to capture Tonicha very close up so I chose to focus on the mouth and the rose.
I took a wide variety of photos, this gave me a lot more to choose from when I come to picking my photos for my digipack.
Evidence: Creating my digipack
When creating my digipack, I have to think very carefully about how I want the out come to be. This is because it needs to all link together and match to give me the best possible outcome.
The photo I have chosen to use on the front cover of my CD digipack is the one above, this is because I find it very powerful and it's one of the best photos that I had taken throughout the shoot. As this is going to be my front cover to my digipack, I need to see what text will look best on this image.
I have included my artists name and the name of the album/EP, this is in a white front and the front is called 'Minion Pro'.
I thought I would try overlapping the text to create effect however, I didn't feel that it was very easy on the eye, it looked rather confusing.
I found how to get the colour from existing parts of the photo and use it as the colour as my font.
This is evidence of me doing this, I selected the rose on the left hand side and it then matched my font to the colour, at this point I had already changed the filter of my image to see if I would like it more with the brightness up. I did like this better due to it bringing out the colour being brighter.
This was the outcome of the font.
Inside of the digipack I wanted some simple but effective, after having a long think about what I would like in the digipack I thought I could take something from my first image, that could basically represent my digipack. I chose the rose to be the most iconic part of my digipack. I wanted to use the opacity effect on Photoshop for the inside of my digipack.
This was the eye I wanted to create at the start, however my idea soon changed to having more eyes to create more of an effect.
This is the picture I wanted to use to create the effect with.
This was the outcome of what I created alongside my front cover. I asked peers in my class what they thought of what I had created.
Martyna- It was well made, however I think it is very dark and dull which doesn't go with the vibrant feeling of the front cover that you have created.
This feedback made me change my mind which then lead to me changing and to create something a lot a lot brighter, which is featured in the photo below.
I took one of my close ups and edited with a brightener. I also used a graphic pad that is shown below, to get the signature of my artist. I improvised and added the heart, this looks like the artist has wrote their signature themselves, this will give the audience a feel of how the artist writes their name when signing autographs.
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| Graphic pad |
For the disc tray of my digipack I changed my mind of having it just grey with the artist name on it, so I thought I would try something different. I took the rose from the above photos and tried to do something different. I had an idea of putting text round the iconic image of the digipack, so I taught myself how to do that via YouTube.
This was my final product of wrapping text around an image, I was very pleased with the outcome of this product.
For the back cover of my digipack I wanted to use the rose again as it is the iconic image of the digipack, the album only has four tracks on it as it is an EP. I then had to add the small print that comes on the back cover of an album cover, this explains copyright, record label, etc.
I was stuck on choosing where to put the barcode for the backer of the album, the barcode is an important aspect of the digipack as all albums, singles, etc. have them.
This was with the bar code vertical, after receiving audience feedback I got told that this didn't look right and to try it horizontal.
After trying it horizontal I was happy with how it looked! I then added the small print that was needed to make it look like a real album cover.
The spine was the last thing I worked on, I took the colours from my front cover and used them in my spine.
This is the spin that I have created, this matches with the continuous colour scheme throughout the digipack.
My overall CD Digipack
This is my digipack with the guidelines I was asked to follow, all of my work had to stay with in the GREEN lines as it is the safety line, the RED line is the tramline, this is where the CD digipack would be trimmed down to put into a case. The BLUE line is the very maximum of where the images can go to, I haven't used the blue lines as I didn't feel the need to.
Digipack showing guides have been met-
Overall Digipack
CD Digipack as a Jpeg file
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