These designs are for the back and front of my digipak. Within my artists music video the theme tied in within the chorus is heavily incorporated into my video, the idea of a binary opposition; sweet dream and a beautiful nightmare, love and hate, good and evil. This is represented through costume and make-up. As you can see from the video during the chorus the artist has two different sides the 'bad side' illustrated through dark colours in particular black and the sharp and threatening shapes on her face. The 'good' side is portrayed as pure and innocent with soft natural make-up and flower designs.

A typical convention of CD covers are that the main image is of something that the audience can relate to as part of a popular song, for example Take-That's CD cover features the mechanical elephant which appeared in their live show performance. I decided to adopt this into my Cd cover. The artist appears in the same way as she does in the chorus of her music video the song 'Sweet Dreams'.

Below are my ideas for the main image which will dominate the front cover. This will be Elle-Rose's 'sweet' side to further represent the album title which will also be featured on the cover 'Sweet Dreams'.

To cleverly and effectively include both sides of the artists face I am able to use the front cover and the back cover to represent each side individually. As the album is called 'Sweet Dreams' I have opted to feature the 'good' side on the front of the digipak. This way her image can be related to the CD title and also be easily recognised by the audience as they will remember this from the music video.

Below is my design for the back cover of my digipak which will also contain all the other conventional information such as a track list etc. This is Elle Rose's 'bad' side which represents the 'beautiful nightmare'.

I also have two panels inside my digipak which I will need to fill. I though about filling them with close-ups of the 'good' eye which is surrounded by a giant flower and stars. And a close-up of the 'bad eye' surrounded by jagged edges and black patterns. I have also thought about filling the panels with full length

In addition to this as my partner and I have decided upon a name for our artist which is 'Elle-Rose' she is boasting flowers in her hair that resemble a rose and this provides the audience with visual representation of the artist herself. This could perhaps be a symbolic emblem that 'Elle Rose could use to promote herself in the future and a way for fans to easily recognise when a product is hers.

The actual disk that contains the content i.e. the CD and DVD often contain graphics such as writing or even photography. I have decided to use the name of the album and the name of the artist on the disk in the same font that will be displayed on my front and back cover. However each one will be different sizes and some bolder than others to make it look more eye-catching rather than boring.

Below are pictures of how my CD will look and how it will appear in the digipak packaging.

Now I have decided on the images I will be using, the next thing I have to do is plan the overall layout of my packaging to see how image and text will work together to create an effective digipak.

Digipak Research

The Digipak is a new, modern alternative to standard cd packaging. Made mostly from thick card, the digipak is virtually shatterproof and it allows for great graphic display. Originally used for the album packaging of leading musicians, the digipak and digipak family are now priced reasonably enough to be used for any CD or DVD project. The digipak is an extremely versatile packaging. It can be made to accommodate a booklet either by placing in a die-cut slot or gluing onto one of the panels. In addition, the panels can be increased from 4 to 6, 8 or more. The DVD Digipak is a popular alternative to the DVD box. It is now widely used for feature film DVD releases which are special editions because it increases the value and creates a premium product.
I will be working on a 6 panel digipak to accommodate both the album CD and the dvd of video footage. This is the template I worked from:

Using the same measurements and simple, basic design I made a few adaptions to my digipak in order to create a unique one for my artist;

It still has room for two discs but one will have the conventional plastic case and the other can just be attached using a centre button as you can understand better from the pictures below. Where my design becomes individual is the middle panel. As you can see I have made an addition to the original template by including a sleeve which will hold a small information booklet about the band, as when conductin research I noted that most CD's also include a small information leaflet that contains more information about the tracks etc.

Below you can see from the pictures how my digipak has come together and how it will be suitable packaging for the promotion package of my artists new album.

My digipak creation

To learn more about the digipak I have done some research into some existing texts and the most interesting one I came across is 'Lady Gaga's' digipak, I chose to analyse this as she is a female artist as is my own and her values and ideolgies are shared by the artist I am promoting within my digipak. I therefore thought this one would be the most useful for me to look at.

Here is an example of what would be expected to appear within a digipak style product.

These images are from the front cover and inside panels of her digipak titled 'The Fame Monster'. It is can be seen that the same theme, colours, style and fonts are continuous throughout the product. I will be able to adapt the codes and conventions from this into my own creation.

