Construction In My Digipak

This is my process in constructing my digipak and the stages involved... 

Firstly, after doing a small test on a few images that I had taken, just to give myself an idea of what I was doing and to get a basic template which i could eventually improve on. After doing this I decided that I should start creating the digipak, since I had played around with the effects and had selected suitable photos to feature in my digipak. 

I began by making a paper template of the desired effect I wanted from my digipak and what I initially thought would look good. This planning was to help waste less time and to prepare me for placing everything together. Although I made this template I still had to play around with fonts and test out colour schemes in order for my house style to be consistent.

All in place

inside left 

inside right

front cover

back cover

I started by looked at a ranger of fonts as seen below.

I considered the house style carefully and what would be the most appropriate font for my digipak, out of those above. In the end I chose a font called "Port Credit" which is the third font down from the list above. I chose this font as I felt it was relatable to the house style and the photo which I used for the front cover. However, I had to consider this font not only for the front cover but also for the other panels on the digipak. I found this font suited well, as it was simplistic in its own way, was not too thick, and had a small curve on the ends on some of the lettering. Therefore, before deciding that I would definitely use it I tested it against other fonts and compared each to one another. After doing this, I did in the end chose this font due to its versatility and the ability to adapt to its surrounding very naturally as, the others did not have this versatility.

Front Cover

For my new front cover, I decided to keep the first image I had originally created in my "tester" front covers as I felt it conveyed the image of being "so close, yet so far away" which is the subliminal message in the music video, so it is linked in that way to my video. Here I added in a lighting effects to darken the picture and highlight the characters in the middle. This enabled me to work around the effect I had laid on the picture, such as adjusting the brightness and contrast of the picture. I was not completely satisfied by the lighting effect that I put on so I decided to use the gradient tool, which was set, black - transparent so that I could enhance these faded edges around the picture. As no one has perfect skin, I also had to use the spot healing brush tool, just to erase some blemishes and scars off of both faces, along with the red eye tool as this occurred too.    

gradient tool

brightness and contrast

 

showing where I added the effects in my labels

      

"FX" to add drop shadow

Next I added in the desired text that I wanted, this was after I had played around with all the different style that I liked and I thought were most appropriate. I then had to position it and choose a colour for it also. I decided to go plain and make the font white, as any dark colour would not allow the font to stand out against the dark background. To compliment the white and to help the font become more eye catching and noticeable, I put a subtle black drop shadow behind the text which is not so obvious at first however, it does enhance the text and it becomes the most attracting characteristic of the front cover, like a digipak should be. I also applied this effect to the name of the album, again to enhance it. However, I altered it somewhat, I also put a slight gradient across the "Way Back Home" text so that it had a bit of a 3D and shaded quality like the original Bag Raiders album. It does not detract from the other text of the image, yet, it is still noticeable, which means it has the right balance of contrast. 

to help eliminate spots and blemishes

Back Cover

Following on from the front cover, I next wanted to start the back cover which required a bit of extra research. I looked into the legal and copyright issues on a digipak and I added this onto the back of my own digipak. These are things such as, "copyright" and even adding in the website of the recording company along with copyright terms such as who owns the song and the lyrics writers for the album. Accompanying this was the barcode which you see on every album so that it can be purchased. I changed the fonts for these specific parts as it was legal rights and using the font that I had used for titles and text would be inappropriate. 

I kept the house style similar as I darkened the edges using the lighting effects and then enhanced this slightly by using the gradient tool. Again, to keep the house style and the conventions the same the original font that is used on the font was used on the back cover for the track list, this made the font recognisable to the audience. 

I positioned the track list down the centre of the photo as there was a lot of "negative space" around the characters heads and acted as a divide between both of them, again, exhausting the idea that they are "so close yet so far away". The house style is kept the same, in the font of the track list and is spaced enough so that it is not too close together and not too far apart.

Insides

The two inside pages that I have put together were one original image, that i simply split into two. I decided that by splitting the image it would create an exaggerated effect of the concept behind the video; "I can feel you in the distance but you seem so far away", this quotes the lyrics from the song where they are "so close, yet so far away" . This idea was simplistic yet effective in keeping the house style, the black gradient fading around the edges and the brightness on the face of the character was kept brighter and with a slight bit of contrasting added. I did this for both pictures. I placed the both back to back so that each panel was divided by the spine in the centre of the digipak, again to highlight the individuals isolation.

inside left

However, on the inside left image, showing James' face, I had to edit the background slightly as where I had taken this photo at night in the dark, some of the background lights did not show up on the far left of this particular photo. However, because there were some lights in the background, in Photoshop I simply used the clone stamp tool to clone some of the lights to cover the rest of the darkened image so that it did not look like I had added onto the photo to fit the size. The lights were arranged in a random and spontaneous order to make the image look as if it had not been edited in this area, and to make it look more realistic. 

inside right

CD

To keep a consistent house style, I decided that by using the front cover on the digipak and the magazine for the CD cover would be the best option as not only does it promote the image of the CD further it also is a memorable image for audiences to remember as it is used so frequently in promoting the band.