This is the digipak research & development for the music video project. This blog post was made by Saka, Nicho, Bagas & Bagus.
JOJI - NECTAR
Break it down for technical elements
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
The vibes and atmosphere of the album is similar to what we are trying to create with this project
,a depressing, miserable , sad vibe. They chose this visual because they try to show that the songs
have deep and personal emotions. The lighting can symbolixe a conflict between light and dark or
good and bad . To enhance the depressing message that the album is trying to show the color red
signifies pain and struggle , showing that the songs are about things like hardships or going through
problems.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
It could be showing his personality ( Relaxed, thoughtful, and sad) or reflect on what is going
on with his life right now, such as whether he's having problems or is having a rough time.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
He does have a logo but it's not shown throughout the media products he has, it's mostly by his
face ( because he's a single artist ) is how people recognise his fame.
How has the album cover influenced you?
It’s straightforward but multiple messages can be withdrawn from it such as a strong sense of
mystery, introspection, and emotional depth.
VANCE JOY - DREAM YOUR LIFE AWAY
Break it down for technical elements
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
The album's cover uses minimal colour options, mainly black. This creates the impression of
plainness, mystery, and even sadness that could be implied in the song. The album's name,
“Dream Your Life Away,” is also red.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
Only half of the star’s face is shown, which might imply to the audience that there is another half of
the star that isn't included in the album. This could reflect that the star is looking for his other half,
or it could also mean that he has lost the other half of himself.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
Yes, it does. In every other album he created his name ‘Vance Joy’ is always coloured in beige or a
soft colour. This may be done to match his music vibe of slow, warm and intimate which matches
with soft and a timeless color palette.
How has the album cover influenced you?
With the black background and the warm pastel colours many different meaning can be created that could
be related to the song or the whole album.
TV GIRL- FRENCH EXIT
Break it down for technical elements
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
Both stars are colored in red, and red connotes either something romantic or blood and death. The song
and correlating it with its lyrics the colour red is to show both stars are involved in a romantic
relationship.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
The color red shows her romantic and loving side, indicating that the song the artist wrote is for her
significant other. The cover shows how happy and in love she is when spending time with her favorite
person.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
The artist does not have a logo, but it has a consistent color scheme of distorted and desaturated
colours. The album not only focuses on the color
How has the album cover influenced you?
The broken colours imply many different connotations, which would make readers create the
image of the romantical side
MALCOLM TODD - CHEST PAIN (i LOVE)
Break it down for technical elements
Camera
Mise-en-scene
Color blue
Cutting hait
Veiny hands
Looks scared
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
The star of the cover is shown using a high angle, making him look small and feel inferior. He also
uses soft colors in his album for the audience to connect deeper with the theme of his song, which is
vulnerability and love.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
It looks like Malcolm is a man that is simple and minimalistic, which is shown through the
simple design and monotone design of the digipak. This strengthens his identity as an indie artist
as the genre conventions of Indie is simple and minimalistic.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
He doesn’t have a consistent logo, but his visual representation stays consistent. In every other
album of his, he would look under pressure and would always be shown using monotone colours.
How has the album cover influenced you?
The album cover mirrors the songs emotional tone, which helps the audience and the listeners
to feel more connected to the song. The listeners can visualise the song connecting with the lyrics
which creates a deeper emotional levels.
Cigarettes after sex - X
Break it down for technical elements
Camera
Close up
Medium shot
High angle
Mise-en-scene
Dark colours
Silhouttes
Character is white
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
The minimalist design is reflecting its intimate sound of the songs in the album. The blurred visuals
of both characters could be done to create mystery or a sense of nostalgia. The monotone colours shows
the absence of vibrant colours which highlights how emotional the song is.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
The gloomy visuals aligns with the bands theme of mysterious and shows how suspenseful the band is.
This reflects the tier theme which is love and longing the present of your significant other.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
The typographic is always Uppercased, and clean looking which is consistent across all of their albums.
This matches with their minimalistic image and aesthetic of the music and the visuals.
How has the album cover influenced you?
It draws attention to the audience as everything is blurry and looks mysterious to the audience.
This creates a sense of curiosity setting a tone for our listening experience.
THE RARE OCCASIONS - NOTION
Break it down for technical elements
What meaning is being created with the different technical elements?
The cover of Notion is a floppy disk with a solid coloured background. This choice of design is done
to create a sense of nostalgia as the disk which is an item in the 20th century was highlighted in the
cover. The minimalistic design and limited color palette represents the indie band’s aesthetic.
How does the imagery reflect the star’s persona?
The imagery of the floppy disk shows the band’s blend of nostalgia and modern indie compatibility.
