Digipak construction
Inspirational indie CD covers
I really liked this cover. When I saw it I pictured the flowers as dying wedding flowers, symbolising the breakdown of the parent's marriage. The flowers which were once blossoming, are clearly now dying, like the parents relationship is. I decided to do my own version of this cover, taking an image from Google and editing it in PhotoShop. I liked the vibrant soft colours of peach pink, which constrasts the sometimes overpowering grayscale. The white title also worked well and complemented the baby pink and strong red.
This is another of my digipak inspirations. I liked the plain look, with a crisp outline of an image in colour. The inside of the animal is different to the outside. I tried to do my own version of this cover on PhotoShop, using random images from Google. Then, I took my own photos and edited them in PhotoShop (second picture below). I think the greyscale is effective as it suits the sad dull tone of the song. If I use this digipak idea, I will take a picture of a different tree
Having some experience with PhotoShop from Art GCSE has benefitted me. I know how to do simple things such as cutting around an image to select the parts of the image I want to keep. I do this by using the 'Magnetic Lasso Tool' by circling what I want to delete, then pressing the delete button on the keyboard. This is how I got the images of the tree and girl that I wanted.
On both PhotoShop pieces, I liked the grayscale effect, and because we are using it in our music video, we thought that to include grayscale would also work well. I get the grayscale effect by click 'Image' then 'Mode' and 'Grayscale'.
Own photos
I took my own photos in Walthamstow marshes, some of which I might use in the final digipak.
This picture of the older girl that lip syncs in the music video would be good to use as it is a simple image but is typical of the indie genre, helping the viewer identify the genre before even listening to the music. Also, the character position and facial expression helps tell the storyline with the vulnerable and dissapointed look on her face. The use of colour is effective because it shows that this image is in the present and the child is not looking back on the experience anymore, as she was in the video.
This is another simple but meaningful image. The path symbolises the inevitable outcome of the parents relationship. If this image is used in the digipak it would be in grey scale/black and white to keep the theme going.
This image supports the theme of nature and isolation. If I use this image I would try to photoshop the girl sitting on the bench to see if it was more relatable than this picture alone.
Much like the image above this picture supports the themes of nature and loneliness. The stranded island perhaps represents the little girl - lost and stuck in an unchanging situation that she has not control over.
FRONT COVER
FINAL DIGIPAK
For my front cover I wanted the picture to be in colour- not in grey scale like the music video. The artist name 'James Woodward' and the album name 'Covet' are placed at the top right hand corner in an off-white colour so it does not immediately take the attention away from the cover. I have photoshopped multiple duplicated tree roots and decreased the opacity so they do not overpower the image. This conforms to the theme of nature and childhood problems. The tree roots symbolise that no matter what you do nature cannot be stopped - relatable to the video and no matter what the girl does the situation is inevitable. I have then changed the saturation of the backround to give it a gold/dark yellow colour. I liked the effect as it made the picture realistic yet pessimistic.
SPINE
INSIDE PAGES
I chose these four pictures to be the inside pages of my digipak. In all four pictures there is a theme of loneliness and isolation, similar to the music video which fits the indie genre conventions - an object is the main focus of the image that is what the viewer focuses on. I then photoshopped tree branches into the sky of the photographs to keep it relatable to the music video and so it conforms to the theme of nature and relates to the front cover of the digipak. This is effective as it is unrealistic - this wouldn't happen in real life but continues to give the idea that the situation is inevitable and supports the idea of being trapped. There is also a colour scheme in the digipak - the gold writing mathces with the front cover, whereas the 4 inside pages have a colour scheme of pink/red and blue. I believe this helps to notify that the pages are all linked together. The text is lyrics from 'Covet' and 'A Poem With Music' in Lucida Fax Italic font.
BACK COVER
I chose this to be my back page. The background of the path represents the inevitable of the situation - nothing the girl does will change the outcome of the parents divorce. The font colour I chose to be in gold creating a link between my products. I chose the record label 'Rough Trade' as they sign many low key and famous artist that produce songs of the indie genre (For example SOAK.)
ORIGINAL
To make the greyscale I clicked on the HSL/GREYSCALE button.
Then I moved the 'saturation' colours to the left, making the colours less vibrant and more dull/grey.
These were the final changes that I made that got my to the final cover.
I then included text that came from the lyrics in 'Covet' and changed the colour to a gold which matched the front cover of the digipak.
I then changed the shape of the text to an 'arc' shape in order to fit into the image - if it was straight horizontal in the sky it would look too plain and blatant.
I used this method of changing the hue/saturation and also the vibrancy of the image to get to my final covers. I also used the same method of text style and colour to give the look of the cover.
This is the original image that I found on Google of a teddy bear that looked very similar to the one we used when filming.
I used this tool to cut around the teddy bear so that the image only consisted of the teddy.
Then I made the image smaller and dragged it onto this image to make the proportions realistic.
In the end I chose not to include the teddy bear as the yellow colour stood out too much and did not fit in with the images I decided to use in my final digipak.
To soften the colour around the edges of the trees I put on a 'soft light' effect. This also changed the colour of the branches which I really liked as it wasn't so harsh as the black branches.
For these dark branches I used the effect 'Darken' which also made the white colour turn invisible in between the branches.
This was my original front cover that I decided was too unrealistic as the branches looked fake. So I took my own photo of a tree and photoshopped this out instead of using the one I found from Google.
I duplicated the image of the tree 6 times and rearranged them on the page so they filled the screen. Then I used the eraser to delete any branches that covered Tommy's face
I then decided to remove Tommy from the front cover as the image was a bit irrelevant and could rule out a link between all of my products.
Then I changed the hue/saturation of the background to give the gold tinge which I really liked and decided to use as my front cover.
I used this method in all of my digipaks
