Brand Identity

Brand Identity - The components of the brand are created by the business itself, making brand identity the way in which a business wants consumers to perceive its brands, not necessarily how it is actually perceived. (Google Definition) 
Previous digipaks that show brand identity - Bastille use a very strong brand identity to connect all there albums and artwork together.

All of Bastilles' albums include a very large block text, which works like a crosswork, as the letters of 'Bastille' connect with the name of the song. The images used also look like they have been taken on a Polaroid, so the effect is quite blurry. Yet this works really well with the alternative rock genre. This style of imagery and text is recognisable on adverts and other forms of advertising, because it is unique for the band.  

Final digipak design

After myself and Benjamin had finished editing each of our individual digipak designs, we had to choose which one we preferred, to do this we also asked the opinions of the class so there was no arguments. We decided on my version of the CD case, some of the opinions were as it was 'more artistic' and 'looks better as a whole instead of just images being put together.'  Both myself and Ben are happy with the final outcome. We made the colour scheme an important factor for our digipak, this is why I decided on changing the images to monochrome, so they all flow as a whole instead of being disjointed. This goes against the pop genre, as they are all very colourful, yet in our opinion the black and white effect works really well.

We made sure that the composition of images worked really well, having Tuesday on the front, back and inside of the case made sure that any viewer knows who the album belongs too. In two out of the three images, she is on the left third, this allows the text to be in the right third, as then there is no empty space.

The Front.

As the front of the album  is the most important factor of the digipak, this took the longest to complete, I decided on an image of Tuesday looking down which portrays the sadness of the album itself. The beauty of the photo connotes the pop genre, and the bright and big fonts work well and stand out. We decided on having a red colour scheme for most of the font used, this goes with the title of the album. Adding a glow to the album name allowed it to stand out against the background more effectively, this also worked well with the artist name, which was tricky to do because of the colour of the background, after deciding on making the name black I added a beige hue to make it more visible from a distance.

The Back.

Again this image doesn't connect with the audience directly, yet the image still has a satisfying composition, and the open space of the beach works perfectly with the track list. The back also include, a barcode, the music label Taylor Swift is owned by, and also copyright information. This is all important details for a CD case so the writing isn't too small. Again the text is in red, as well as going with the theme, it contrasts the greys of the background. Using the shoreline, meant that the attention comes back towards the font and not into the background.

The Spine.

The spine uses the image from both the front and back but blurred together through Photoshop, I also used a vignette tool to make the edges more white bases, this allows the images to fit together more effectively. Instead of like most albums the album name is actually typed out instead of just an image of the label itself. I decided on doing this as all of Taylor Swifts previous albums do the same.

The Inside.  

Right page

For the back of the inside cover, the image of a different composition, as the girls more in the middle of the page, this works better with the quote that Swift used on her previous album as its too much text to go down the side of the page. I decided to use this quote because it sums up her album perfectly and it also tells the audience and fans why the album is called 'Red.' Tuesday also looks a lot happier in this image than the other two used, this was because its not as related to the album and more focused for the fans.

Left page

The image used for behind the CD is an image I took when shooting for the front and inside cover, it shows the flowers that were surrounding Tuesday, yet without her face. After editing the hue and sharpness of the image to make it go from blue to pink the overall look works well as a whole. Adding the 'Thank you' on this image makes the album more fan friendly.

In conclusion, I am very happy with our final digipak, and think it works really well and connotes the pop genre. It also fits with other albums Taylor has produced. 

Digipak editing update

After taking on board the feedback from our class, myself and Ben set too editing our first digipaks. It took Ben a while to get to grips with Photoshop, yet because of previous experience I found selecting the right images and getting them to look good together the hardest part.

Digipak ideas; classmates opinions

For our first digipak ideas we shared quick drawings with most of the class. We received a range of views and opinions on the ideas we came up with, and what we could add to them to make them better.




Idea 1 - We received the following constructive criticism for this idea. * the text needs to be bigger so it stands out more * The image of the girl needs to go all the way across the front of the CD * for the font a hand written style would be the best * the font should be in red.

The group



Idea 2- All the people in  the group loved the idea of the rose from the front of the case and going onto the back. * the rose should be dead / dying * have falling petals * slowly wiling * font should be 3D for added depth.
Idea 3 - The placement of text was the best on this idea as was the style of writing. * maybe the images should link back to the video

Ben going through idea 1



Idea 4- The font in this digipak should be indented * the overall idea is a bit plain.

from the top - 1 to 6 of our first ideas



We also selected a few images from my Photography work of the girl we used in the music video. As it is winter now good photos would be hard to achieve to we have decided to use images from summer to create a more affective look. 

