ANCILLARY - Digipak

Based on previous research, I have decided that my main colours for my digipak will be Black, White and Gold. I have decided to do so because through various methods of research its evident that these colours are very prominent amongst female pop artist.

This is my draft of my album cover

Planning - Ancillary: Looking for inspiration

I have decided to have a grey, black, white with a touch of gold album cover so i went and looked for artists of the same/similar genre as 'Adara Black' who also have grey albums so i could get some inspiration on how to achieve my look. At the end i have added a colour picture of one of Rihanna's most recent album as I really likes the style of writing on the album and her pose. 

From what i have discovered it is best to keep it simple with the odd features that are in colour or in brighter colours, such as lips, accessories or even just down to just the writing on the album cover. I feel that white and gold work with the grey cover very well and I can easily achieve a nice digipak. 

To help me with design ideas for my magazine advert i done some further research into different kinds of adverts. I didn't just stick to the pop artist for this research as i wanted to find as much different designs.

Research - Ancillary: Checking up on how I'm going

At the minute I am happy that the video is complete and the coursework project is edging closer to the end. However I feel in the same position I have for the majority of the year… BEHIND! Despite this I think the last half of the coursework went rather well in the end, I feel I can pull it out the bag somehow but I am not sure how I am going to achieve this. In terms of the ancillary products I am excited to start creating them and I can't wait to see how they come out. I most definitely need to work on time my management skills so I don't fall behind on blogs.

Ancillary Products: Location Choice

Millennium bridge being the most sophisticated and best looking location we used it would be good to use it in the advert to show off how nice it looks also it's our city and we used this location for the majority of our music video

Ancillary Products: Mock-up Advertisement

This is the mock up of my advertisement. There may be a few things that I will change in terms of where things are placed, but the majority of the information will remain the same. I have labelled the relevant aspects of the advert and the colour scheme, font used.

Research - Ancillary: Previous student analysis

During lesson we were given the task of analysing some previous student cross media promotional products in order to help us see what works and what doesn't when it comes to our time to create our digipak's and adverts.

Digipak 

 

Strengths: 

• Image going across both panels for the outside of the digipak
• Two fonts that compliment each other and the image used so I'm assuming the genre also
• The text in a box theme on the outside of the digipak
• All the appropriate production information such as record label logo, copyright information, parental advisory and company company details all a good size
• Lyrics from songs from the album

Weaknesses: 

• Colour scheme continuity issues with the outside and inside of the digipak

Advertisement 

 

Strengths: 

• Font from the digipak continued
• Good research into review productions
• Barcode scanner thing and website information
• Record company logo
• Logo of where the album is available 
• Digipak used as image across the top of the advert as a full image was very creative

Weaknesses:

• Colour scheme went off a bit as red was not used on the digipak. However it makes some of the information stand out and so could work as an advantage. 

Ancillary Work: Planning, Inspiration

Here are a few more examples of  digipaks and advertisements that have inspired me and contributed to my ideas of what I want my own products to be like.

Cheryl Cole: As this is the original artist who we were inspired by, I wanted to look at her album cover and advert. I think its god in terms of the color and the fact that she is on the front cover, you can see her fully. I like the effects they have used on the cover as it creates a happy, hazy atmosphere, which kind of links with the name of the album. the font is distinguishable and you can see there is information about the tracklist on the front cover.  The advert looks similar to the album cover in terms of the image of the artist used and the colour. There is information promoting the album and upcoming events for the artist.

 

Rizzle Kicks: You can see a clear link between all three products as soon as you look at them. The colour scheme is the same, the style is the same and so is the font. They have used the same image on the album on the advert and this gives good synergy as they have the same facial expression and clothing. The advert consists mainly of tour dates and has access to their website and other social media they are involved in. It is simple and bright, yet has everything relevant to album cover.

Ancillary Products: Costume Choice

The costume our artist is going to wear us black and white. This is another visual synergy link as the theme of my ancillary products is black and white and the costumes worn in the music video are too.

Ancillary: Mockup of Digipak

Ancillary Production Pitch

1. Describe the theme/style of your ancillary products in 5 words:

Modern, Simple, Pretty, Monochrone, Feminine. 
The font shows the feminine aspect of artist and the monochrome contrast keeps it bold and simple, good to look at. This altogether gives the album a modern feel.

2. Outline how many panels your digipak will be:

I plan to use 4 panels to create my digipak as this is what I used whilst planing what my digipak would look like on paper and I found this easiest to work with.

3. Where your magazine advert will be placed:

I plan to have a full image of the artist holding a black rose or petals falling above her to the right of the advert and then the text again to the left. Continuing with the monochrome theme, white background, black text and the synergy, a black rose.

4. Where you got your ideas from:

The basis of my ideas I have came up with myself, however i have looked at other artists such as Cheryl Cole, Katy Perry and Jessie J as they have quite bold eye catching album covers and primary colours are mainly used also to give emphasis on the artist it self and make it look more simple and feminine. They also had more feminine fonts, to outline the artists name which looked really nice.

