Digipak and Poster inspirations and the thinking behind them

After the feedback for the first drafts I decided that I needed to go at the work by focusing more on the conventions and what has gone beforehand on album covers and magazine adverts. Therefore I needed two key things, continuity and to create a bold identity for my artists. I felt this would prove difficult in terms of creating a completely original design from scratch, so therefore felt it would be best to adopt and carry on ideas used on existing material.

One of the pieces I used for such inspiration was Arctic Monkeys 5^th album ‘AM’. I felt this was a minimalistic design, but still had a strong style which stood out from other albums. I also believed I could convert features they used for my own work, to make it a success. The first of these was to use the idea of a line running through the whole digipak (as on AM) within my pieces of work. However I would choose 2 lines and these would primarily come from the underlining of the Artists name on the album cover and poster. These lines then continued throughout the whole digipak, including the booklet. Not only do I feel this created a bold style, but it showed the continuity which the first drafts lacked and the development I had made. Moreover like on ‘AM’ it split up the track list and I felt although this was for no logical reason, it aesthetically worked well and livened what can be a dull part of a digipak.

 

Furthermore I also took inspiration from The Black Keys 6^th album ‘Brothers’. It was clear from my first draft that the Images used were boring and uninspiring. As a result I decided to change tact and avoid the use of images on the digipak and went for a plain yet bold black background. Such a background made the text appear bold and also followed conventions of many albums which avoid the use of images in preference for a more powerful focus on the text. I felt the power created on the front of ‘Brothers’ was achieved by the font used, therefore I researched this font and found it o be called Cooper Black. I then used this in my own work for a lot of my text; however I didn’t solely use it I felt it would then lose its effect, becoming boring and predictable. The other font I used ‘Alien’ contrasted well with ‘Cooper Black’ as it was more pointed as opposed to rounded. I also on occasions used it in red as to differentiate between the artists name and the album’s title.

Additionally on both pieces I focused on conventions such as simply trying to make the work appear more credible and authentic.  These were often simple things such as using the Sony record label and the positioning of the barcode.

Finally the use of just the three colours black, white and red I felt not only made the pieces bold, but kept it original and followed the conventions of these three colours going together and complementing one another.