BW: Print-work Step-by-step

Step 1

Shown here is the original paper design of my digipak. The original idea for the front cover was to have our protagonist, the crocodile, inside a cage which provides a visual link to the theme of our music video and to the name of the single, 'Escapee'. The drawing was, at first, designed for the single 'Escapee' although I later changed the design to be for the band's album 'Moment Bends'. The band's name was to be written vertically next to the cage. I imagined the front inside cover to have a real crocodile's head poking in from the side on one half, while on the other half of the page there would be a montage of pictures from the locations we filmed at. The third page, where the disc would be placed, was going to feature a picture of each of the real band members. Finally, the back cover was going to be entirely black except for a picture of our crocodile running into the sea. The picture would be enclosed in a circle similar to the way the Looney Tunes cartoons end, and also matching the way our music video ends. Also on the back cover there would be the record label logos as well as the legal small print.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to make the digipak, but I decided not to re-create my original design as I thought it would be better and more conventional to make the digipak for an album rather than a single. I also believe that the final product turned out better than how the original design may have looked. Along with this, it was revealed to me that we were only allowed to use our own images, not ones taken from the internet.

Step 2

One third of the way through I had completed the front inside cover and the back cover. The inside front cover showed our crocodile inside a cage with the track listings alongside him. This is conventional because digipaks tend to show the track listing either on the back cover or the front inside cover. However, I faced a problem with the image because when it was put in un-edited and stretched to fit the space, the crocodile's proportions were wrong, in essence, he was too tall and too thin. To resolve this problem I used the rectangular marquee tool to cut off about one fifth of the image, so that when the image was re-positioned into the space the proportions were correct.

The second issue arose from the colouring of the text. I experimented with black, white, red, blue, and yellow but neither colour was very suitable. White showed out the best but to help make the words clearer and stand out more, I used the stroke effect to outline the letters in black and set the size of the outline to 7px. I decided to use the font 'I hate Comic Sans' because it seems like a fairly childish, or playful, looking text, which fits in with the band's catchy songs.

I didn't experience any problems with creating the back cover. I opened the picture in paint and made a circle around the crocodile and the ocean. I then filled the rest of the image in black, saved the file, then brought it into Photoshop and fitted it into the space.

Step 3

By this time I had finished making the digipak's front cover, for which I used an image of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, with our crocodile in the foreground. I used this image because it partly tells the story of our music video, with the crocodile running through London in his attempt to escape, and also because I think it aesthetically works. The way the image is framed provides a clear area for where the album title should be because the top-left of the image has a lot of empty space.

The words 'Moment Bends' are slightly curved which was made to create a visual link to the word 'Bends'. To make the curved writing I used the warp text tool which enabled me to adjust the type of curve, in this case I used the wave effect, and also to alter the amount of curviture vertically, horizontally, inwards, or outwards. I found blue to be the colour that stood out the clearest. It is also conventional for the album title to be high up on the page and for the writing to follow the dominant reading path. The words 'Architecture in Helsinki' had no effects on them other than the stroke effect to outline the words and make the white writing stand out more. Once again I used the font 'I hate Comic Sans' for the same reasons stated earlier.

Step 4
Here is my final product. The inside back cover was problematic because similarly to when the inside front cover was inserted un-edited, the crocodile looked too tall and too thin. I used the same process to correct this; using the marquee selector tool to remove about a quarter of the image so that when the image was reinserted into the space his proportions were correct. The inside back cover is convential though, as digipaks usually only have a picture for where the disc would be, since it's useless to have writing when the disc will be in the way.

The final stage was only to add the company logos, websites, company address, copyright statements, and a barcode, which is all conventional as the record labels wish to protect their productions and promote themselves through displaying their logos and website. An issue did arise with the Universal Music Group logo because when I inserted it, it was originally in black - an obvious collision with the background. To solve this problem I used the paint filler tool and changed the colouring to white.

The digipak clearly relates to our other print-work since all of our productions feature the crocodile. The productions are also fairly simplistic which coincides with the band image.