DIGIPAK - creation
photoshoot
The pictures used for the Digipak were taken during the filming session. This was done with the purpose of creating a sense of branding and given that the locations available were very diverse and gave me the opportunity to gather a wide range of material, used as well as part of the artist's "gallery" which you are able to observe in the "official website". All the pictures were taken with my personal camera, a Canon 80D with an 18-55mm lens.
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As noticeable I decided to use the same model to represent the face of the album/digipak, which is uncommon when taking into consideration that she isn't the real artist. I did this for two main reasons; the first being to reinforce the narrative of the accompanying music video, in which the model is a representation of the artist. And the second bearing the idea of creating an original product from its inception rather than using an already existing image which wouldn't have been taken by me and would also break the sense of branding I tried creating.
Below you will be able to see the contact sheet resulting from the photoshoot, from a general perspective they are fewer images than I usually take but this was due that I was very selective in the spot and immediately erased the pictures which in my opinion lacked potential or didn't represent the aesthetics I was trying to achieve.
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model
I then made a smaller selection of the pictures I preferred and edited them using photoshop which consisted of retouching the model, using tools such as the spot healing brush, healing brush and patch tool, creating masks to soften the model's skin and defining/highlighting the necessary details. Keeping a natural appearance. Continued by editing the general aspect of the pictures by modifying the colours, reducing the backgrounds saturation, using colour balance, brightness, contrast, vibrance and more in order to bring out the wanted colours respecting the artists colour scheme.
After editing the details and general elements of the photos I decided to create more versions in order to try for the album art, such as applying coloured filters, adding motion blur, grain or making them B&W, all with specific reasons along the style of the "artist" and brand itself.
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Once I was satisfied with the edited options I went on and created the Digipak using adobe ILLUSTRATOR CC, with a dowloaded template. I had already created multiple digipaks previously as part of preliminary tasks and personal projects so due to experience it was easier to experiment more and make a product which would represent perfectly my ideas.
elemeNts - I dowloaded various fonts, as you were able to see in one of the Research & Planning posts, and decided upon a hand written one in order to represent the signature of the artist. The final version is minimal and subverts various conventions such as the absence of a album's name, bar code, label logo and name of the artist in the back cover rather than front. These changes were done mainly because I wanted to create a minimal product respecting the characteristics of new emerging artists common today, especially for the alternative hybrid genres. examples - SZA WITH 'CTRL' OR TOWKIO WITH WWW
On the other hand the conventions respected were the parental advisory content logo and the copyrights statement used for legal matters in order for the artists work to be present in relevant platforms such as aPPLE MUSIC.
You will be able to see a realistic mockup of the final version of the digipak done using photoshop, which you can see on the Final Version page.
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Below you will be able to find the reasoning behind the final choices.
Copyrights being a necessary convention needed in order for the album to be present in various listening platforms.
I decided upon this photo because I believe it was the best looking one in terms of composition, colours and the general appearance of the model and fit like a well representation of the artists's style. As you were able to see there were various edits of this same photograph but I chose one of the simpler ones with the motion blur because I thought it gave an interesting but minimal touch, following a trend set by artists such as YG and his Still Brazy album. To me this motion blur also connotes the feelings perceived when listening to AMA LOU's music.
This was more of a conventional decision inspired by various albums of the same genre, I initially intended to use another photograph edited with a red filter as the frame but after trying it concluded that it was visually disturbing and took the minimalism away from the cover. Which is why I opted for the simple motif color, red.
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This, as mentioned previously, was a necessary element because some of the songs have explicit content and I thought fit well with the overall appearance of the album.
I already intended in using a B&W image because I believe it fit better and went along the simplistic style I was aiming for. It also helped reinforce the brand image because it's a photo taken at one of the main locations of the TBC music video and as noticeable is edited with a motion blur effect, more realistic thanks to the position of the model, as present in the cover.
I tried using the same photograph as the one used for the inside left side but didn't like the way it looked and it gave in my opinion a "cheap" appearance to the album. This is why I decided for a simple red background being a solid choice and contrast with the white CD.
I had planned using a photo for the Cd or including AMA LOU's "signature" but after various trials I decided upon the simplest version with a white background and the signature in black in order to be more visible and taking into account the overall minimal appearance of the album art.
I chose to use the same background as the one of the cover image, taking out the model, because I thought would look good as a continuous aspect of the album covers.
I added all of her published songs at the time, in a white print font because it contrasted with the darker background which made them clearly visible. I did not add numbers, subverting a convention, because I did not consider it being necessary given that they're just 7 songs and the numbers didn't look good. This subversion is also a common one followed by similar artists like Jorja Smith.
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Another controversial subversion is the artist's name located in the back cover rather than font, this was done because I preferred having a very minimal front cover and more complete back cover. It the back cover were to lack this element if would seem incomplete because of my decision to exclude things like the barcode. It also gave me the opportunity to add the motif color.