PRODUCTION: Final Album Cover (Digipak)

The top image is the front of my cover and the bottom is the back of my cover. I chose to have white text as it clearly stands out against the images. The front album cover does follow the general codes and conventions of an album cover, but I wanted to also put my own twist on the album. I did this by adding a lyric from the song that I am doing the music video to. I thought that this added a much more personal touch to the album as the lyric is quite inspirational and meaningful. I photographed the image on the right a week after I photographed the one on the left. As you can see, the image has a lot of purple tones in it and originally the image on the left had more blue cool tones in it. Therefore, to make the images simultaneous, I edited the tones of the image on the right slightly.

These are the inserts within the album, inspired by Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ album. I plan to print these images out as polaroid’s and have them as inserts in the album. The polaroid's have the artist’s name on, Dodie Clark, as well as a lyric from the song that I am creating a music video for. I thought that this was a simplistic, yet effective way of promoting the music video as hopefully people would share the polaroid's on social media platforms when they receive their albums. ‘Super fans’ could also share where they have pinned up their polaroid's around their room as well. There are a total of six polaroid's within the album pack – a day and night edition. I have photographed all of the images within the album as I believe this makes the album more authentic and personal. The images above are from the night edition, I wanted them to reflect the cosy and chilled vibes that some of the songs within the album give off.

The images above are from the ‘day’ edition of the polaroid's. I wanted to keep in with the artsy shots as I think these would more widely be shared by my teenage target audience. Again, I wanted the photographs to mirror some of the vibes that the lyrics were depicting. The songs are powerful, yet relaxing at the same time. This is a notion that I have hopefully mirrored within my album cover and photographs.

With all of these images, I was finally able to compile my digipak panels. I couldn't decided whether I wanted to use four or six panels, so I designed both. I used some templates to roughly design where everything would go on my digipak. I would have my front and back panel in their appropriate place and then I would use the polaroids to opt as the extra panels on the digipak. I think that this is a good idea as they have the lyrics of the song Party Tattoos on. Any polaroids that will not be used on the panels of the digipak will be inserted as physical polaroids in a small pocket inside of the digipak, almost acting like an exclusive 'freebie' when the consumer buys the album. Here are some of the designs I have created of the digipak, with the black background one being my final design:

PRODUCTION: Audience Feedback for Back of Album Cover/Posters

Above are some images that I have taken for my digipak poster and the back of the album cover. I really like how these images have turned out as I think that the sunset really compliments the vibes of the music video. The red coat also contrasts against the pastel background and stands out. I asked my peers which photographs they liked in particular. The response was that the favourites were mainly the last two images. My peers liked the contrast and opacity of the image as you could still see the artist's face and the colours still remained visually pleasing and still stand out. I agree with these comments as I think that the third from last image is too saturated and the colours look a bit false. I think that this would be a quite distracting image if it was the poster or album image. I also feel like the images with the grass bank in are quite busy and packed in with objects, therefore I think that this would distract the viewer from the important detail on the album or poster.

PRODUCTION: Update On Album Cover and Audience Feedback

I decided to experiment with the album cover as I wasn't particularly sure if I completely liked the font on my first few drafts as I thought it looked a bit childish. Therefore, I have decided to make an array of completely opposite album covers. I decided to completely strip the complexity of the album cover back and make it much more raw, which reflects the song. I still really like the portraiture image as it is of the artist in my music video. I also experimented with adding lyrics to some of the album covers. After gathering audience feedback, I made multiple versions of the more successful albums, experimenting with what image I should use.

This album cover is simply black and white with the title stretching across the image. The artist's name is located at the bottom, however I feel like this sort of blends into the black and white effect used. I asked a select group of people within my target audience their thoughts on this particular album cover and some of the main responses were 'it's a bit too plain', 'nothing's really going on', 'doesn't reflect the song very well due to the song being quite lively, this is more serious toned'. In conclusion, I have decided that I won't be using this album cover.

The next album cover was more successful out of the bunch. A member of my target audience described this particular cover as 'simple, yet effective'. I was also complimented on the use of lyrics at the bottom as members of my target audience said that the quote was 'inspirational'.

Again, this is one of the more successful covers. This cover was described as 'quite raw, but aesthetically pleasing'. The imagery seems like a success, due to most of the colours being quite cool toned. However, the use of the added rainbow makes me question if the rawness is taken away. Therefore, I will highly consider leaving the rainbow out of the imagery. The font also reflects the type of font used in the music video.

This cover was not as successful as my target audience explained that there are 'too many different fonts'. A consistent font would probably be a bit easier to read from afar.

My target audience liked this album cover as well, due to the aesthetic it brings. The typewrite font adds more of a personal feel to it. When asked whether they prefer the album cover with or without lyrics, members of my targets audience said with.

These are now my shortlisted front album covers, I also intend to recreate the back of the album as well before making a final decision.