The outdated technology represents memory and change which aligns with the song’s lyrics. The
minimalist and retro-like aesthethic of the digpiak also aligns with their band’s genre of DIY indie music.
Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?
Notion does not really have a logo, but they stayed consistent showing simple, minimalistic
designs for their digipak emphasising the bands simplicity complementing the overall image of the band.
How has the album cover influenced you?
Even without the music the digipak itself already sets a nostalgic tone using the floppy disk as
its main image. The use of a floppy disk sets the tone for the audience as it is an old technology
in the 20th century. This image would encourage the audience to think about change, past, and
fading memories when listening to their song.
DEVELOPMENT
This is initially our first draft and first attempt in designing our back and front cover.
With the concept of having Bagus smiling on the front and him frowning on the back.
The font was still basic as its just trying to know where to put the words in between the pictures.
We think that we needed more colour on this one.
Here, we decided to add more colour. On the front page. We decided to still keep a smiley face with
a brighter more lively filter as we wanted to connote happiness. On the backside, we also kept the
frowning face, and we decided to cover it on a blueish filter, in order to connote it with sadness.
We also added an album name on the middle. Now its just off to experimenting with our own pictures
from the photoshoots we have done.
We also tried this concept of replicating the fingers in the legendary, “The Creation Of Adam”
painting. We feel like this concept of separated fingers fit our theme of the music video of
separation of a couple/love/breakup. But we scrapped this as we feel like this would not be too
creative. We also thought that our teacher may dismiss this idea thoroughly too.
This is our basic concept or our inside pages, we wanted to create a basic first page as from our
research, indie artists usually keep it simple. But we wanted to subvert a bit of these conventions
by somewhat decorating our inside right (cd container) in order to give it a more meaningful impression
that the CD is special and the fact that its colourful will probably shine a ray of hope on the listener
who is about to play it.
IDEA CHANGE
Eventually, we resorted to somewhat scrapping the whole idea after realising that we cannot edit
our photoshoot well that conforms to all of the concepts above. We resorted to only putting sad faces
from every one of our photoshoots. The background of the first page we used a picture of Bagus looking
tired, then edited out the background to be black and white in order to suggest his loneliness and
despair. We put the first draft of the album name on the top right.
On the second page, we put our tracklist over a picture of Bagus covering his face with a hat in order
to connote that he does not want to face the world after what has happened, and the tracklist next to it
would be the clues and cues for the listeners to know the storyline with the whole thing.
In the first attempt and first research, we wanted to add a bit more of a setting to oversee our disc.
But after further research on Indie digipaks, we have concluded it is best to keep it simple as an
inside page overseeing the disc would be considered a bit too extravagant (Indie artists keep things
simple in order to conform with budget). The first inside page only contains a picture of the artist's
characters’ desk, with pictures with his partner, but everything has been blurred out in order to create
an impression that something has probably happened in the storyline of the character. On the disc, we
just decided to put a picture of bagus covering his face with his head as we think it is one of the best
pictures on our photoshoot, it would be good if people keep on seeing it through the disc.
We feel like this change of concept is the right direction as we are conforming to the genre stereotype
of indie, which is simplicity.
FINAL PRODUCT
This is our end product of the front page, we think that making the font size smaller and getting
to the center would let our main artist be exposed more into the middle. We also put the album name
in the middle as people would automatically look at the center. We want the name of the album and
the star itself to be the icon.
This is our final product of the tracklist page (back page), we decided to make the d0od logo
bigger and more bold, in order for people to be able to see who the artist's name is. We also still
used the same picture due to the explanation above (one of the best shots of the photoshoot). We alsoimproved our tracklist as we made it more bold and bigger in but not covering our artists face in
order for people to be able to read the name but still look at the cover picture.
Same picture here, but we decided to make it more blurry and put it in a black and white picture in
order to connote that bad things have happened, black and white also connotes sadness and emptiness.
This would further give the impression that the songs may be sad. (it is actually sad), this would
keep the viewer thinking.
Self Reflection
This digipack research helps me and my team know the conventions of Indie artists that have a digipak. This acts as a reference on what to follow and implement it in our project. At first, I had the idea of the 'happy vs sad expressions' for the front and back cover to show Do0d's change in mood in the music video. This relates to the binary opposite theory which drives the narrative of the video - which makes it more interesting to watch. Then I experimented with the inside of the album but it didn't look good as I imagined in my head. So, Bagas took over, changed the idea and made it better. Next time, we would ask our classmates for more feedback, in the final stages of development, to further refine the digipak so that it becomes the best version it could be.
