New Digi Pack Ideas

Urban landscapes were important in my print productions as they are generic signifiers of the underground genre. This image above is the front cover of 'Sum 41- Underclass Hero' album. This is significant as 'Smaller Than You' are influenced by American Ska-punk/rock such as Sum 41 and Mad Caddies. This album cover is effective in amplifying and portraying the band in an urban landscape. The front and back panels of my vinyl were influenced by the dim and unglamorous graffiti backdrop of this cover. I think overall this image could be seen as portraying the band in a negative light with the conveyed signifiers of youth rebellion. This is ironic as most young Ska-punk bands portray themselves this way purposely as it's generic to the 'prototype' of the genre, and is developed to be humorous and appealing to their youthful audience. I think this production is significant in appealing to the bands youthful demographic with the appearance of the lead singer on the front, the location and post-production of the image (Photoshop).
I think the use of the bright pink for the font is effective and eye-catching to the audience, but could be leaning more to a female audience, which isn’t useful as my product is targeting predominantly a male audience. I really like cartoon sketched effect of the album title below the bands name, I think this is significant in portraying the music and genre as humorous and youthful (relating to the slap-stick comedy narrative in my video). I think the contrast is extremely effective and creates a threatening and unglamorous landscape full of dim shades and tones. Although the lead singer’s costume is hard to determine, his gelled up hair and black skinny jeans add to the grunge-punk dimension of their music and image.




This image is the front cover of the Artic Monkeys -'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' . This image influenced my earlier manipulations for my digital pack, but strongly inspired my image of the bassist from 'Smaller Than You', for one of my panels for my vinyl.
I think this Artic Monkey's album cover is extremely effective in establishing contemporary Britain and the unglamorous side of, drugs, rebellion and youth. I particularly think these message come across through mine as the young boy is looking directly to the audience and conveys a powerful rebellious side due to his stance, the smoking and the urban scene in the background. The black and white image is extremely effective and helps to connote an unglamorous and dingy lifestyle, as portrayed through the man on the cover. Although this is significant it wouldn't apply to my vinyl as I am producing it as eye -catching and vibrant as possible to reflect the upbeat genre. I also love the simplicity of the cover and wanted to achieve this on mine, but, as 'Smaller Than You' aren’t mainstream like the Artic Monkey's they needed as much promoting and marketing as possible to engage the audience. This is because this simplistic effect of the Artic Monkey's cover doesn't promote the band's image itself and isn't too engaging and eye-catching with the audience, which is what I wanted to endeavour.

This image above is my most recent manipulations for the inside left cover of my viynl.

This image is of Jasper who featured in my music video as a skateboarder and is also the bass guitarist of 'Smaller Than You'. I am either using this image of Jasper, the images below manipulated of Sam (the trumpeter) or the images manipulated of a skateboarder in my earlier drafts. The one I will choose will be used for my inside left panel and will consist or the bands logo and the record label/logo my group are producing. I manipulated this image by cropping it to a smaller size and changing the contrast, so it was much higher in contrast and colour. I then added a lens flare to enhance a large glow onto the picture, adding extra effect. I asked Jasper to stand in front of a brick wall to simplify the image, projecting him in front of a significant urban signifier. I asked him to wear a t-shirt and a black jumper and wanted to capture him smoking on camera. This would add to the urban effect of the music video and genre, and also emphasise youth, with the brick background reinforcing an urban environment. The bricks also connote a fragmented distorted image which relates with the front cover image of repeated and spilt up parts of one image.

Below, further experimentations:

Above are two manipulations of my digi pack's front cover. I want to integrate repeating images throughout my digi pack and experimented with this idea on Photoshop. I cut the picture up with the rectangular marquee tool and moved the images around to create a fragmented effect. I also experimented with the font again but felt these two images although are simple, tacky and unprofessional.

This image above is a final through for my front of my vinyl digi pack. I am creating a front panel, back panel, an inside panel and another panel displaying information, which also has a slip to hold the vinyl record. The layout will be that the front cover opens up to show both the image of Sam on the inside left and the information on the right panel. The back and right panel will contain the record in. This image I created on Photoshop and was a further manipulation of my other developments. I downloaded a specific font from Dafont.com, which I think relates to the image and style of the Ska punk band. This font integrates an authentic style with a youthful bold text font creating a punk style. I used the Eyedropper tool on Photoshop to get the colour of the skateboard to use for the font. I chose contrasting colours of a tepid blue and a pastel murky orange for the finishing font. Although this cover is quite simple I think it utilises the Ska genre well as it is bold and contrasting, attracting a youthful audience with the image of skateboarding, bright colours and an urban style.

The two pictures above of Sam from ‘Smaller Than You’ really emphasise the youth and style of the band. I wanted to you all members of the band but found it complicated to market them all so I went for the style of marketing their music video though this digi pack. I manipulated these two images above of Sam on Photoshop and change the contrast and burn parts to make it bolder and more attractive to the audience. I then added a lens flare to make the left side bright and manipulated added light to the image. The first image of Sam is my favourite as I manipulated hi top to be brighter to the yellow writing and his headphones stand out. I created his costume to fit the digi pack. I made him wear headphones which signifiers a modern youthful generation's style and also references music. I wanted him to wear a simple top and a long coat for the perfect costume of Ska and indie punk. I took other shots of Sam, but found this was the best.