Codes and conventions

When going through the process of designing and creating my own front cover to the digipak promoting my artists new album it is important that I know and understand all the codes and conventions of what goes into a CD front cover in order to produce it successfully and to the best of my ability. Along the left hand side are CD covers that illustrate the points I am making in this post about codes and conventions

With the generic conventions of a CD cover, you have to consider how the front and back differ; the front of the CD is the first thing people are attracted to when the product is on the shelf. Conventionally a CD cover will contain; the name of the artist, the name of the album, a colour consistency that reflects the genre, a consistent font that also reflects the genre, an eye catching image of either the artist/band or an icon and sometimes a sticker that either warns the consumer of content that may be found offensive or promotes/gives special mention to the most popular track.

The album cover generally defines the 'real fan', as they are able to deconstruct the images, colour, lettering, initials and realise who the artist is. This excludes people who are not fans and in turn makes them feel as though they belong to an exclusive group, this refers to the uses and gratification theory; people using the media to make sense of the world and to get a sense of ‘belonging’. For instance fonts fit an artist’s image, a gothic font suggests that the album within the rock genre.

The artist is obviously the biggest selling point of the album, which is why the majority of CD covers conventionally opt to use the band or artist as the dominant, eye-catching image as this is one of the reasons fans will buy the album. The focal image will either be an iconic design, artwork or a photograph of the artist.

The mise-en-scene will represent the values and ideologies of the artist through the use of colours, props, lighting, make-up and clothing. Also how the star or subject is posed for instance, if the artist is making eye contact, if their body language is open/closed/suggestive/attractive and what their facial expressions are portraying. All these choices are sending out a message to the audience through connotations that are gained from these particular aspects and it could determine how the consumer reacts to the CD. Abstract images show that the artists like to defy conventions and explore an air of mystery, this may be because they are renown for their ‘different’ or ‘out-there’ approach to life and they can use their celebrity to promote this. Fans can recognise this defiance of conventions as the artists image.

The artist(s) or icons represented on the cover are usually what you would expect to see of that artist and music genre, for example Beyonce or Rihanna have always had an image constructed by glamour and sex appeal while punk bands such as Green Day tend to focus on more social issues to sell their CD’s. Some artists may even have particular props, make-up or wardrobe that are instantly recognisable, for example Lady Gaga’s outrageous outfits or Marilyn Manson’s metal teeth. On the other hand some music artists’ are constantly challenging their audiences expectations like Madonna, this keeps her style fresh as her CD cover reflects the new image or the re-branding of which she is going for.

It is very important to a music artist the way in which they are presented as it could determine how successful their CD is. How the band or artist and the genre of music are represented can be a deciding factor on how the audience will react to what is being sold to them. For example hip-hop celebs have been critised in the past for portraying and glamourising guns, cars, violence and ‘gangsta’ related images, critics say it sets a negative image for young people to follow and sets up a stereotypical black culture. This type of music has also been slated for portraying women as sexual stereotypes. When designing my own CD cover I must decide whether to reinforce these stereotypes or challenge them. As this is a new, fresh album and we are the future generation I think it would be a good idea to perhaps challenge these stereotypes in subtle ways, women can still be sexy without being sexual and this is how I want my artist to be portrayed.

When designing my cover I need to think about why my target audience of young females aged 18-25 will want to buy my artists new album, is it because they want escapism and pleasure or to gain a sense of their own identity or feeling of belonging. Or have they been influenced by somebody else to buy it, or simply because it’s their favourite artist or genre of music.

Rhianna cd cover analysis

This is the front cover to Rihanna's new album 'Rated R'. I have chosen to analyse this artist inparticular because she has similar styles to the creation of my own music artist for whom I will be designigning a cover for.

The R situated in the right hand corner is effective for its ambiguity. It could stand for Rihanna or it could stand for the album name ‘Rated R’ or it could be a symbol for both. Either way it works. It has been made to look scripted as though someone has etched it in with a nail perhaps. This gives the album a dark look illustrating as having dark, deep meaning within the songs on the album.

Although in the bottom right hand corner the title of the album does appear faintly in small, bold, white type. It has not been made to be the focus of the cover but it still ties in with the conventions of album covers. Instead the main image of the star herself has been made to be the primary focus.

As rihanna is renowned for her pop/RnB style you expect there to be more colour. However she has chosen for this particular album to appear in black and white, this gives it a more serious meaning. The main image backs this point up as she has her head in her hand, representing thoughts, feelings and emotions which are contained in her songs.

