Digipak: Research & Development

Below is the research and development Rachelle has done on the covers, back, as well as the inside of the indie-pop album.

Indie-pop Album Conventions

• Front Cover

• Artist name

• Album name

• Often mixed media between ‘cartoon’ and ‘real life’ and contains doodles/patch work

• Grainy texture

• Often gives off vintage and/or nostalgic vibes

• Has soft, muted colors

• Back Cover

• Tracklist

• Vintage fonts/handwritten

• Color scheme and image/drawings included match the front cover

• Production company credit

• Barcode

• Inside/Content

• Plastic tray/cardboard slot that holds CD

• Color scheme and illustrations match both front and back cover

• Lyrics/thank-you note

• Handwritten style fonts

After doing research on the typical conventions of pop music albums, I looked deeper into several different albums to help me create a digipak for our music video album. 

Beabadoobee - Beatopia

 

As seen in most indie-pop album covers, the Beatopia album conveys a deep meaning which Beabadoobee explains to be an imaginary dreamland that she had in her childhood. I really like the pastel colors used on this album cover and the rather messy and child-like doodles effectively convey the meaning that Beabadoobee wants the audience to feel. It gives off a very nostalgic and whimsical feel. Her album subverts some of the conventions for indie-pop album covers such as the presence of the artist’s name and album title. This causes the audience’s focus to be directed to only the artwork, standing on its own, making it feel like a visual storytelling rather than just an album cover.

The back cover suits the indie-pop genre as it matches the front cover , has a tracklist, and includes a barcode for consumers/audience to scan. She puts the album title on the back cover instead of the front cover, which subverts the typical conventions of indie-pop album covers. Moreover, she also subverts this convention by using handwritten, kind of scribbled font, unlike how indie-pop album covers usually use clean.

The CD cover for the Beatopia album, in my opinion, doesn’t really match in terms of color with the front and back cover. I will keep in mind not to do this for our music video’s CD cover.

Although Beabadoobee doesn’t have a fixed logo, she still shows her branding effectively as the early y2k nostalgia as well as a soft but rebellious girl. She often uses handwritten fonts and scrapbook visuals on her albums and products, therefore why I stated that the Beatopia album conveys her branding effectively. At first glance, the Beatopia album may not look ‘rebellious’, especially due to the pastel colours used, but if closer attention is given, there are subtle features in the doodles such as monsters and cigarettes which conforms to Beabadoobee’s star persona of being rebellious yet soft. Moreover, the album doesn’t involve any camera work as it is just doodles. 

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

Lykke Li conforms to several indie-pop album conventions as she includes the album and artist name on the front cover, uses muted colors, mixed media, as well as having grainy texture. This makes her album easily identifiable as an indie-pop album. The album uses a close up shot of the side profile of the artist, Lykke Li, as one of the features of the cover. Although it conforms to more conventions of indie-pop albums, compared to the Beatopia album, I think that this album doesn’t really attract my eyes and comes off as rather bland and doesn’t really capture the audience’s attention. 

The back cover of this album, again not only is bland but uses a font that is difficult to read. The tracklist font sort of blends in with the background as not only is it thin but it also has a similar color with the background. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any images of this album’s CD cover.

Lykke Li doesn’t have a logo, however, she still shows her branding effectively as mysterious and melancholic where she often uses monochrome visuals, as well as raw photography using medium-close ups on her products. 

This album has influenced me as I know what not to do for the digipak for our music video, which is not to use bland colors or fonts that are too thin or similar in color with the background so that audiences can easily read as well as be attracted to the album. However, the use of mixed media where she uses a photograph of herself and mixes it with digital elements is interesting, so I may take this as inspiration for our digipak.

Below are other 7 album covers that I have researched and found inspiring. 

I really like how mixed media is utilized on the ‘In My Mind’ (top left) and ‘Space Cadet’ (bottom left) albums. Moreover, the hue, as well as tone of colors for the ‘Japanese Breakfast’ and ‘Sometimes, Forever’ album portrays a nostalgic and bittersweet feeling, which is exactly what me and my teammates plan to convey in our music video, as well as digipak as our theme is separation and graduation; friends going separate ways to chase their own dreams/live a new life. I will definitely take these considerations into note and use these album covers as inspirations for our digipak. 

Below are 6 CD covers that I have researched and found inspiring. 

I really like the simplicity of these back covers as it allows for the tracklist to be easily readable, as it doesn’t completely take away the audience’s focus from it. Moreover, the grainy texture used for the Lamp album covers (position) gives off a sense of nostalgia, which correlates to our theme – graduation and friendships. I believe that it symbolizes the bittersweet feeling that comes with graduating, how we’ve closed a chapter of our lives to open a new one, and how the once cherished memories eventually fade away as time goes on. Most of them use pictures of sceneries or landscapes, I think that it's simple enough so that it doesn’t take away the focus from the tracklist but isn’t too simple that it looks bland. 