Ancillary Work: Mock up of Digipak

This is the mock up of the inside of my digipak. I have labeled where necessary about the graphics and text inside also where the artist face will be positioned and how the cd is going to look. also the font used and the kind of size I will be using in what colour.

 

 
This is the mock up of the outside of my digipak. you can see the name of the album and the name of artist is in different fonts, which I have labeled, and what trype of font it is. the colour scee is going to be black and white and you can see the tracklist and the layout of the spine. also positioning of where the artist is going to be on the front. and a few technical aspects such as labels and barcodes as well as copyright text.

Ancillary Products: Do's and Don't's

What to DO:

- You should use a maximum of three colours so it looks good and clearly links to the style and theme of your artist/genre.

- You should make sure that any images you use are clear and not blurry, of the best quality.

- You should make sure that any photographs you do use fit the frame of your advert/digipak correctly as to make it look as best it can be.

- Only use a maximum of two fonts as to make it clear and that they tie in with the genre and style of your artist, also that they look good together, not random fonts placed together.

- Remember to include all the technical aspects of the products; record company logo, artist website, copyright info, barcode etc.

- Remember to follow the rule of thirds for composition to ensure your products look professional.

What NOT to do:

- Do not oversize any images you use, make them look distorted or stretched. this will ruin the product.

- Do not make your font size too big as to take focus away from the artist

- Do not place the text across the face of the artist.

- Do not use any graphics, pictures, fonts just because you like them. Make sure they are relevant and clearly link to the style/theme/ genre of your artist.

Ancillary Work Planning: Design Activity

Research - Ancillary: Functions of a digipak

What is a Digipak?

 

What does the audience expect to see on a Digipak?

Research - Ancillary: Summer work

Summer work analysis 

At the end of the AS year we done some A2 starter activities, below is a digipak that I prepared during that time: 

Strengths:

• Used only two clear fonts
• Nice image on the back of the digipak 
• Some relevant information; track list, artist name and name of the album, record company logo, barcode and copyright information 
• product serial number on the spine 
• Images relate to music video

Weaknesses: 

• Continuity issues regarding colour scheme as the video accompanying the digipak is black and white whereas the digipak is purple and pink which doesn't link
• Too many images on the front of the digipak
• Poorly edited images as there are some patches of the background from where the picture was taken
• Copyright information is too small 
• Copyright information and barcode is just a copied in image as opposed to being two separate components

Ancillary Work: What is a Digipak?

So what is a digipak?

A digipak is a modern approach to CD packaging made from a thick cardboard, giving it body. Inside you will find information about the artist/band compressed in to a small booklet that is inserted in to pockets made inside the digipak. They are creative and pleasing to the eye, covered in all sorts of colours, graphics and text relevant to the theme of the artist/band which is easy to establish. They can be made from a range of panels from 4, 6 or 8 and they can be folded normally, or outwards to come out as an extra when you open it. It's your choice. This is to allow extra space for another disc, for example or a booklet, any extra information you feel necessary to add.


Here are some examples:

 
This one folds our in to three and there are multiple booklets full of information relate to the artist, their music. There is also space for two CD's.

 

This one folds out into three as well, however there is only one CD. You can see the colour scheme fits  well and the font/text isn't too large and is also in good contrast.

Ancillary Work: Inroduction Lesson Summary

We will be making two a compliments to our music video which are an advertisement for our artist and a digipak.
These two products will have to use creativity and synergy to create a clear visual link across all three of our products and make it appealing to our target audience especially as well as a wider audience.

Things to consider are:
- colour?
- theme?
- text?
- names for the album?
- font?
- images?
- graphics?
- how many panels we want to use for our digipak?
- what influences are there?
- what size advert and what will be on the advert?

All of these aspects will be apart of the planning process and there are a few which will have to be decided as a group before we continue individually.

Cinema screening, initial reaction and feedback

We had the opportunity to see the official screening of our music videos at the Screen on the Green venue in Islington; all the hard work on the big screen for everyone who embarked on this project to see! Below are videos showing the great initial reaction we got from the showing of the video and some feedback from a couple members of the audience. Feedback was great and we were glad to know that people enjoyed it. Hard work pays off!

Research - Ancillary

Upon further research on album covers, I discovered that many pop artist albums share similar characteristics i.e:

• The artist image is usually on the product
• A lot of the time the artist are seen from the waste up or in a close up
• Fonts used can be seen as feminine
• Not too many colours used (usually 2-4) 

This will help greatly when creating my final digipak. 

Introduction to Ancillary work

We where introduced to our ancillary task the other day which required we produce an album cover for our artist. In previous blogs we made it quite clear that our album covers main colour scheme will be black and white (with some hints of red/gold).

These decisions where made whilst researching female pop artist which same the genre of our artist. Blacks, whites, reds and golds are all colours which where common amongst female pop artist. Seeing how our artist is named Adara Black, we decided that black HAS to be featured in our ancillary work. We also figured that white would best compliment black. Furthermore, it seems only right that our ancillary works colour scheme remains black and white because in our video all of Adaras costumes are black and white.  

Ancillary Products: Planning

There are a few aspects which we had to decide as a group to be the basis of information for our digipak/advert.

