Component 3: Digipak Research and Development

This blog post, written by me (Nayana) contains my personal research and development into making the digipak.

Research

Above I have attached some digipak layouts and designs I was interested in and figured would match our theme. I aim for a timeless design for it to always look nice and presentable even in years ahead. In terms of layout, I also looked at albums and vinyl covers from K-pop artists and some pop artists, I did this as today, actual digipack is not as common hence I looked at the closest creations.

Making this research I realized I do not really like having a direct photograph of our star as our CD as seen in figure 2 because the hole made a cut out which I found pretty awkward so I much prefer having a more subtle photograph if we end up using one, as seen in figure 11. I also really liked the idea of a no-face design because we will be adding many pictures of our star in other features of our digipack so having it in a CD might be a bit overwhelming, hence I have other references. Out of all I really liked the CD design seen in figure 6 or figure 7 as it has some elements that give some focus and it doesn't look as overwhelming and was easy to see. I found the design seen in figure 8 was really interesting as everything was connected hence made the whole layout very cohesive, but doing it with writing might not be the best especially when we want to input some other content in the pages, so it might end up looking very messy. But another option to make everything cohesive is by connecting images, as seen below.

I feel the grid layout of pictures looks really neat and clean, it can also be an amazing way of storytelling. But unfortunately, I do not think our concept matches this idea as much.

This research also gave me a further idea of what I want to include in our digipak. As seen in figure 2 and 3, the design gave many pictures which work especially well when the audience is a major fan - hence making it seen as collectible. But an interesting part I never really considered is having a pre-signed section which is a really popular and on-demand element for fans to have a signature of their idol or any celebrity, as it show a personal side towards the idol.

Digipak Cover

Digipak cover is what I consider the most important part as it is the first thing the audience will see, so below I have attached covers I found eye-catching and the conventions of a cover itself.

The type of album cover I really liked focuses primarily on the artist so with a medium close-up or a close-up shot. Full-body shots are also definitely possible but nothing else should be in the frame that makes the audience lose focus. 

Below I attached my inspiration photos that I gathered from various photoshoots that I feel would match our concept. I highlighted how I want the pictures to look ethereal and elegantly depict her but should still be simple and nothing too over the top.

As we use the song Feathers, I also would like to experiment with props like feather itself to see how we can work with it. I have delivered my intentions for our digipak so now I will work together with my team to succeed.

Development

Below I have list the content I plan to have in our digipak. I plan for it to be a 4-page layout hence it will contain these:

1. cover

2. tracklist

3. CD

4. small anecdote

5. hand signature

6. social media information

7. QR

8. barcode

For a visual representation, here is the first draft of the layout that I made

Anecdote

I asked my teammate, Maxi, to write a short anecdote to introduce Kiara. Below is what he wrote.

"After rising into the limelight of public attention at the age of just 13, 17-year-old Indonesian singer-songwriter KIARA continues to push the boundaries of what the music industry considers feasible. Feather - her newest single - debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 32 different countries. Hailed by both the public and the industry alike as one of the most creative and inspirational talents of her generation, the end of KIARA's rise to stardom is seemingly nowhere in sight."

Tracklist

For the tracklist, I have combined the actual songs from Sabrina Carpenter (original artist) and titles I made up which I think sound nice. It will have 7 songs.

1. Feather

2. Just Say Yes

3. Nonsense

4. Actin'

5. Boy(friend)

6. Nowhere Near

7. Idyllic

Mock-Up

Before we got the actual photoshoot with our star... me, Sharon, and Timo decided to have a mock layout of our digipak using pictures of people we found online, on websites like Pinterest.

With this, we just had to recreate the pictures with our star and replace, maybe modify the designs by changing the picture only.

Below I have attached the whole development of our digipak that me, Sharon and Timo made.

mockup

Having this mock-up is really useful as then we just had to recreate it.

Digipak Cover

This was the first time we tried editing the digipak using pictures we already had. We didn't really like the picture as we thought it looked dirty. This was what led us to make the mockup.

We experimented with the typeface, positioning, and colors to see which matched the most.

We also discussed with our teacher and this is the feedback he gave

Our media teacher did not like how "The 1st Mini Album" and the writings underneath looked - they make it seem so full. He also mentioned how the "1st" was misread as "Ist", which we have modified through the fonts. So he suggested solely writing "KIARA" on the top to keep it simple.

Below is the final design we chose

Though our media teacher suggested to change the typeface on top, me and my group collectively agreed that it is what suits our concept the most. We also chose the color green to correlate to the next pages which is heavy on green. The pose we chose is what is best to depict freedom and "light as a feather".

Tracklist

I gave the general concept of what we want our tracklist page to look like but Timo helped a lot in designing the text.

This was when we tried making it with pictures from the beach, we found the pictures to not look as good and was too similar with the cover when we wanted more contrast.

Here we made it using pictures from the park which had more depth and looked better.

For this, our media teacher also prepared some feedback

Our media teacher suggested either removing or changing the typeface for the "Tracklist" writing as the 'L' seemed too over the top.

Below is the final design we chose

We changed the typeface of the tracklist to something simpler which highlights our artist portrait with wind-blown hair.

CD Cover

Here we tried experimenting with different pictures and we found the bubbles in the park looked the best.

Below is the final CD cover we chose

We found this looked the best and matched our concept the most

Back cover

We added typical convention of a digipak like a barcode and also an anecdote that Maxi has written.

Below is the final design we chose

Though our teacher slightly disagree with the decision to have an anecdote, we agreed that it would be good to have as audience can have an insight of who Kiara is.

Self reflection:

When we just started, I felt a bit confused so making the research helped a lot. I made the concept of the design which thankfully everyone really liked. Canva was really effective in making the designs and Sharon and Timo's feedbacks, as well as Mr Nick was really helpful when improving the design. Though experimenting was fun, I often had an art block which slowed down our progress. During the process, I also got sick which made it even harder for me to contribute and helped my teammate.