R&P Post 59: Digipak Updates!

Hello and welcome back! We have now finished creating our digipak!

Previously we had only finished the front panel of our digipak which looks like this:

However, we have now completed the whole of our digipak! So after we created the front panel, we moved on to the back panel. 

For this panel we decided to use this photograph of Kati:

We chose to use another photograph of Kati in the same red and blue lighting in order to make her appearance to our audience more memorable. This will be achieved by repeating the use of these colours for the lighting, and by constantly using these colours in our marketing processes, our audience will come to associate these colours with our artist. 

So once we had chosen this photograph, we had to decide where we were going to position the names of Kati's songs on to the image. We have decided to add our artist's on to the back panel of our digipak because this is what the back panels of digipaks are always used for. It also allows our audience to easily see what songs are available on this album, making it easily accessible. 

Firstly we decided to edit out the chair in this image:

We chose to crop the chair out because it meant that we would have more space to work with when it came to adding the songs of the album. Once we had cropped out the chair by using the 'polygonal' tool which allows you to select specific areas of an image and then change them to how you want them to appear. Once we had edited the chair out of the picture, we changed the canvas size in order to size it to the correct measurements of our template. Then when this was completed, we used the 'polygonal' tool again to select the image of Kati herself, and we then copied and pasted it onto the correct canvas with a black background. When we had positioned the image of Kati correctly onto the new canvas we then blurred the outline of Kati's figure using the 'blur' tool to blend the image of her more into the black background so that it looked more natural. 

Once we had finished editing the photograph, we then had to add our artist's songs onto it. These are the names of the songs that we have included on Kati's debut album:

• You Are The Solution
• Girls Girls Girls 
• Electric Love
• The Boy
• T-Shirt
• Delete
• Advantage 
• Dream Of Me 
• Hold Me Close
• Love Like This

The names of each of these songs were inspired by our audience's interests and hobbies, and what our artist could represent to them, enabling them to connect on a more personal level with our artist. For example, Girls Girls Girls relates to our audience as the vast majority of our artist's audience will be young girls, thus this song title will stir their interest. This is similar to the song The Boy which implies a certain level of romance which is a key feature in our audience's lives. This demonstrates how we really considered the marketing of our artist and ensured that there is a constant connection between our audience and our artist. 

After this we had nearly finished completing our back panel. However, a few more details were still needed. When researching the back panels of digipaks we found that they always included a barcode, the name of the production company, the logo of the record label and copyright legalities. So we added all of these and this is now what our back panel looks like:

So once we had completed the back panel of our digipak, we moved on to the disc panel where we would place the physical CD for Kati's debut album. For this panel we chose to use another photograph of Kati:

The next step was to then change the canvas size in order to scale it to the correct measurements of the template. We then also decided to add a circle over the top of this image in order to show exactly where we would position the disc. When we first imported this circle into Photoshop it blocked out some of the photograph of Kati so we then selected it, using the 'magic wand' tool which automatically selects parts of an image that you click on, and once this was selected we decreased its opacity. This meant that all of the photograph of Kati was now visible. This is now what our disc panel looks like:

So once we had completed this panel of our digipak, all we had left to do was to complete one more panel. For this we decided to use a different image found from the internet. We decided that we wanted to use an image of graphically-designed roses. We researched what images we could possibly use for this on the internet and found picture such as these:

After we had discussed this as a group, we decided that our favourite image was the one in the bottom left-hand corner. We decided to use this image because not only do roses connote themes of femininity (a key theme for our female part of our audience who make up the majority), but this image also makes use of neon lights which makes it a much more exciting image for our audience. We also included images of neon lights and signs in our Pinterest moodboard that we created to represent who our audience would be and what interests they would have (accessible in one of my previous blog posts). This demonstrates how our audience would further be able to connect with our artist through including an image which includes neon lights. 

Once we had decided on which image to use for the last panel of our digipak we then imported it into Photoshop in order to edit its background. We wanted to change the colour of this background to a simple black in order to suit the rest of our colour scheme which predominantly consists of red and blue. Once we had changed the background to black, we then blurred the outline of the flowers by using the 'blur' tool in order to make it look more natural. As well as this, we used the 'paintbrush' tool on Photoshop to change the colour of the stem to green. In the original image it looks brown rather than green and we wanted to change this. So by selecting a green colour and using the 'paintbrush' tool, we painted over the stem but we also ensured that we decreased the opacity down to 20% in order to make it less obvious that this stem had been edited, once again giving the picture a more natural look. After this we added the name of Kati's album with a hashtag for the purpose of generating social media activity regarding our debut artist, enhancing the marketing side of things, and also added the link to Kati's website. We decided to add this text in order to ensure that this last panel did not look too empty compared to the others and whilst it was still relatively simplistic, it still had details within it.

So once this was finished we had completed the last panel of our digipak. We then put all the different panels together and positioned them in the correct order. This is what our digipak now looks like:

So we have now officially completed our digipak! We created our digipak entirely by using Photoshop which has significantly enhanced our skills with using this software programme, teaching us more about the different tools within Photoshop and how to use them and what to use them for. This has been very beneficial for us as a group as before creating our digipak, we had minimal experience with Photoshop but this task has taught us much more advanced skills with using this programme. For instance, we have learnt how to use different selection tools, including the 'magic wand', 'magnetic' and 'polygonal' tools, which have been very useful for us when we have wanted to take one part of an image and import it into a new document or another separate image. 

Thanks for reading!