Even though you can only see one side of her face she is still looking directly forward. This way it looks as though she is looking at the consumer of the album, making them feel more respected, almost creating a bond.

Her look is very unique as she is sporting what appears to be a metallic style dress which portrays superiority, power and a rather masculine appearance. Her jewelry emphasises her dark, serious look as her arm bracelet has a rather large spike at the end that acts as a claw almost. You can clearly see a bold, black stud in her ear, it would not tie in if she was to be wearing a big flowery earring for example, the plain stud reinforces her overall masculine appearance. Rihanna’s lips are covered in black lipstick and her eye make-up consists of thick black eye-liner, it flicks right up at the end so as she still looks attractive and adds a subtle hint of feminine beauty.

I decided it would be of use if I could analyse the back of album covers also to learn the codes and conventions. To get the most out of my research I have opted to analyse the back and front of the same album to see the simularities and differnces that I will need to take into consideration when conducting my digipak.

DVD album covers

For my ancillary texts I have to also produce a cover for the albums release on dvd and a magazine advertisement for the dvd. The brief has recently changed and I am now required to produce a digipak including the cd and dvd. In order to produce to the best of my ability I will do extensive research into cd/dvd covers and magazine advertisements to learn the codes and conventions of each.

I will begin my research by analysing a range of different styles of music dvds. I thought it would be best to research a variety of genres and not just RnB so as to get a good grasp of what would be expected of my digipak.

To represent the unity between the girl group they are all adjoined in a mermaid style fashion. Their gold sequined dresses represents their glamorous celebrity status. The dress is figure hugging showing off their trim figures and the black waist band adds style and class to the sequins. It also relates to the colour of the text which is important when designing a cover as there are conventionally three or four colours that dominate. The text is clear and bold so it can be easily read and recognized by potential viewers.

The dvd title ‘out of control’ is represented through the hypnotizing pink and white candy striped spirals. This is also portrayed though the way they have positioned their arms up in the air and looking in all different directions. The pink and white candy stripes portray their stereotypical ‘girly girl’ group persona. The spirals are made to look fun and inviting, bold and strong. It grabs the attention of consumers as it looks as though it has lot going on when really it only portrays the necessities; the title of the band, the title of the dvd, a picture of the band looking sexy and stylish and an eye catching background.

It is something like this dvd cover that I would like to adapt to my own creation. I want the artist to stand out by wearing something bold and colourful whilst still looking attractive.

Good Girl Gone Bad contains up-tempo and ballad oriented songs, and it heavily incorporates pop and dance-pop music styles. First ever full concert dvd release from multi platinum and grammy award winning artist

Her name appears in bold font, centre to the top of cover. It is white, contrasting the dark background to make it stand out. The cover is a still image taken from her live performance. This can be interpreted from the background lighting and microphone of which she is singing into indicating that she is in the middle of performing. The black is broken up by the lighting which appears as a star at the centre. This represents her star quality and illustrates her celebrity persona.

The dvd is coverage of her ‘good girl gone bad’ tour. Her outfit choice represents her ‘bad girl’ look, this can be seen through her studded, leather, black dress which is stereotypical of the ‘bad’ look. It is appealing and sexy showing lots of flesh, but without looking too provocative as to draw the wrong attention. She looks strong, dominating and in control through a low angle shot.

When thinking about my own cover this would not be suitable as it is promoting the star’s new album therefore she would not yet have done a live performance of songs consisting of the album.


Take That Presents: The Circus Live is a concert tour by British Boyband ‘Take That’. The Circus Live is Take That's biggest tour to date and was seen by over 1,000,000 people. The tour became the fastest selling in UK history, with the 600,000 for all original eight dates selling out in just five hours. They are a pop band and this is evident in their DVD cover as there are a lot of bright colours which is a convention seen in pop music videos and CD/DVD covers.

The Cd cover is vibrant and inviting, mainly because of the great use of colour. It holds a very 'random' theme and the images supported on the cover are extremely varied, however it seems to fit very well in representing a circus theme. This is illustrated through an array of coloured balloons of all different sizes surrounding a transparent hot-air balloon. The dominant colour is sky blue; the background is made to look as though they are in the air, illustrated through the use of faint clouds. The sky looks bright and inviting, maintaining the uplifting spirit of the band, music and dvd as a whole.

