Digipak

Cover Artwork Design

Tyler, The Creator - Tyler

As a research task, we were asked to design a piece of album artwork for an artist of our choice - my choice of artist was Tyler, The Creator. I chose to do a simple, monochromatic piece of artwork to reflect his choices of black-and-white filming techniques in his music videos - the video shown below for his song Yonkers demonstrates this, and also contains the position of him I used on the artwork -  are simplistic yet effective, which I also tried to achieve with this piece.

Tyler, The Creator - Yonkers

Digipak Artwork: First Idea

The idea for this piece of digipak artwork pretty much came out of the blue, but I feel it works well for my choice of song. The inspiration was the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters  that have become popular at the moment - and the spins-offs which have come of its resurgence (examples of the original and spin offs around it). I then found an online poster generator (www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk) which allows you to create your own text and/or image. I created the text, and then add the musical note and arranged them accordingly in Photoshop. I like the artwork because I feel it simple and effect; reflects the individuality of the piece of music, and also reflects Randy Newman's blend of comedy and serious sentiment in his songs.

Cover Artwork Characteristics

When creating my digipak, I felt that I would benefit from looking at other album artwork from artists of the same genre - in the case of Randy Newman, the jazz/blues pop genre - in order to identify some key characteristics that are displayed throughout the genre.

Gil-Scot Heron - I'm New Here

The first piece of artwork I looked at was from an artist more well-know in jazz and spoken word music -Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron's album artwork is interesting, and it is easy to identify a couple of features which could be used in the genre as a whole - the close-up photo of the artist smoking is a promotion not only of the jazz artist but the lifestyle, with the black-and-white colour scheme, which emphasises the mood of the music and the artist sharply contrasting the simple, neon font. The overall effect is simple, but very powerful - a blend of youth and aged wisdom in music.

Hugh Laurie - Let Them Talk

The second piece of artwork I looked at comes from an artist who has a very similar in style to Randy Newman's - meaningful blues music with a heavy touch of comedy. His artwork therefore is in effectively the same genre, and also has some easily identifiable characteristics - once again, the use of a black-and-white close-up photo of the artist emphasises the feel of the album and both the age and maturity of the artist. The simple font and colouring of the text come together with the photograph to create another simple, but effective piece of album artwork.

Jamie Cullum - The Pursuit

The third and final piece of artwork I looked at comes from an artist who is arguably to most famous jazz-pop musician working today - Jamie Cullum. I felt it was necessary to look at Cullum's artwork because his music leans more towards pop music, which is something my artist would sing, as well as jazz. Cullum's artwork is different to the two others in a number of ways, but they still share some key features - Cullum's image as a whole is a lot more exciting with the explosion of the piano in the background, which makes reference to him being much younger and more energetic than both Scot-Heron and Laurie. Yet the image still has a huge focus on the artist in the foreground and, although the use of black-and-white photography is not present, the colour scheme is still very simple - the use of varying shades of blue set against a white backdrop. The one feature that is fully shared is the simple artwork, showing both the artist's name and the title of the album in clear, simple font.

Characteristics

From these three pieces of album artwork, I can identify some key features that I will use when creating my piece of album artwork, which are:

• Use of simple colour schemes, often either black-and-white or with one colour
• Simple, clear font
• The artist is the dominant focus in the artwork
• The artwork often reflects the mood of the album
• The artwork can reflect certain personal aspects of the artists, such as age

Digipak Front Cover Design

From my analysis of similar music videos from the genre, the first panel of my digipak that I was able to complete was the front cover. I made several different covers, but I picked out three, because I feel they show the best progression towards the final product.

First Design

My first design used the opening image from my music video, and I felt was a strong piece of artwork. However, I felt that it didn't properly fit the characteristics of the genre, the artist had his back turned to the artist, and whilst the artwork was simple, it wasn't striking enough.

Second Design

My second design also used a shot from my music video, but was a stronger piece for a number of reasons. The black-and-white style photography used in other pieces from the genre worked well creating a powerful silhouette effect, with the text being simple, yet powerful enough to add to the image. However, I felt that it was necessary to make a small change to the image in order to perfect it.

Final Design

My third and final piece was very similar to my second, with the only change being the angle at which the artist's head is leaning. I felt this position seemed to create the sense of thought and loss that embodied the song, with the black-and-white photography and simple, powerful font coming together to create a very powerful piece of album artwork and the front cover of my digipak.

Digipak Back Cover Design

When creating a digipak, or in fact any kind of music CD, the back cover is almost equally as important as the front in relaying the style of the music and the artist. I knew to continue the themes I had extracted from the analysis of other front covers from the genre, so creating the back covers was a lot more simple. I created two pieces of potential back cover artwork, which are both shown below.

First Design

For my back cover design, I decided to keep the black-and-white stylisation, but use an powerful, but slightly more muted back image. I liked this design because of the change in font seemed more subdued by bringing back in lower-case lettering, and the image was still a prominent one. However, I felt the text had the right shape but did not fit the image well enough.

Final Design

For my final design, I chose another image of the artist behind the piano, however the lack of focus gave the subdued effect that I wanted on the back cover. Also, the sharp font compliments the out-of-focus image.

Digipak Inside Cover Design

The final piece of the digipak artwork is artwork for the inside, which is just as important when creating the overall aesthetic of the digipak. I knew exactly what I wanted for my digipak design, so I only made one design.

Final Design

I wanted to use a very powerful image for the inside cover, and contrast the monochromatic colour scheme I had used for the front and back covers. It still follows the conventions by having a meaning associated to the music video and, as a result, the style of the artist. 

Full Digipak Design

The designs above show the final design for the whole digipak. The top image shows just the images combined, where as the bottom image shows the digipak net showing each section and the cut and bleed lines.