Researching Ancillary Products - Photoshop Practice in creating Digipaks

 Photoshop Practice

In class today we were taught how to use the program Photoshop Elements to help us create Digipaks for our Artist.We were shown an example of a Digipak created by  Rebecca (who is one of the media teachers)of the up and comning artist 'Dan London, which unfortunately was an unsuccessfully Digipak.

This was the unsuccessful Digipak created by Rebecca. As you can see there are a number of factors that make this digipak unsuccessful such as :

• There is not a colour scheme which is used throughout the design
• the two images of the artist used of not clear and are stretched
• the effect used on the photo of ' Dan London' on the back of the Digipak does not make any justice or fit in with the colour scheme of the design
• The title of the album is overlayed on top of the artist image
• The image of the heart is randomly placed on the digipak and makes no reference to the artist.
• There is no conventions added that relate to the genre of the artist
• There is a variety of font type and sizes used which makes the digipak look chaotic and tacky.
• Too much colour is used which makes it look childish
• There is no separation between the front and pack of the digipak

Overall ,  I think its a poorly produced product and is a good example of what could happen when you don't follow the Do's and Don'ts when producing ancillary products

We were then given the task to create our own Digipak for the artist 'Dan London'. We had a number of images to choose from of the artist.

 For the front panel of the Digipak , I decided to use a close up of the Artist to maintain the usual style used for many artists digipak, where a close up of the artists face is used. A close up of the artist face is primarily used for a Digipak as it allows the audience to see the clear image of the artist face making them memorable to the audience. I felt that the close up image was a suitable image to use as it was clear and was  a suitable sized image to use for the front panel of the digipak , giving there enough space for the font to be added.

After selecting the photo I wanted of the artist , I had to decide on a background colour for the my Digipak. I decided on the colour white as I wanted to maintain a simple , clean look for my Digipak. I also felt , that the use of the white background would allow the font and images to stand out  and make it more eye catching for the audience.
I had to add a layer inorder to separate the background colour and the image of the artist. This was to make sure that if I made any changes to the background , it would not effect the artist image.
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This screenshot is of the all the layers added to the Digipak. I had to create all these layers or in-order to separate the images , the fonts used and the background colour. I had to ensure that the font layers were places in order above the background colour and images in-order for the fonts to be seen on the Digipak

For the back panel of the digipak, I decided to include another photo of the artist this time a head to toe image of the artist. This allows the audience to see the brand image of the artist and also allows the audience to see a full visual image of the artist. I did not want to keep the maintain the original photo so decided to add effects on both images. On the front panel image, I decided to apply a  stencil effect on the image. I thought that this effect would give the digipak a creativee , playful element. When this effect was added , I then decided to change the colour of the stencil from the original colour being stone and navy blue , to stone and black. I felt the colour black would make the image pop and stand out. For the artist image used at the back panel , I added the same effect onto the photo this time changing the colour to black and white.

This Screen shots illustrates the effects that were added on the two images.



Next , I was able to apply  the font onto the front and back panel of the digipak. I decided to use the font ' Times New Roman' as it is a simple , clear font and links in to the genre of the artist. My colour scheme used for the Digipak were the colours: Grey , Blue , White , Black as they are all masculine colours and link in with the gender of the artist.

The text found on the front panel includes: the artist name , album name and the name of Dan London's hit single ' I Can't Stand The Fame', The text found on the back panel of the album include: a tracklist and the copyright information regarding the album.

The back panel of the album included the logo of the record label associated with the artist and a barcode logo.
In contrast to the previous digipak of the artist Dan London , I feel my digipak

This screenshot is the finished product of my digipak for the artist 'Dan London'.

I feel that with this practise of using the Photoshop Elements program , I will be more comfortable when creating my own Digipak for my own artist. I feel that with this practise I have learnt the key features of how to add effect on to images , how to add text and to add layers in-order to allow the features to be seen on the design. I feel that I am more prepared when having to use this program in the future.