A2
MusicVideo
Tanya Scott Candidate Number:1281
Digipak and Magazine Ideas
After our thorough research into numerous digipaks and magazine adverts, my group and I began to sketch how our own would look like.We began by each of us sketching a different idea in order to gain a wider range of feedback from our target audience:
Digipak - Idea #1:
Our first digipak idea included a photo-shopped portrait of all of our group member's faces merged into one, for our front cover. We would have done this by taking a photo of every member and then taking various features e.g. one member's eyes, and putting them together into essentially, one person.
The back cover consisted of our group standing together smiling; not only do both these ideas signify our unity (as we have one face on the front cover, and are all standing side by side on the back cover) it also signifies our individuality as our different features will be shown in the front cover and we will be wearing different style dresses on the back cover.
Our second idea was to have a photograph of our group holding each other whilst walking (walking towards the camera) for the front cover and a similar photograph for our back cover - the same photo however from the back, as if we were walking in the opposite direction from the camera.
We would also be wearing the same colour dresses to signify our unity, conforming to RnB girl group conventions, however challenging our similarities by wearing different style dresses to show our originality and uniqueness.
Digipak - Idea #2:
Digipak - Idea #3:
Pussycat dolls' album cover inspired us to come up with this digipak idea. We will be lying down as a group in a circle, so all four of our heads will be together and our bodies in four separate corners and our group name written across the middle.
For the back cover, we came up with the idea of having our track list written as a love letter in a notebook page, which has been torn out. This was influenced by the theme of our chosen song 'It's too late now' which is about love and heartache. Next to the 'torn out' track list we planned on having a photograph of our group sitting together smiling/shot of us laughing in casual clothing. This was to indicate our happiness and love as a group, despite our sadness in our chosen song.
Digipak - Idea #4:
In our final idea we planned on having a photograph of our group smiling, dressed in the same colours however with different styles, with our group name across the middle as our front cover.
On the inside of the digipak would have a watch with our track list in the middle of the watch, for instance track one would be equivalent to one o'clock. This relates to our chosen song name 'It's too late now', signifying time.
We would also include our girl group's website, email and special thanks, conforming to other RnB digipaks.
Presenting our digipak ideas:
We then presented our four digipak ideas to our target audience to gain feedback as to what they liked or disliked about them and what could be improved. They commented how they liked different aspects of all of our digipaks and how we should change our digipak album name to improve.
Our initial name for our digipak was going to be 'It's too late' after our song 'It's too late now'. We came up with this idea from inspiration from other RnB digipaks who had named their albums after their hit songs, for instance Destiny Child's 'Survivor'. However, from our audience feedback, we were told having similar names for our album and song can be confusing and should consider changing it.
We definitely took their criticism constructively and changed our album name to Countdown. We thought about having a self titled digipak, which previous RnB artists have done before, however we agreed it was not original enough. We came up with Countdown as we wanted to incorporate the element of time as our song is called 'It's too late now' implying we are running out of time.
Our final idea for our digipak:
The images below show our final ideas for our digipak. We incorporated all of our four ideas and took into consideration our comments from our audience feedback.
Front cover: We decided to have a full length picture of our group wearing the same colour but different style dresses to indicate our unity and individuality. We would have our group name Brown Eyes written in brown, along the middle of our photograph and have our album name Countdown across the top of the album cover. We found that having titles either across the top, middle or bottom of an album, was a common convention of the RnB genre.
Back cover: Listening to our audience's feedback, we decided to have the same photo of our group on the back cover, however showing our backs (as described in Idea #2). We agreed that our background of the back cover would be a large mirror so that the audience can identify that it is the same image as the front cover, just shot from the back. We have taken into consideration that this may be a challenge for us as trying to hide the camcorder in the mirror will be hard.
Inside: Inside the panels of our digipak will include a free gift that was decided by conforming to RnB digipak conventions, and chosen by our audience research.The free gift will be a 10% discount on an upcoming tour of Brown Eyes; we chose this as the majority of our audience decided they would rather a discount on a tour and in turn, came up with 10% as the percentage was realistic. Underneath this would be Brown Eyes' website for fans, Facebook page, Twitter page and a QR code. This is to appeal to a more contemporary audience due to the increase in technological development, which has had a positive impact on the music industry.
In another panel we will have our poster for our girl group. The poster will be pulled out and opened up to be full sized image of Brown Eyes. The pose was inspired by Pussycat Doll's 'Doll Domination' digipak cover. This pose is sexy yet sophisticated which tends to be a convention of the RnB genre, and the theme of our image, hence our dresses.
Our tracklist was inspired by our album name Countdown and chosen song' It's too late now'. A denotation of our chosen song would be to have run out of time, and a connotation would be lateness, keeping track of time and watches. From this we agreed a watch would be a practical element for our tracklist background, where each number would represent the number of our track. The clock face would be replaced by the name of the song. A challenge we may face would be making sure we do not have the brand of a well known watch visible in our track listing, to avoid copyright issues.