The reviews of our first digipak ideas were good and helped us think of better ideas, we have concluded that the text needs to be large, and in a hand written girly font, it also needs to be in the colour red. The photo needs to have a really good composition that shows off our model to the best it can and also create a satisfying overall look to the cover.

close up of ideas 1 and 2

Student Digipak Analysis

In this post I am going to analyse a previous students digipak, first I will look at the good and then compare it to a bad cover. This will help my inspiration for our Taylor Swift digipak and show us what looks good and what also is not a good idea to include.

The good -

Imagine Dragons digipak for the On top of the world album.
This digipak is striking in its own right, it fits perfectly with the alternative genre and works well with other Imagine Dragon album covers.
The use of Photoshop on all of the covers makes them unique, and interesting to look at. The title of the artists name and the album name stand out against the background but not in a way to completely distract the audience from the rest of the cover.    Even though the album is quite simplistic the overall effect works really well as an overall image especially the effect of the moon. The font used also is effective for the genre, even though the size of the track list may be a little big, as it looks like they were trying to fill up the open space of the sky. So a smaller font would of probably looked better. The spine does look good with different types of font which is unusual, the bands name will stand out if its on a rack because of how big and white the text is.

The bad -

Bryan Adams, The Summer of 69. As an overall CD cover it doesn't work well, the only part of the Digipak that looks professional is the CD itself. The rest of the piece looks rushed and that they maybe used stills from the video itself to create the pictures on the pack. The changes in the fonts from the front cover to the back looks messy and as does the array of random images on the inside of the pack.
The black yellow and white colour scheme also doesn't work well with the genre, it would have been more effective if there was just one main colour used. The best bit of the Digipak is the spine, as the simplistic design looks good and professional.
In conclusion, I have learnt that colour scheme is one of the more important factors of a Digipak, it can make the overall piece look professional or if done wrong; tacky. The photo used needs to be thought about too, and needs to fit in the songs genre perfectly. It also shouldn't look forced or fake as this creates an uncomfortable feel to the overall image. The composition of image looks good on the front of the case, yet the one on the back looks messy as the song list goes over one of the boys faces.

Pop music genre -

This digipak is for the pop genre, and works well for that genre. The close up shot of the girl on the front of the case fits with the stereotype of pop music cds. The inside of the case also does this yet the overall look is messy, as the editing and putting the photos together isn't done to the best standard, yet having the lyrics of the featured songs is a good idea. The background image has a nice working composition, yet is very blurry which hints at it being a screenshot from the video itself which lacks time management and organisation.
The worst part of the digipak is the amount of different fonts used and the change in colour of them too. This isn't very professional,  and the red of the aritsts name clashes with the pink of her lips, and this colour clash also occurs on the spine, which as a whole is boring and wouldn't stand out against other cases. Even though the CD case works well in the pop genre, the overall look of it is messy and not well thought out.
In conclusion, through looking at previous students Digipaks, I learnt that the composition of the final image is very important as is the colour and placing of the text. The text shouldn't overlap any important image and also the colours in the pack need to harmonise, so then the CD looks more as a whole instead of something that's just been rushed and a series of random images have been put together.

Digipak research - Taylor Swift Album covers

After looking into generic conventions of digipaks, I decided to search Taylor Swifts previous album covers, as well as her new album which came out recently. (October 27, 2014) I found that all of her album covers have her in them, and they are all what would be described as 'pretty' and her older ones are particularly innocent looking. The more recent of her albums (Red October 22, 2012) and 1989 show a more edgy side to her, with only a part of her face been shown, whether it be cropped out or in shadows. The girly feel to the album covers connotes the Pop genre and would also be seen as stereotypically attracting her young female target audience through the use of pretty pictures and fancy writing. Through looking at her previous album work and the photography used I have concluded that a female must be used on the cover and the photo needs to be 'pretty' and not too unique from others Taylor has used, as her album photos seem to stay close to a theme.

Generic conventions of Pop Digipaks

Conventions of Digipaks

Digipak Brief

We have to promotion package for the release of an Digipak and this has to include;
•A cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)
•A magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)


The digipak will include between 4 and 6 sides, including front cover, reverse cover, spine and disk impression.

Uploading onto YouTube

We uploaded the music video onto YouTube on Friday the 7th of November, and left it for the weekend before looking at the view count. After sharing the video onto Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat the count is up to nearly 350. The comments we have received have 90% been positive which made both myself and Ben immensely proud. When shared on my Facebook the video got 43 like, 3 shares and several praising comments.

Teacher Viewing

When myself and Ben were happy with the outcome of the video we got Mr Benzie to watch it through. He mentioned an overreliance on mid and sometimes long shots. So we are now going to edit some of the shots and maybe think about doing some more filming to add to the video. Also that the text at the end of the video needs to be taken away which we will also do.