This is my final design for digipack for my unsigned artist's upcoming release. I constructed the front cover using Photoshop CS3. I started with my photo of Lewis. The original photograph of Lewis was not the correct size or format of a typical digipack cover, as it was rectangle not square. First of all I changed the canvas size to make it a square shape. I was now left with the rectangle picture and a blank area that made up the square shape. I addressed this problem by using the clone tool to make the picture bigger but still have the same scene. Using the clone tool I dragged the photograph out to the right. This made the size and format of my digipack cover correct. You can see the transformation of the format and size of the digipack in the two photos below.

The next thing I decided to do to edit the image was to flip it over so it was basically a mirror image of this. The idea behind this was so that the blood on his chest was now on the left side of his chest, representing a bleeding heart. I decided this would make the digipack cover be more metaphorical and would allow my target audience to relate to the album cover. You can see these changes I made by looking at the original photo (On the left) and the edited version (on the right)

Another edit I did to the image was to change the sign that Lewis was holding. In the original photo Lewis is holding a sign saying Monsieur Lewis. I thought that it would be better for the digipack cover to use his stage name of The Next Forever as this would enable my target audience and his fans to notice his name and recognise it. Another reason for changing the name is to stop any confusion arising to the viewers. I then developed the idea of changing the name to change it to the actual song title name and then have The Next Forever in another area of the digipack album cover. So now I changed the sign he was holding to say the tracks name - "Upstream". I did this by using the brush tool and then the colour select function to select an area of the sign in which the sign hadn't been written on and then I coloured over the writing. I then used the brush tool and a graphics tablet to handwrite the word "upstream" on the sign. You can see the changes I made to the sign in the two images below. The first image is the original photograph, the second image is of the edited photograph so it says the tracks name – “Upstream”.

Next I had to create an album title. This process involved going onto “www.dafont.com” and from there I downloaded a font that I thought would be ideal for the album cover. I then installed the font onto the iMac and then opened it on Photoshop. I used the text tool to write the text. I then positioned at the top left area of the digipack as I thought this would be an appropriate position.

I then decided to change the colour of the text. When it came to selecting a colour for the title, I decided red would be an appropriate colour for the album cover. This is because red connotes thoughts of romance and this is what the songs theme is about, so I thought red would be appropriate. I then decided to use the colour of the fake blood from Lewis' heart in the image. To do this I extracted the colour from the heart using the pipette tool. Then I selected the font and changed the colour. I thought it would be a good idea to link up some of the text to make it flow more. I did this using the graphics tablet and the brush tool. I drew lines to link up some of the letters such as the letter "x" in the word "Next" and the letter "v" in the word "Forever". I thought this looked nice and made the title more interesting looking and visually appealing. You can see the letters I joined up using the graphics tablet in the image below.

Next I create the back cover of the digipack. Again I used Photoshop CS3 and imported the picture into the program. This photo was already the correct size for a digipack so I did not need to edit the size of the canvas.

First of all I changed the colour and brightness of the picture. I went on the tab “Image” and then “Adjustments” and then selected “Colour balance”. From there I increased the levels of yellow. Then I selected the “Image” tab and then “Adjustments”, “Brightness/Contrast”. I increased both the brightness and the contrast to a suitable level. The purpose of doing this was to match the colour scheme and brightness to that of the front cover image. I thought this was important so it makes it more professional, as the original image was dark and greyer than the front cover so would not flow very well. You can see the changes I made to the brightness, contrast and colour in the transformation below.

Next I used the brush tool to paint the sky the same colour as it was in the front cover image. I decided to do this to increase the level of continuity and make the digipack flow better as a whole product, as apposed to two individual images. Again I used the pipette tool to select the colour of the sky in the front cover image and then used this colour and the brush tool to paint the sky the same colour.

From studying existing media products, particular those digipacks of the same genre such as releases by Jack Johnson, City and Colour, Jason Mraz and more. I took note of recurring aspects of their digipacks. I found that common features of these digipacks were to have the track listings on the back cover. Hence, I decided to include the track listing on the back of my digipack cover to tap into this convention of existing media products, and to make my product look professional. I used the text tool to write the track names. I decided to use the same font as I had done on the front of the cover to write “Upstream”. I came to this decision because I thought using the same font could act as a recurring theme that the audience could relate to and associate the artist with this font. Again I extracted the colour from the Lewis’ bloody t-shirt using the pipette tool. Then I selected the font and changed the colour.

As my chosen artist was an unsigned artist I thought it would be a good idea to include some information about him on there. Hence I included his website that ran along the bottom of the back cover. I used the text tool to compose the text and then used the same font as I had done to write “The Next Forever” on the front cover and the track listing on the back cover. I extracted the colour from sky using the pipette tool. Then I selected the font and changed the colour to match that of the sky. I decided to use the same colour as I thought have many different colours on thee digipack would look messy and not very professional.

Finally I decided to add a barcode to the bottom left of the digipack. I decided to do this because from carrying out research of existing digipacks, there are barcodes on the back cover. I thought by including one on my digipack it would help to make it look more professional.

Here is my final digipack design.