CD Itself: Would be a merged image of one person, with different aspects of our group's features to make up the face (E.g. My eyes, Wrenae's lips, Loveline's hair and Skylla's nose). This is a representation that although we have our differences as individuals, we are able to unite and join together in harmony and as a group. By doing this, we would be able to develop and present our Photoshop skills, as we would have to carefully merge four different pictures into one smooth image effectively.
Front cover:
Back cover:
Track List & CD:
CD & Poster:
Digipak:
Magazine Ideas:
My group and I began to sketch how our own magazine advert would look like.We began by each of us sketching a different idea in order to gain a wider range of feedback from our target audience. Our thorough research into RnB magazine adverts helped us gain knowledge on common conventions used.
One of our ideas was to have a Close up of all of our faces - enlarged. This was to show that every member has brown eyes. We took inspiration from one of Destiny's Childs' album which had a similar face-shot of their members. We thought this would be an effective way of putting forward the unity of our group.
Our group name Brown Eyes will be in brown text, in our chosen font, along the bottom of our advertisement. Our album name, Countdown will be underneath our group name with our hit single featured across the bottom of this.
'Out now' will also be situated at the bottom of our magazine advert in capital letters, which we found was a convention of many RnB magazine avberts.
A QR code, Facebook page, Twitter page and Brown Eyes' website for fans will run along the bottom of our magazine advert. We decided to include these as an increase in technological development and popularity has had a positive impact in the music industry, and we feel this would be a great way to keep communication between our group and our fans and appeal to a wider range of audience due to our accessibility. These widgets are also another common aspect of RnB magazine adverts.
Our second idea included all four members of the group laying down in opposite corners of the magazine advert. We would be facing up - towards the camera, having a small gap (space) between our heads for our group name, album name and Out Now.
Our group name will be in the font we have chosen in brown colouring, signifying our eye colour. Countdown will be written in a plain front to dramaticise our group name. Out Now will be written in caps lock in order to conform to many magazine advertisement conventions. Our hit single will be featured along the bottom of our advert with our widgets along the top.
Although we will be in different and more casual clothing to our album cover, we will still be wearing the same colour we wore on our album cover, just different styles. For instance if we wear red dresses in our album cover, we will be wearing different styled red tops in our magazine advert. We found that continuity is key in helping our audience to recognise and identify our product and believe this would be an appropriate way to do this.
Idea #1:
Idea #2:
Idea #3:
In our final idea, all members will be standing together holding each others waist/shoulder smiling. This is to show that although our chosen song is about heartache and pain, we still have love and happiness within our group.
We will be wearing the same colour as the dresses we wore on our album cover, to keep continuity as we found this is key in helping our audience regonise and identify our product in stores.
Our album name will be along the top and our group name will be written across the middle in brown colour.
Our hit single will be featured above this in smaller text.
Additionally, Out Now will be written in red capital letters beneath our group name to really grab our audiences attention.
A QR code will be situated in a corner at the bottom, along with our Facebook and Twitter page on the opposite side. Our magazine will also have our fan-page website across the bottom of our magazine advert.
Idea #4:
Our final idea was to have an enlarged photograph of an eye, showing the brown iris. Our group name, Brown eyes will be written around the pupil and our album name will be written around the brown iris.Within our iris, we will have numbers going around it, as if it were the face of a clock. We did this as we wanted to keep the element of time within our magazine advert because of our album name Countdown and chosen song 'It's too late now'.
Out Now will be written in between the lashes to emphasise our femininity as well as assertiveness by using capitals.
Our QR code and Facebook page will also be along the bottom of our magazine advert.
Final Idea - Audience Feedback
- "Original creative ideas"
- "Fantastic incorporation"
- "Really caters to our taste"
- "Will look very authentic as nothing is over the top"
After reciving these comments we undertook a vote as to which idea should be our final idea. The majority voted for Idea #3 as their favourite as it 'looks the most authentic' and 'eye-caching' due to the advert not being 'over packed' with information and images.
After presenting our four magazine ideas, we received feedback from our audience:
Magazine Advert and Digipak - 2nd Draft
My group and I undertook a second draft of both our digipak ideas and magazine advert. We did this as we know more planning and editing will definitely help us to go further and improve. We decided and chose our different yet 'matching' outfits that we are going to wear; because of this we have re-designed our digipak photograph ideas, to tailor it to the outfits we are going to be wearing.
Another alternative change we have made is the CD itself; we amended our previous idea of merging parts from each of our faces together, to having individual faces of our members on the CD. This was inspired by Destiny's Childs' '#1' album. We decided that modifying our CD to individual images of us will help conform to the conventions of the RnB genre as images of RnB artists tend to always be the main focus however we thought we will remain original by not having a plain CD, as many of RnB CD's do.
The images of our final digipak ideas and magazine avert are presented below:
Final Magazine Advert
Captured - constructing our second drafts