Research - Digipak

Front & Back cover

Inside Panels

For the A2 course, we did some practical work by making a practice music video. While converting my practice music video to mp4, I made a digipak for the final product. I would need to create a front and a back cover, as well as the inside panels (in this case two squares). I used Adobe Photoshop elements 4.0 to do this. I started by marking the size of the blank file 246 x 120 mm, which is the size of an average CD cover. I needed to start with a background, so I experimented with all the tools, and eventually I found a tool called ‘gradient’ which made rainbow circles.

I decided to spread them across the blank page of the front and back cover and use it as a pattern and my main colour motif. I chose this because it gave a 1970s feel, so it combined well with the theme and the genre of disco. I did not have any sufficient photos to use as the front cover, so I print screened a freeze frame of the music video, which had my other band member and I in a pose, and opened it using Photoshop.

I then used the ‘crop’ tool to cut out any unwanted space. I used the ‘magnetic lasso’ tool to shape the outline and then cut out the inverse space. I then copied & pasted the image onto the rainbow background to use as my front cover. In terms of the spine, I used the ‘shape’ tool to create a box, measuring using the ruler where it would place in the middle. For the inside panel I did the same process with a back-to-back image of us, only instead I used the ‘gradient’ tool to create squared rainbows, again fitting in with the theme and laid them out so that they outlined the CD in a square. For the written text, I used the same font through out.
   
The strengths of my digipak include the useful information such as the record label, track list and the overall editing and appearance. It relates to the music and fits in with the 1970s vibe, with the 'hippie' esq colours and 'charlies's angels' pose. The weakness I would suggest would probably be the fact that both the music and the digipak would not appeal to younger people as music has become more modern, so this would probably have a 'nieche' audience.