Below is the research I have done on album titles

After several research, I chose 6 of these album titles as inspiration. Although some of these albums are old, I still chose to take them as inspiration because their one-word titles are very simple yet powerful. It evokes a strong emotion as well as helps to get the audience to remember the album title more easily. If audiences remember the album title easily, it can lead to higher sales and revenue as well as recognition for the album. I would like to take inspiration from these for our album title. 

According to the research I’ve done, here are a few options for the album title that I’ve made:

• Us.

• Nostalgia

• Chapters

• Forever

• Timelines

• Unwritten

• Fragments 

• Reminiscence

After a discussion with my teammates, we decided on the album title “Reminiscence” as it perfectly captures the bittersweet feelings of looking back on the memories shared with our past friends. The word evokes nostalgia. Why I didn’t choose nostalgia was because although it conveys a sense of longing for the past, the word reminiscence has a more personal touch to it. 

After reviewing with our teacher, I discovered that most album titles are just the title of an artist’s most popular song. With this discovery, I researched this convention on Spotify, a famous digital music and podcast app. Below are examples of albums with one of the artist’s songs as its title.

• Love Goes – Sam Smith

• Glue Song – Beabadoobee

• Marching in Time – Tremonti

• Future Nostalgia – Dua Lipa

• Moon Music – Coldplay

• People Watching – Sam Fender

Additionally, Jasmine had suggested that a signed poster in addition to the digipak would be good and I agreed as it adds a personal touch to the album and makes it seem like a “limited-edition” product, which can encourage audiences to purchase the album so that they don’t “miss out”. An example of this is the Chapel Roan signed poster in her recent album, I’ve pasted a picture of it below.

Below is the adaptation we made of it:

Here are the drafts I’ve made for digipak. I first sketched them out on paper, then developed the best options in detail. 

Front Cover

Sketch:

Development:

Above are the mock-ups for the front cover that I made. I experimented with fonts such as handwritten, digital, as well as both. I compiled all the mock-ups into Canva so that it’s easier to organize. At first, I used digital drawings on the artist’s picture (Jasmine) as seen on the 1st to 6th mock-up. However, I wanted to experiment more as it didn’t look good enough due to the dark aesthetic which didn’t match the aesthetic we had on most scenes in our music video, therefore it won’t create a good branding. I then tried to make a scrapbook themed cover with stickers, handwritten titles, and drawings. I glued everything together using paper glue and stuck them onto a notebook and blank A4 paper. I didn’t quite like how mock-up 7 and 8 looked as it seemed rather empty and didn’t have enough colors. I then further experimented on fonts and font colors for the rest of the mock-ups. 

We decided to choose mock-up number 17 as our front cover. This is because not only does the color scheme match with our branding, but is unique as not many indie-pop albums do scrapbook themes, even if they’re mixed media. This can help differentiate our album from other artists, therefore customers can recognize our album more easily. I love how the overall look gives a sense of nostalgia, from the color scheme to the way stickers and everything were done on a notebook as it brings the audience back to their childhood or teenage years, where they used to have cute stickers, use colorful/pastel colors for everything, etc. The contrast between the dark picture and bright decorations portray the bittersweet feeling of separation, which is our theme, where we feel happy yet a side of us can’t help but mourn for the lost relationships/friendships.

Back Cover

Sketch:

Development:

I decided to try to put a grass picture for the back cover but it was too dark, and again, didn’t match with our branding. I didn’t take the bird picture as it didn’t fit my research, which was to have a simple back cover. For the mock-ups 5-8, I decided to match the colors and aesthetic with the front cover so that the digipak looks well put together as a whole. I ripped up the notebook which I wrote the tracklist on and stuck it onto a blank piece of A4 paper then stuck a sticker onto it. In the mock-ups, I experimented on the position of the illustration to see which one looks the best. 

Above is the back cover that we chose. This is because the placement of the paper in the middle looks the best due to the effective use of negative space. The other two mock-ups (7 & 8) had one side that looked very empty, therefore why I didn’t choose them.

Inside

Sketch:

Development: 

Chosen:

I chose the scrapbook idea from the sketches and did 2 different types of the scrapbook. I ended up choosing the 3rd mock-up since it conveys our artist’s branding the most where she is artistic, as it shows her drawing. For the drawing, I asked my team mate (Jasmine) who plays as the artist to sketch a picture of herself for me to use. 

Self-Reflection:
I think that the digipaks turned out great! I actually think that I engaged a lot with the creation of the digipak as I helped to create the poster, color grading the image and signing the picture, I drew the doodle, I took the pictures of myself, and I also suggested the scrapbook digipak idea to Rachelle first, suggesting that she do a mixed media digipak as that is often seen in indie-pop artist digipaks. I think that it was fun seeing Rachelle's progress with the digipak and suggesting improvements every step of the way. I also had fun with trying out new poses and compositions, as seen in the poster, as it let me be creative. I also had fun with drawing the sketch that was used in the inside of the digipak as I also do really like drawing. Given enough time though, I would suggest improvements such as adding squirrels somewhere on the digipak as that is the animal that the artist associates herself with, and her loyal audience would also enjoy seeing the little easter egg if they know what animal she associates herself with as well!