PRODUCTION: Drafts/Design of Album Cover and Explanation

These are some initial image designs for the front of the album cover. I decided to keep the first initial design quite simple. The colours are pastel colours which are reflected throughout the music video. The image is a portraiture image of the artist/the girl in the video. I liked how the lighting came across as the viewer can only see the face, the background is in complete darkness. Shadows are also overcasted on the subject's face, highlighting one of the key binary oppositions - light vs dark. The light being her mother and the dark being the immature youth that she seems to constantly be trapped in. The light and shadows possibly reflect the narrative that is depicted within the lyrics. I also included a rainbow overlay on the portrait as the rainbow colours are renown as being as symbol for freedom and diversity. I wanted this to be included as within the lyrics there is this problem of the girl having either too much freedom or not enough.

I used all mobile apps to edit the first initial idea images. To begin with, I used Afterlight to adjust the contrast, brightness and shadows of the plain image. This made the foundation image stand out slightly better. I then went into an app called Superimpose and found an image of a rainbow overlay on Google, adjusting the opacity and transparency as I overlayed it onto the foundation image. The next stage was adding some more detail to the images. I wanted it to be more than just a single image. So, I went back onto the Afterlight app and started to explore how different shapes impacted the image. I decided to settle with a simple '+' sign. This overlayed on top of the image, giving it a third layer. I edited the colour to a pastel blue, so that it fitted in with the vibe of the music video. I then kept editing the colour, so that there was a variety of pastel colours to use. I went back into Superimpose and started to overlay the different pastel colours on top of each other, creating a variety of different designs.

The next stages are to add text, such as the artist's name and the album name to the front of the cover. I also need to look at designed the back cover to the album and explore what detail needs to be placed on there.

After this, I used the app Phonto to start adding text to the designs. I added the artist's name, Dodie Clark, as well as the album title. I decided that the album title should be the song that I am doing the music video to as the album cover and visuals in the music video are similar.

The next stages were designing the back of the album cover. I selected the pink and blue version of the front of the album cover as I thought that it looked the best out of the three. I wanted the same similar pink and blue design on the back of the album, however I wanted to add some 'doodles' to the back to reflect the song, instead of having an image from the music video. I based the back cover from one of the lyrics in Party Tattoos - 'Black lipstick will never be a sin' as I thought that it would add another dimension to the cover. From this, I overlaid relating images such as black lips and black angel wings to the cover. I also began adding items such as stars and eyes as I thought that it reflected some of the visuals displayed in the music video.

 After experimenting a bit with what images could go on the back of the cover, I decided to add the relevant information, such as the barcode and the copyright information. This is when it started to look like a proper CD cover. I decided to primarily keep the text in the colour white, however this did prove a bit hard to read, therefore I outlined the text slightly with a pastel colour so it was a bit more easier to read. Again, I decided to do several designs for this, so that I could select the best one.

I thought that it was important for the album name to be displayed on the back as well. I then began to add a list of songs that would be on the album, including the song for my music video, Party Tattoos.

Whilst designing these, I thoroughly considered my target audience throughout - a young female. I thought that the pink and blue colours blended well and the images are perhaps something a young female would like, but they also heavily relate to the song as well.

Final Designs -
I decided to select these two as my final designs as I really liked the colour combination. I also thought that the composition was well fitting.

PRODUCTION: Creative Journey - Post Eleven - 24/1/18

The editing process of my project is now complete. I have added light leaks and inserted the clips that I filmed the other week. I am happy with how my overall coursework has gone. I think I could have stuck to my schedule a little better, but due to unforeseen circumstances, such as the weather conditions, I was unable to completely stick to it. However, I am glad that I have finished it and now I just have the evaluation questions to complete. I exported my video from Premiere Pro and uploaded it on Youtube for easy access.

PRODUCTION: Creative Journey - Post Ten - 18/1/18

I have finally finished the filming stage of my music video. I have spent the last couple of weeks filming final parts of the music video (such as the guitar playing parts and the projections). I particularly enjoyed filming the projections as it proved to be something a bit different. I chose to project tattoo designs onto the actress' face as it looked quite unique and it was a quite fun concept. I found filming the guitar stage quite challenging as my actress didn't know how to play the guitar, therefore I'm not sure how well the guitar playing matches up with an instrumental section of the song. However, I will add some light leaks to these clips in the editing stage so it distracts the viewer from the actual guitar. Over the next week, I hope to complete the whole of my editing. I just need to cut the clips that I have filmed recently and import them into my project. I also need to add some more light leaks to some of the clips so that the music video has the same sort of vibe throughout it.

PRODUCTION: Creative Journey - Post Nine - 2/12/17

I am coming to an end with creating my album cover. I have finished making all of the Polaroids and finished creating the back of the cover as well. I am going to create a final blog post talking about it in more detail as I would like to evaluate my decisions. I am really happy with how the images turned out, however I had to edit the front of the album cover so that it had more pink/purple tones within it, and therefore matched the back of the album cover more simultaneously. The front of the album cover had more blue cool tones in it, I am more happy with how it looks now. My next step is to create a poster and a spine for the album cover and then hopefully I will have finished my print products and can solely concentrate on the final edit of the music video.