Claudia Wingrove A2 Portfolio

I decided to do some research into the layout of CD Album front cover design. I thought this would be relevant because some artists sell their music based either on their name, because it is more recognisable, or the title of the album.  I wanted to look at a variety of artists who produce different types of music. Looking at the bands and artist, Justin Timberlake, Eminem and The Script I saw a range of designs that are set up completely differently from one another. Justin Timberlake's front cover heavily release on the min image, he uses this to structure his front cover and uses his initials 'J' and 'T' for his name and the release date as the subheading. The title of the album is written in the smallest font.

Similar to the previous front cover, Eminem positioned his name in bold, capitalised font, centralised in the centre of the front cover. Although the name of the album is positioned directly under the artist name, the visual point in this front cover is the name of the artist. The black font contrasts with the lighter background, foregrounding the name of the artist.
The front cover designed for the band 'The Script' for the album titled 'science & faith' has a main image that becomes the visual point in the album. The main image of the hands and the text written above it is centralised. The enlarged image doesn't fill out the front cover, this enables the audience to look at the image and then secondly at the title of the band. there is a different font sued fro the title of the band and the name of the album. 'SCRIPT' is foregrounded and is the boldest font on the front cover, the trademarked name enables the audience to recognise that the album belongs to the band.

Beyoncé Knowles was born in Texas and first ensnared the public's eye when she became the lead vocalist of the R&B group Destiny's Child. She later parted from the group and followed a solo career, making her first debut album Dangerously in Love which enabled Beyoncé to become internationally famous with sold-out tours and a being awarded many music awards and also branched her career out slightly by starred in films such as Dream Girls. In 2008 she later married hip-hop recording artist Jay-Z and in late 2013 Beyoncé releasing her fifth studio album called 'Beyoncé' and in April 2016 she later released her sixth studio album 'Lemonade'.

Front Cover- On the front of the album cover it will include the artists name and the name of their album. The album cover usually has an image or an illustration to something that links in with the artist or band and to the genre of music that they produce. The album cover follows media conventions as the front image has a clear image of the artist or band on it and displaying the name of the album and artist in bold writing. The colours of this Rihanna album are warm with a pink undertone which suggests that the target audience is for teenage girls.

Spine Of The Cover- the spine of the cover normally shows the artists name and the name of the album in the same font as the one used on the front cover but smaller. It will also usually feature a DVD logo and serial code which defines the album from any other CD Digipak.

Back Of The Cover-  The back of the album cover usually includes a bar code and usually a parental explicit logo which can also be found on the front cover too. The parental explicit logo informs the audience of the level of inappropriate language used in the songs on the album to warn whoever is buying the album as some people may find the language very explicit. It also determines the age restriction of the album.

Inside Flaps- The inside will show two or three compartments that display images of the artist or group, using the same theme and colour range that is used throughout the entire album. The first compartment usually contains a booklet of more images of the artist, depending on the artist some may have their signature on it or sometimes the lyrics to some of the songs on the album. The middle compartment is also known as the second compartment is usually designed to hold the CD. The CD cover usually has a print on it, displaying similar colour themes as the rest of the album, or ones associated to the artist.

What is a Digipak?

A digipak- styled package is often used by music artists when they release a CD album or special edition CD albums. The front and back design is typically made of cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more disks. Digipaks are popularly used because they are cost efficient because of their minimalistic style and being more eco-friendly.

How does a Digipak benefit the artist/artists?

What does it look like?

The most generic digipak design has a front cover, back cover, inside front and either one or two internal CD trays/ disk holders. The front cover tends to have an image that represents the artists genre of music or style and the back cover usually has a list of the music the public will find on the CD album. The digipak normally opens outwards and tends to have artistic designs or colours on all sides.

Here are some Digipaks from a range of different genres:

Justin Bieber (Pop)-

Rihanna (Contemporary R&B/Pop)-

The representation of colour was a vital detail used in my music video, it separates the video into different sections. My music video opens with clips that have been sped-up, the speed distorts the images and reinforces the uncontrolled emotions of my character. The blue colour is not only a metaphorical link between the references to water in the lyrics and to the footage I filmed of the character in water, but it separates the opening section to the rest of the music video. A blue colour insinuates negativity and a lack of power. The cooled tone overlay gives the audience a quick insight to the mental health of the character.
The first shots that begin the non-linear story line of my video were edited and changed to appear in Black and White. The lack of colour implies the beginning of the morning, a clean and clear sheet where throughout the music video the mental health of the character is implied through strong references to loneliness and repetition. The colour builds up to full saturation, this occurs when the character washes their face. Water and cleansing is highly referenced throughout the music video, the build up of colour while the character looks into his own reflection, suggests that he is seeing himself properly for the first time. From this point the colour begins to fade, I over lay shots, one being less saturated and the other in Black and White, to suggest the fading memories and deterioration of the characters mental health. 

Below are the credits that I positioned at the end of my music video. Influenced by the artist music video 'Dusk Till Dawn' by Zayn, I used a more flowery font for 'staring', 'featuring', 'directed by' and 'produced by' and a capitalised bold font for the name of the people involved in the music video. Similarly to Zayn's music video, these titles create a film-like appearance, which I believe reinforces a professional image. The first title gives credit to the main actor who plays the protagonist in my music video, in order, I list the second actor who writes the lyrics from the song (I portray him a the main character within my film). The last credit is to myself for directing and producing the music video. Within all of these titles I use the same font for the name of the persons that participated in the creation of my music video.



This is the final film title in my music video. I close the film with the name of the video and the image of my ident under the flowery font 'Produced by'. I use the same font for the title 'BRUISES' in this last title credit as the beginning, opening title. I made the font bolder and bigger to make it clear that it is the final title and credit on my music video. The white is a neutral colour that doesn't connote either a negative or positive attitude, it contrasts against the black making the font clearer to read.

The image positioned below is the final design for my Ident. After the feedback I received from fellow students it was an equal vote between three out of four designs. I chose this one as my final Ident because although it is simple, it looks professional and the colour theme of black and white fits in well with colour themes I have used for my Ancillary One Digipak Design and my Ancillary Two Poster Design.
I used this design at the end of my film with the list of credits that name the people who featured in the music video. Because the background is black I inverted the colours so that the two main triangles are white and the smaller triangle going through the middle is black. The idea of the white triangle was to separate the triangles by creating a colour divide, when having a dark background I swapped over the colours so that the idea behind using the opposing colour to separate the two main triangles still applied.

First Student: My favourite one is the top one because I like the contrasting white and black, it's cool and stands out. The other three both have red in and the red is a bold colour and slightly distracts me from the actual design of the ident.

In my film Ident designs I explore a range of different design ideas and abbreviations from the top one being my original design. My inspirations came from 'New Line Cinema' and 'Screen Gems'. NWL's design is black and white, similar to an over-exposed image or silhouette of a square with two lines of film next to and across the square. The contrasting black and white create a statement piece and stand out when the ident is used.
Similarly to this, SG's film identity is again a contrasting colour, red against black and the design is made up of shapes, rather than a picture or moving clip like Warner Brothers Ident or Walt Disney. Although the red makes it hard to read the ident, it makes SG's ident individual. In both of these idents the shapes are recognisable which is something I used to inspire me to structure the design of my own film ident.

The top design of the four was the original design I made and the other three designs develop from this one. The triangle shapes differentiate from one another, the two black triangles create a square, one of them is elongated which creates over hanging ends. I then edited a white triangle on the left angling it inwards, the white cuts up one of the triangles and crosses over the white divide between the two black triangles. Using black and white as the original colour theme was inspired by New Line Cinemas Ident. The two dramatic colours, although only connote both divide and connection, using the colour red, inspiration taken from Screen Gems' Ident colour theme, I wanted to first outline the white triangle to see whether making it visible from the background would begin to express another meaning to the design. Using the red to outline the triangle made it the focal point within the ident making it the first thing looked at from the viewer. I then developed this idea and changed the background of the ident, creating a borderline of red. I also outlined the triangle in black to separate it from the two black triangles.
Similarly to BBC 3's logo, there is a coloured borderline around the original logo. Whether the background is part of the design (For the BBC Ident 'II!') or was added so when placed on a darker background it does't blend in or adopt an automatic white or black background, the colour becomes associated with the film ident, which as a potential idea for my own, red seemed suitable and as a development from my original design shows the process of my thoughts.

The last design is similar to the third but I too out the black outline from around the white triangle. Minimising the outline enabled me to make the white triangle bigger and enabled it to become the focal point within the ident, stopping the red background overpowering the design of the ident.