Debut Albums / Digipak

As Athena (our artist) is releasing her first album, meaning that it is here debut album digipak. I decided to look at debut albums.

While doing research into debut albums (on amazon.co.uk searching 'debut album' I noticed that most debut albums are normally self-titled, has a close-up image of the artist and has no images on the back cover. But not all debut albums are like this.

As I plan to have an image on the back cover of the albums digipak and have the album not self-titled, I need to be able to justify why I have done this. So in my research I looked for different versions of debut albums.

So while looking at the debut albums, there are albums with images of the artist on the back cover of the digipak & not self-titled album names. So I have decided to have an image of the artist on the back cover of the digipak and bot have the album title the name of the artist.

Short List of Design Ideas – Colour Scheme

While looking at digipaks and advertisements colour schemes, I have remembered that only 3 / 4 colours are used. So the colour scheme short list only has 3 / 4 colours each.

Also all the colour schemes have Red in it, this is because the artist will be wearing her Red dress in both the digipak images and advertisement image(s).

While looking at ancillary products from artist who work in the soul genre of music I have noticed that they don’t use very bright and metallic colours. Also they tend to use warm and calm colours (purple, red, grey, orange …) colours not cold colours (blue, green …). So I have based this on the short list of colour schemes I could use for my ancillary products.

Short List of Images I Plan To Use for My Ancillary Product Work

Here are the best images from the photoshoot of the artist which I think will fit well with the ancillary products (magazine advertisement & digipak).

A lot of the images are close ups. This is because as the digipak is for a debut album presenting a new artist, the artist face needed to be seen clearly.

As the genre is soul, which is a kind of serious & classy music genre, I have asked the artist to have smart and intellectual facial expression for the photoshot. This is because when I was looking at artist images (in the soul genre) on their album digipaks and magazine advertisements that’s the kind of facial expression that I seen on their faces.

I also plan to change the levels of the red dress, as it has not as red as I planned for it to be. This would be done on photoshop, while I’m editing the images.

Ancillary Products Photoshoot

As planned we have done our photoshoot during Friday morning lesson. We have all decided that the artist will were the red dress (seen in many basetracks in the music video created in visual link). As we wanted the performer to have red lipstick on, but we didn’t have any, so I plan to make here lips red on photoshop.

Planning For Next Lesson

After our lesson on Wednesday (12/12/12), we were told as a class that next lesson we have to do our photo shoot of the artist (performer - Amber), for our ancillary products.

So we have decided to book Room 333 with the technicians, so we can do the photo shoot there and use the studio lights. During our Friday (14/12/12) morning lesson (9:00am to 10:30am).

We plan to take the photos against the green screen, so that it will be easier to select the parts of the performer on Photoshop Elements. This is because there will be a big contrast in colour of background and the performer face, hair and clothing.

Digipak Analysis

Here is an example of Rihanna's digipak. Since the genre of our music is 'R&b' and 'Soul' i have stuck to the same genre of music in order to be able to analyse i fully,

Relating this to my artist:


This digipak is also similar to mine as it contains things such as:
A color scheme, having a good colour scheme is very important because using colours that are linked into your music video not only create a visual link, but also help the audience in remembering your artist. I have also decided to put Athena in similar clothing that was used in the music video to connect the two products together. 

Short List of Design Ideas – Text Font

Now that I have decided on an album title which I think suits the genre of music and that the new artist that I am presenting already has a name I can start to think on what type of text font I would want to use on the digipak and poster.

After doing my research on posters and digipaks based on the genre of soul, I already know that the font style has to be classic, smart and simple, making it not to hard to read. Also the text of the album title and the artist’s name has to be in capital letters, but with the artist’s name being in a larger font.

On Microsoft Word I have looked at all the fonts available and here is a short list of the type of fonts which I keep in consideration for it on my digipak and poster.

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

TIMES NEW ROMAN

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

ADOBE ARABIC

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

BATANG

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

BROWALLIAUPC

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

casTELLAR

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

COURIER NEW

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

Felix titling

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

MINGLIU_HKSCS

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

TEKTON PRO

ATHENA

MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME

TRAJAN PRO

I think that the Trogan Pro font will work best with the ancillary products and suits the soul genre. However in my next lesson I may get people opinions on what font I should use from the short list as the main text font and the sub text font, as they are the audience. 

So after the photo shoot of the artist in lesson (14/12/12), I will then work on picked a colour scheme for the ancillary work.