Completing the Digipak

I had originally decided to do a 4 Panel Digipak however after some thought I changed my mind and decided on the 6 Panel Digipak. I use a CD template from Disc Wizards - link, opened up the template in Adobe Photoshop then inserted my images into the places I wanted them to go. After resizing and rotating set images, I had finally finished my digipak. In the images below the digipak itself looks faded but that is due to low ink and printing on paper not card. If I had printed on card and had full ink levels, I believe the quality of the digipak would differ.

Front Cover 

Inside 

Back 

The sides of the digipak are white as I was unsure what to put there, however if I were to do this again I would put the album title along the sides. 

Resizing Edited Images

Once I'd edited my images in iPhoto and by using PicMonkey, I then moved on to resizing the images in Adobe Photoshop. As one of the images is for behind the CD tray I did a mock up of a CD tray, to do this I used the shape tool and made the circles slightly transparent. Below are the two images that I resized.

Creating the Track List Image

As the video was filmed in Sapperton Close I wanted to include an image of the street sign. Even though the street sign is seen in the music video, I wanted to have a clearer image of it therefore I took a picture of it like I did with the images of my cast member. Below is the image once enhanced in iPhoto.

This image is yet to be resized, however I have still started to work on this image. As there's huge blank space of brick wall I came to the conclusion to use this as my back cover where the track listing would be. I have used the online photo editing software PicMonkey - link as I am then able to use the different tools and use the same fonts as I had previously. Below are the edited images I have created. 

The font used in this image is "Special Elite." 

The font used in this image is "Tall Dark and Handsome" 

The font used in this image is "Amatic Small Caps."

As stated in the front cover post - here. The "Amatic Small Caps" font comes across as too girly for the song; I'm not too keen on the "Special Elite" font as it gives off a vibe of club/dance music, therefore I am opting to use "Tall Dark and Handsome" which also works in comparison the website. As I've decided on which font to use, I have edit some the track list once more so it has the album track list. I am yet undecided as to whether I will create the digipak for the single or album or both. Below are the two edits which I composed. 

The listing was too spaced therefore instead of using one text box for everything I decided to break the text box apart, like I had done for the previous track listing images above. The outcome is below. 

If I decide to create the album digipak this is the image I will use for the track listing.

Behind the CD Tray Image

Having still to decide what image I should use for the front cover of my digipak, I decided to work on the image which will be behind the CD tray. As it would be covered by the CD I wanted to keep the image simple and not have much design to it as it would be hidden; therefore I created a grid from the location images - here and some images print screened from the music video itself. Below is an the orignal image I created with only using the enhance tool on iPhoto; nevertheless the picture still looks dull so I edited it further. (Seen below the image underneath.) 

Edited Image

As you can see the image is a lot more vibrant and brighter than the unedited image. Although I think this image is slightly too edited I like how it has turned out, and for seeing underneath the CD tray which I would opt to be frosted slightly I think it looks fine. To do this I used the the "Edge Blur" tool to slightly blur the edges, although this effect seems to have been lost with the editing. To give the image a brighter look I changed the sharpness, highlights, brightness and contrast. Using the sharpness element allowed me to make my image look less 'fuzzy' and more tighter in the terms of quality. 

The only editing that now needs to occur is the resizing to make sure it fits the width and height of the digipak. I'll be resizing the image in Adobe Photoshop.

Development of the Front Cover of Digipak

As mentioned in my previous I was going to use online photo editing software PicMonkey - link. This software is easily to use and very straight forward, adding text to the front cover of the digipak was easy especially with the different fonts available. I will be creating front covers for both the album "It Was This or Football" and the single "Our House is Dadless." Below I have embedded the different edits of the potential front cover for the single.

The text on this image is called "Special Elite." I believe this font works quite well, as it gives a broken edge to the font which when compared to the song fits in well with the broken lifestyle. E.g the father figure being non-existant.  

I have decided to keep the font very simplistic, therefore in this image I use the "Tall Dark and Handsome" font. Making the font white ensures it stands out against the orange jacket and the greyscale wall. I am hoping to use this colour throughout the full digipak. 

Similarly to the image above this image, I chose a simplistic basic font. This font is called "Amatic Small Caps" nevertheless I believe this font is too 'girly' for the image I'm trying to portray. Therefore I won't be using this font. 

Below I have used the same fonts as above, but for the "It Was This or Football." 

Once again I believe the "Amatic Small Caps" font is too girly, also I don't think the "Special Elite" font fits in very well with the genre, therefore I have decided to make continuous use of the "Tall Dark and Handsome" font. 

Editing Images for the Digipak

I first started with the images below which were enhanced in iPhoto, as I believed they were a little too dark and needed to look more vibrant especially as my cast member had a bright orange jacket. I decided to take my own images for the front of the digipak, rather than use images from the music video itself as I wanted the images to be sharper.

The top image is the image I intend to use for the front cover of the digipak, as I prefer this to the image below and the other images. Therefore I decided to play around with the desaturate tool on Adobe Photoshop. Instead of making the whole image black and white I decided to cut around the cast member using the 'Magnetic Tool' (easier to cut out the specified object), put the image of my cast member which I had recently cut out onto a new layer. Once I'd done this I turned the original image black and white then finally imported the layer of my cast member Tom onto the black and white image. The final outcome is seen below. 

However, although I liked this image I didn't like that it still looked quite dull and pasty. Therefore I used the 'Auto Tone' image tool to tone the image properly. I prefer this image as it looks brighter and less pasty. This outcome is seen below.

I decided to work with the second image to create the base of my front cover for my digipak. Instead of using the image as it is above, I resized the image and placed it differently on the blank digipak I had sized up previously. Below are the outcomes of what I did. 

Currently I'm unsure on what image to pick for the final edit, however once I have put the text I have planned onto each of these front images I believe this will then help me to decide which image I should pick. Although I have decided on using the image I have previously discussed, I also edited another picture which is seen as the second image at the top of this post. 

Although I planned on editing this second image like the first image, I decided against this as I liked the colour of the garage in the background. Therefore I used the 'Auto Tone' to enhance the image once more from previously enhancing it in iPhoto. Once I resized the image, I came up with two possible front covers, however I am still planning to use one of the three images above. Below are the two possible front covers of the digipak. 

As previously mentioned I am still almost certain that these images won't be used, but the others will. I believe these images look too 'posed' however the three others look quite natural. My next step is to include text by using online photo editing software PicMonkey - link. 

Researching Into Different Indie/Ska Album Covers

To get a better understanding of what my digipak should look like I conducted some research into different album covers from both the Indie and Ska genre. Below are album covers which I had found, although I do not know the band/artist of the covers, it has helped me to figure out what the audience would expect to see from a digipak from this genre.

Seeing these front covers have given me an idea on what I want to produce. Especially the fourth image, if I could obtain a copied image of my cast members family (himself, brother and parents) I could scribble on the fathers face to reinforce the title track "Our House is Dadless." I personally believe that would work well, and would be conventionally linked to the track.