Draft of Digi-Pack

Below is a draft and initial attempts at making the digipack.

Panel 1

This panel silhouettes the three band members when they're running which helps to give the image pace and a feeling of immediacy. This helps to stand out since they are an up and coming band with a lot of potential.  This image is actually a blend of two pictures. One of them running down an underpass and another of a derelict building behind thick, steel bars. Those are the vertical lines seen going down the image. From left to right is the drummer Nick Upton, lead singer and front man Solay Elibol and finally on the right is the bassist Sam Sleight

Panel 2 

Again like the first image this Panel is a mixture of two images. The first is a close up of the lead singer/ front man (Solay Elibol) and a low angle shot of an empty car park giving the Panel a vanishing point behind Solay. I edited this image into black and white which creates a dramatic and more serious tone to the album art. This is important since this digi-pack needs to make the band look as if they are fun and fresh yet they are serious about their music and career choice.

Panel 3 

 

In Panel 3, when you take the CD out, will have this image behind it. This features the whole band against a wall with multiple political messages on it such as 'Life Is A Mine Field' to the right of the frame. This makes the bands image seem edgier and contemporary. The music they write, they write with current affairs in mind. The single 'USA' by The Upgrade is a song which has a political message and statement at its core. For example one of the verses within 'USA' is:
"The land of opportunity where every man is rich,
They slaughter all your earnings and they tell you life's a bitch".

The design for the actual CD is posted below. It is The Upgrades logo and its simple, plain and distinctive so when people see it they will immediately think of the band. 

Panel 4 


 The final panel contains several pieces of key information. Starting from the top there is again the upgrades logo which makes the band instantly recognisable to the market and target audience. There is the main image which contains all three band members giving a face to the band name and making it more personal. I have decreased the intensity of the colours on the image like the bricks on the wall which creates a dull and dingy tone to it however kept the artists the same making them stand out slightly. This makes them look important. I have spaced the tracks out evenly with two rows of bricks between them both making the image look more full. At the bottom banner there is the bar code and to the right of this there is the name of the company being 'King of the Camera Productions'. Lastly and perhaps most importantly there is a logo for Facebook. This makes sure that their target audience (being of a younger demographic of roughly 16-25 year olds) can find them on social networking sites to keep up to date with new releases and news on the band.


Below is the magazine advert which I photographed, designed and edited myself. The banner at the top is The Upgrade's logo. This makes them stand out instantly and recognisable to an audience through a symbol. You can also see the faces of all three band members giving a face to the band instead of three enigmatic figures. Solay (the lead singer) is in the middle since he represents the band the most when they play gigs.
At the bottom are reviews by two massively influential music magazines of 'Kerrang!' and 'NME' both rating it highly. In the bottom right-hand corner again there is a link to the bands Facebook page. This allows those who have Facebook to look them up. This gives the band slightly more publicity to the social networking audience. I have increased the level of yellows in the poster giving it a slightly sepia tone. I increased the contrast too which helps to make the white pillars in the background stand out clearer as well as the streetlight in the backdrop.

Typeface Possibilities for Digi-Pack

The website 'dafont.com' allows the download of many different typefaces and being able to put in your own personalised text. I have utilised this resource and have selected several examples which are a major inspiration as to the style which i shall use for my own personal digi-pack. These are posted below:

The reason why this font could work well is because this font stands out and is bold on the page however there is a slight hint of irony in this typeface because the bands name is called 'The Upgrade' and when you upgrade something it becomes newer and more modern however this font looks worn and old. This could suggest the band aren't newcomers and have much experience going into the difficult industry of music.

This font also have the same sense as being worn. I thought this would give the album cover a nice authentic feel. Also this font is recognised as the famous typewriter style of shapes of letter. This relates effectively to the genre because an era when typewriter was popular was during the Second World War when Britain was an incredibly industrial country. The typewriter was invented in 1829 by William Austin Burt however the design was not perfected until 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes.

Thirdly, this font stands out boldly off the page which can be an important attribute to have on a CD cover because in a popular CD shop it has to be eye catching so people will pick it up and, if they like the look of it, purchase it. An example of a shop like this is the franchise of 'HMV'.

This font has the same theory behind it however it is more subtle than the one above due to it being lower case and slightly thinner letters. Out of the 3rd and 4th font posted (comparing simply due to their similarities) I think that the 3rd font would be more appropriate because it has a stronger and more powerful feel about it which is the message that panel 1 of the CD case is trying to put across.

The font above also has the same worn down look as fonts 1 and 2 however this typeface reminds me of a stone age look. This is due to there being no spaces in the letters and they are just blocks of colour (i.e. there is no gap in the 'loop' of the 'P'). Also the scratches and scars give it an aged and beaten look.

This font follows the pattern of also being in nearly block letters with hardly any spaces however this font has a clean and contemporary look. My only fear however is that this would not fit into the genre of 'metal' because it looks too clean and plain.

This lettering is interesting because this is most famously known and recognised for being used in war propaganda but specifically in propaganda for the Russian Revolution in 1917 and it was also part of the First World War. An artist nowadays who has used this style on an album cover is the band 'Franz Ferdinand', (Franz Ferdinand, 18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914, was also the Archduke of Austria-Este). Below is an image of the cover of their album 'You Can Have It So Much Better ' released in 2004 and has sold 3.6 million of this album in particular.  

This album cover is actually an inter-textual reference to another image. A man named Rodchenko created this image in 1924. It pictures Lilya Brik shouting the word 'books'. The image Franz Ferdinand has taken and utilised is posted below.

Finally this font has a very work and rough look to it. Again I thought this could bring a certain tone of irony since when you upgrade something it becomes newer however this typeface has an incredibly rough look to it.

I am still in the process of designing my digi-pack and may not use these fonts depending on how well they fit with Panel 1 of my pack.