These include; the colour scheme, the tracklist, graphics, album name, artist name and font.

This is what we decided:

Colour scheme: Black and white

Track list: Intro, Never Again, Happy, Love Killer, Hope, What Now, When It Gets Tough, Holding On, What You Want, Silence.

Graphics: Black rose symbol/Petals, embellishment

Album Name: Love Killer

Artist Name: Adara Black

Font: Century Gothic

Ancillary: Analysing digipaks and advertisment material

                                

Research - Ancillary: Do's and Don'ts of design work

Ancillary: Design Activity

During our lesson, we were given a set amount of time to create a two-panel digipak as an activity to get to grips with using Adobe Photoshop. Luckily, I'm already familiar with the software package, however I had a difficult time deciding what to base this design around! So I came up with something simple and classy, and I think it looks really eye-catching

Introduction to Ancillary work

This week we were introduced to the ancillary side of the coursework project. We have been given the task of creating a digipak for the artists first album from which the single we produced the music video for came from and a magazine advert advertising the album.

As we decided in the research and planning of the music video part of the project we are using the main colour theme of Black, White and touched or Gold, this colour pallet appears in and throughout our video and the idea is to make this theme come across into the ancillary work. The main reason for the simple colour pallet was because the artists name is 'Adara Black' so we thought it was important to have one of the main colours as black.

We also thought a nice touch to the branding is to somehow incorporate black roses across all cross media products.

Ancillary Work Research: My Ideas

For the Digipak:

I could possibly have a front cover of our artist holding a heart of black rose petals as this is one of our main graphics and symbolises the meaning of our single also.

I plan to have a white background as this is quite simple, with black writing and graphics to make it stand out and draw more attention to the artist.

The back cover will be plain white with black text written to the left of the cover.

Another idea for the front cover is to have the black petals sprinkled down the cover with the artist looking up towards them falling.

For the advertisement:

I could have a blown up image of the artist with the black petals in the background and the information written on top.

Another idea could be a big heart and then an image of the album cover, including the artist and then have writing around the graphics.

Ancillary Work Research: Analysis of Digipaks and Advertisements

Here are a few of examples of adverts and album covers from popular British artists that I feel are a good illustration of synergy links and good contrast in colour scheme, text and fonts.

Adele: There is a clear link straight away with the colours used. They are similar and it creates a subtle, calm but sad atmosphere. The font is the same throughout and on the advert you can see they have the album cover on the advert with simple text and just the relevant info. both products have the artists face full on and its the same image. On the back cover of the album you can see the track list and the barcode and the relevant labels and copyright info. Over all I like the style of this advert and digipak as the colours and album look good in contrast and its simple and professional, down to the colours and font.

Ed Sheeran: You can automatically see a link between the advert and album covers. His main colour is orange. it s bright and makes the products stand out. His font goes with his style so it is relevant to the artist. His logo is a pawprint and you can see him holding a cat in his advertisement. This is a very smart synergy link. You can see the artist face on each product and the relevant information is on each. the sizing isn't too big and take away from the style and theme of the artist.

 

 

Jessie J: I liked Jessie J's album covers and advertisement because of how clear the link is. The colour scheme is the same. It is simple but effective; black, white and gold. It looks stylish and professional. The font is distinguishable and it stands out. She has one particular pose she has used for the advert and album which is good and there is relevant information on each, but not too much so it feels like all you're doing is reading.

Ancillary Work Research: Group Ideas

Ancillary Work Research: Similar Album Covers

Ancillary Work Do's and Don't's

Ancillary Work Introduction

Ancillary: gaining inspiration

Below I have included a mood board of album and single covers from music artists, in order to gain some inspiration when it comes to creating my own digipak design:
I have chosen these album covers as my focus for inspiration as I would like to use a simple colour scheme, as I believe these are most successful; they are subtly unique in their own way and don't jump at the potential buyer too much with too much going on at once. Furthermore, to follow the conventions of synergy between each product (music video, album cover, advert) so that the audience can see the clear links between all products, and increases awareness of the artist and their products. I have chosen this colour scheme (black, white, and possibly one other colour) because as a group, we decided to include black rose petals in the chorus of the music video as our synergous object which would appear throughout all products. Furthermore, white is a contrasting colour against black, so it would be effective in standing out and being attractive. Simplicity is key.

FINAL VIDEO

29. Aliyah, Djamel, Kevin, Taija from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Ancillary Products: last years ancillary texts

Here is the digipak that I designed last year in preparation for this year's ancillary work.
We done Madonna vogue and wanted to have our artist on the front cover with distinguishable text to relate to the style and theme of the artist.

Ancillary: Summary of the Do's and Dont's

Ancillary: What is a digipak?

Simply put, a digipak is the modern conventional method in which art is used to present a CD or DVD. It is a way in which an artist can be presented visually to potential and existing target audiences, drawing them in. Typically, a digipak also includes a stapled or folded booklet inserted in the inside of the pack. They are generally aesthetically pleasing, with sophisticated depictions of graphics that are found through the digipak, creating a standard level of consistency. They usually come with 4, 6, or 8 panels folding outwards and they also give the choice of being able to include more than one CD.