Revised: Digipak Research

To begin planning my Digipak i researched other artists albums who had a similar genre to that of The Wild Wolves. Initially i mainly looked to the front covers of the albums (as they are usually the first impression, and the back-cover/inside relates to the front) and found some pictures that i have posted below. I thought that by looking at a group of front covers by similar artists, I could establish and utilise any generic conventions seen in their album pictures.

This first CD cover belongs to James Morrison's first album, Undiscovered. James Morrison's music is little like The Wild Wolves, as it is more Indie-Pop than Indie-Folk, however he supports the Indie-Folk/Pop image with his soulful Indie music. This album cover is a simple image of him, the artist, marketing him to his new audience. The space in the picture includes his name and the album name, and there is a lighting effect/lens flare from the top right corner behind the artists head.

This next album cover belongs to Florence & The Machine - a relatively new "big" Indie band that has risen quickly in popularity. This album cover prominently focuses on the image of the lead singer (Florence) and the title of the album, "Lungs", with the text and the added imagery of a paid of lungs hanging from her neck like a necklace. This shows the bands Indie genre by developing a unique and interesting album cover whilst still focusing on the band - a marketing requirement.

The above 2 pictures (Jamie Cullum, Bob Marley) sport the artists face taking up the majority (and nearly the whole) of the mise-en-scene. This clearly shows the marketing aspect to the album, and also how important the image (and style) of the artist is. Each album cover has it's own unique feel to it, with Cullum's being cast purple and Marley's emphasising the warm colours (representative of Folk music).

Paolo Nutini's work is more colourful than the other productions (with Cullum's being just one flow of purple). Nutini also displays the animation side in his productions, which relate to his one animated music video and his genre (with animation and Indie becoming more strongly linked). These album covers above show his sense of his own music (colourful) and focus on how he is portrayed to the audience - animated, friendly, holding a guitar...

An image of the artist is shown in all of the above album covers - telling me that for a successfully Indie album cover, I must focus the mise-en-scene directly upon the artist, whether this is a large shot of the artists face, or a recurring image of the artist as seen in Nutini's "these streets" album cover.

Another recurring idea throughout the productions is the unique addition to the digipak - and the relation it has with a music video produced by the artist. This tells me that to make the digipak as attractive as possible, I should make a connection between the imagery on my digipak, and the imagery in my music video, to encode a personal flare of the artist into the print productions. This has given me a wide variety of ideas regarding the animation in our music video, which can be a strong link between productions, and a strong unique factor to my digipak.