During the performance the band walk through the crowd on a giant robotic elephant. On the cover the band are shown to be sat on the same elephant that appears in the show, giving the audience something to relate to and remember the performance. By featuring the most memorable part of the tour people are more encouraged to buy the DVD.

This is something to keep in mind when creating my own dvd cover for the release of my artists new album, as it could be affective to portray her in perhaps her most memorable outfit from the music video.

Eminem's dvd released in 2000. This features the majority of his music videos and fans have described their collections incomplete without this dvd. Eminem is a well known American rapper, record producer and actor. He rose to fame in 1999, now with 11 Grammy’s in his career; he claims the longest running #1 hip-hop single and is the best-selling artist of the decade.

The dvd is entitled a backwards ‘E’, the first letter of his name. There is nothing else on the front of the dvd that says it is Eminem. Due to the fact that he is such a famous music artist and almost everyone knows who he is, he can get away with entitling his dvd with the first letter of his name and people will still know who it is.

The white back-to-front E against a contrasting black background makes it stand out. The blur of green situated behind appears rather surreal, almost appearing as if to represent the image of a sound wave. Which is suitable to the dvd as it features his music. Note the cover only sports the conventional number of three different colours, often a feature of many publications including cd covers, magazine covers and posters. The three contrasting colours give off a rather sinister feel. Artists within the rap genre tend to rap about life experiences or life as it is today, often sending out a serious message, highlighting hidden truths that society play ignorance to. It is therefore important that his dvd cover portrays his music.

Eminem is renown for his use of explicit language used in his song lyrics. It is for this reason a ‘parental advisory’ sticker is situated in the bottom right hand corner. It is important to display these stickers as a warning to parents when allowing their children purchase dvds of that content. This is also a big clue that it is Eminem’s dvd as all of his cd’s feature this sticker and fans would recognise this.

Developing Ideas.

As we are in the process of editing our music video, we are constantly finding out new ways to make our video more professional and to a the highest standard. From experimentng with numerous fades, blackouts and general trial and error editing techniques we found out how to conduct a split screen affect.

This would be ideal for our video as it portarys the deeper meaning behind our video of issues such as split personalities, being torn between two emotions and good vs evil. Moreover it would help bring to light the surrealness within our video, a blur between realsim and fantasy.

We took a series of posed photos when shooting at our beach location. We decided that toward the end of our video we would use a series of still images from each of our locations as the backing music takes the song to a close. Now that we have come across the idea of using a split screen affect, we can adapt it into our video giving it a more professional, unique and spiritual outlook.

Here is an example of the type of thing we want to appear in our video:

Behind the Scenes (chorus)

To represent the idea of a 'sweet dream' and a 'beautiful nightmare', which are the lyrics that appear in the chorus, we have designed the singers face to appear as a contrasting good vs evil. Within our video we have a fairytale theme that runs throughout, to involve this in our chorus we use a red apple, an iconic prop associated with the fairytale 'Snow White'. When the 'good' side is turned toward the camera the apple appears red and shiny. As the lyrics change into a 'beautiful nightmare' the singer appears facing directly toward the camera as she takes a bite out of the apple. As she turns to reveal her evil side, when the apple is removed from her mouth it appears black to represent her poisonous evil.

'Sweet Dream'

We have purposely chosen not use any colour eyeshadow on the eyelid as we wanted her to appear as sweet, innocent and pure as possible. We used lip-liner to create the flower shape that appears to be coming from her eye, to continue on with the idea of a fantasised reality which is a major pattern throughout our video.

Natural make-up with a hint of gentle pink represents her softer side, representing purity and innocence. The pink and white flowers tie in with the idea of love and romance. The hair has been left in its natural flowing curls representing natural beauty.

'Beautiful Nightmare'

The 'evil' side is dominantly black, with smoky silvery eyes to portray the mystery within her character and a smudge of red dripping from her lips to illustrate blood, often a feature associated with the evil character. We used eyeliner on the face to create the bold, dramatic and sharp patterns. The pointed curl on the arrow is to represent the devils tale, the master of evil.

The hair appears in a tight curled bun on the side of her head to show that she is in control and makes her look powerful. We attached the hair onto the face using hair-spray. This unusual creation we decided would look effective in creating a masculine and powerful image, it also helps to make her look more evilly possessed.