Just a few initial ideas for my Digipak design

I have started to think about different designs for my final Digipak for our chosen artist; Passion Pit (of which we don't have to keep the original name, but I have chosen to keep it).

I thought it would be a good idea to look into the types of album artwork which artists within the indietronica genre have produced, and to follow similar guidelines and patterns. When looking into the different album artworks, I noticed that it is very rare for the artists face(s) to feature on the album cover or anywhere within the Digipak. Therefore I needed to think about what sort of image(s) I would like on the album cover and within the Digipak. I originally started to think of different colours which coincide with the indietronica genre and from there would then try to think of appropriate images which could be used. Originally, for some reason, I decided that I wanted to use warm colours such as different shades of pink for my album cover. This then led me onto think about what would look good whilst using different shades of pink, of which I originally thought of paint splatters all over the album cover. Given that we are not allowed to copy any pictures from Google or the internet, this was difficult because I needed to find some transparent paint splatters on the internet, of which I was not allowed to do.

I started to look through my iphoto to see what photos I have taken over the years and if there were any suitable ones which could be used. After browsing my iphoto I thought it would be my best shot to look through the album to my most recent trip to California, which featured a variety of different landscape photos, such as; palm trees, the sky, the sea etc. I then started to play around with some different pictures on Photoshop and to see how they would look as a potential album cover.

This was the very first artwork which I created for the album cover. I chose to use a picture of the sea which I had taken when I went on holiday in the summer to California. I felt that the sea reflects calmness and relaxation, of which indietronica features a lot of.

Pros: Very simple, the audience are immediately made aware of the artist.

Cons: It is very calming, much like a lot of the music within the indietronica genre. Yet to me, the indietronica genre screams 'excitement' and 'colourful', of which the album artwork covers neither category. Therefore this may be too simple of an album cover for an indietronica artist.








I was then thinking of different landscape pictures which I might have taken over the years (on holiday, on my phone etc) which could look really cool and effective on the album cover. After a while of thinking, given my weird (yet amazing) palm tree obsession, I realised that I would have a massive library of palm trees from over the years and from different countries which I could use. I then realised that when I went to California in the summer I must have taken a solid amount of photos of palm trees, and therefore I found these two photos from Venice Beach and I felt that either of the two would appropriately fit the ideas I had for my Digipak.

Once again I started to play around with these photos on Photoshop as potential album covers. After playing about with Photoshop for about an hour, here were a few of the very first outcomes:

Obviously none of these are anywhere near the finished product. These are just a rough starting ground for the Digipak design. I was just playing around with different settings and effects in order to see which work best. None of these three designs really caught my eye as being "the one".

I further explored and experimented, and came to a different outcome: (Once again just a starting ground, which so far seems to be my favourite)

Pros: Very colourful and shows a fairly good representation of the indietronica genre. Also follows a very clear layout and structure, which makes this a visible product within the market and on shop shelves. The colour scheme fits in well with my initial desire of including 'warm' colours, i.e. pink. 

Cons: The palm trees are not visible enough as the pink diamond in the middle is blocking out some of them. Therefore I need to alter the transparency of the diamond so that the palm trees can perhaps be more visible. The artist name with the strap line across the cover may need to be replaced with the album name and to then put the artist's name elsewhere on the album in a smaller font than the album title.

Pros: The warm colour texture of this album artwork coincides nicely with the use of palm trees. I like the 'deluxe edition' strap line at the top of the album cover as it adds a bit of quirkiness to the overall cover. The artist name and album title are then displayed in the centre of the album cover with a black transparent box around it, which makes it stand out to the customer.

Cons: I think that the black transparent boxes might need to be a bit darker as they don't stand out in contrast to the background as much as I would have initially liked them to.





I still felt as though none of these really stood out to me, and were all pretty much part of the experiment of the build up to the chosen artwork. I was happy with the art of the palm tree, so I decided to keep that as the key feature on the album cover.

After playing about with photoshop for a little longer, and once I had discovered some new tools to experiment around with, I got to work and wanted to create a final album artwork, which can be seen below:

(Update 19th Dec): The more I was looking at my digipak design, the more I felt that something wasn't right about it. After thinking about the context of my digipak cover I realised that it was the colour scheme which I didn't particularly like, I felt that the colour scheme was too bright and needed to be darkened. Therefore I played around with photoshop and resulted in a new outcome: