DigiPack Progression

In order to help Ben begin creating a DigiPak, we all sent him our original designs and discussed the important elements of the Digipak to reflect the band's image. We emphasized the importance of bright colours to reflect the band's quirky and fun aesthetic. I also gave him my sheets of annotated real life products (seen in my digipak analysis blog post) to have real life product comparisons. 

Ben's intial design:

The use of colour with this digipak was good as it was fun, however, the inside panel (bottom) was not cohesive with the outside panels (top). Additionally, we were told that the combination of naturalistic photos and stylized graphics did not often work in combination and here the difference was extremely stark. The inside panel reminds me of a 'The Strokes' product we looked at that we were told took itself too seriously compared to our band and doesn't communicate the style or vibe we wanted. 

With that feedback Ben began reworking his design:

The design had completely changed and the teacher feedback was that it was too serious and minimalist. I completely agreed with this as it seems quit rigid with the placement of the shapes and lines. Also, the gradient of colours was too soft and deadpan. While digipaks often play with empty space, this was too minimalist and compared to the personality of our band, it was just boring.

After this, I sent Ben the fake magazine cover that I had made for the Instagram and that Daisy illustrated over. Daisy and I thought this would help give a visual reference to the style we were looking for.

Taking his original design and the reference of the magazine, Ben created a new design:

I liked the use of flowers, colour and playful slightly childish graphics. We all gave feedback and came up with a list of things that needed changing:

1. the rim around the photo - black is too harsh and doesn't match the band
2. new photo - too naturalistic
3. more doodles - similar to the magazine cover, we wanted more fun graphics/ doodles

From there the design became:

The colour palette had changed into 3 dominant colours of pink, white and yellow and the circle outline matched this. I felt there was something slightly underwhelming about it and there had been no progress on the inside panels. As a result, Daisy and I worked together to create a drawn outline of 6 panels. Daisy drew this and we took inspiration from my phone case and a real life product.

outside panels

inside panels

This is one of the real life products that combines naturalistic images (which are still edited and manipulated) with stylized doodles/ drawings. I thought it would be good to refer to this in order to make ours look realistic while including the elements we wanted. Daisy thought of using the polaroid on the front panel rather than the circle.

phone case - we wanted to replicate the use of colour and shapes as it fits the overall vibe of the band, especially their music video. It is also slightly similar to the Ben's initial design (top left corner of the image) in terms of the use of colour across the corner of a panel.

front 3 panels when open - rough sketch

back 3 panels when open - rough sketch

After Daisy drew the sketch we spoke to Ben about what he thought and what elements of the pre-existing design we had kept and what we wanted to add and change. I feel that this was really useful as it meant we were able to communicate and have the same visual reference rather than imagining different products in our heads. At this point we began looking for fonts to use. Daisy found a font called 'Keep On Truckin' which I then figured out how to download and utilize. 

Testing the new font

Once we had made the sketch and I had shown Ben how to download the font, he was able to create a digipak that we were all happy with in terms of the aesthetic and how cohesive it was. 

At this point, Ben had flown back home for Christmas and I became really ill, however, we were able to communicate as a group online. The only feedback I had was possibly making the album name stand out and editing the pictures more. However, I am happy with the vibe and colour palette, I think that it is not only cohesive in itself but also with the music video and social media account we have made.