Construction Of Digipak

Front cover construction

Georgia was constructing the entire Digipak on her own, on behalf of the group, with our occasional input and direction.
1. Choosing the best and most appropriate photograph
We all liked this photograph and think that it's a really strong picture. It's bold in that it's highly unusual in terms of pose. I also really like the lighting, for example, at the top of the photograph there is a very strong shadow of Charlotte's hand and head on the wall behind her. I think that this makes a really nice effect.

2. Changing the colour, hue and saturation
Nathan, prior to Georgia making her own alterations to the picture, was editing the pictures using effects himself, and from this we were able to all agree that we liked the effect that Nathan had been able to create. And so, this gave Georgia a very good idea of what to do next with the picture, and we were all happy with the end result of the edited photograph.


3. Creating the 'Mazzy Star' band title
Georgia created a 'logo' to put on the front cover that included the essential information and what would typically be found on an existing media product of this kind.
In order to do this, Georgia focused on the brown shades that were caused by the de-saturation effect that she had used on the original photograph. She wanted to use a blurred effect but after doing this, the whole group, and our media studies teacher included, felt that it didn't look right and we all made suggestions to fix this problem.


4. Adjusting the 'Mazzy Star' text
Despite group discussions on how we felt about the text that was used on the Digipak, and the need for it to match that was used on the Magazine Advertisement; we all decided that this text looked best on the Digipak and the text that we had used on the Magazine Advertisement did not not work on this product, and vice versa.
In conclusion, this is the text that we thought worked best on this product.

5. Editing
After the initial idea of using a blurred effect on the hand and then placing the text 'Mazzy Star' over the top, and our decision that this would not work, Georgia then went on to experiment on using just a text box with no blur effect used. This did not look right either, however.

6. The position of the text
It was then essential to play around with the position of the two text boxes. It was a very challenging task making the decision of where to place the text boxes on the area, because it need to look 'just right'! Georgia, with direction from the rest of the group, managed to get the placing right eventually, although we all agreed that there was still something missing. Nathan added the light in the corner of the product, a 'lens flare', as we thought that it would look really good here. First of all, we thought that it should be placed on Charlotte's hand somewhere, but it did not work here.


7. 'Stardust'
Our media studies teacher suggested that we add something 'twinkly' and stardust-like to the product as it would fit and work really well, as the title says 'Into Dust'. Below is our final product.


Inside construction

Georgia, after getting the idea from our media studies teacher, took a photograph of a cream sheet, with the 'ruffled' effect. This made the crinkles in the sheet stand out, adding an extra effect to the photograph.

She added three of the photographs that we had used and obtained throughout the journey of our project, and placed them on top of the sheet, overlaying them, and blurring them into the background. We thought that it was important to use photographs that related to other aspects of the project, i.e the main video and magazine advertisement, in order for the audience to be able to associate them with one another and to make the chain of products easily recognisable. It took Georgia quite a few tries to get the positioning, size and blurring just right but in the end I think that she made it look really good!

A copy of our final inside cover for the digipak.

Back cover construction

1. The original photograph.
We decided that this photo would work really well as a back cover photo mainly because of the large amount of space on the right-hand side, which allows adequate room for the track listing.
I don't particularly like this photo very much as I think that it is dull, but the rest of my group seemed keen to use it, so I thought it best we follow 'majority rules' in this case, as it couldn't be that bad if they all liked it!



2. Georgia edited the contrast and saturation of the photoshop, in order to maintain the consistence of this throughout the Digipak (she wanted it to fit with the tone of the photo on the front cover).
She also cropped the original photo in order to fit the size requirements in making it a square shape. The original image was let down by the mistake of including the radiator underneath Charlotte's hand- this would not be found on existing media products unless on purpose, which I don't think would be a very good or interesting photo anyway!

3. By adding a radial lighting effect to the background space of the image, Georgia was able to make the image darker around the images - linking it with more effectively with the photo on the front cover of the Digipak.

4. It is important to include the addition of typical Digipak elements such as barcode, record label etc.- and these were elements that Georgia also had to consider, create and include, resultedly. She also included the additon of the 'small print', as she referred to it.

5. Georgia used right-alignment for the text of the track listing, as she felt that this was very different to other existing media products of this kind that she had seen in her research. She used a type of text wrap around the light of the background that she had added in previously, and this helped to shape the light and Charlotte's face. I think that this works really well. For the list of tracks in the text back, Georgia used the tracks for the album that the song 'Into Dust' actually belongs, as she felt that there was some significance in this, and that it would make most sense.



6. Georgia added some final touches, and finished the Digipak back cover. I think that it does look really good, and despite all criticism that I had for the original photograph, I do think that it looks really good and I am very pleased with the end result. Well done Georgia!