The digipak front cover meets many typical conventions of media conventions which I

ensured through research into the products of artists of similar genres. Firstly, the artists

name is the largest text on the cover, immediately showing the audience who the

product belongs to, while slightly smaller text says the name of the album. This easily

identifies the product and links to the style of most artists’ albums. We have used only two fonts on the front cover which keeps it quite basic and not confusing or appear unplanned to the audience. An idea we have included,

challenging typical products is for the font of the artists name to represent her signature, therefore using a hand-writing styled font. It could be argued that we challenged typical

the girl’s style between these ancillary tasks and the music video itself, however, this was carefully planned and supported through our research which showed artists

are often showed in a different way as individual music videos will have their own style and not be the same throughout the album; one example of this is Katy Perry who’s music videos are very different, therefore meaning the album cannot reflect

her style in every one of them. Most artists appear glamorous and attractive on their album covers, attracting potential customers and their fans attention. We felt that

the style of the girl in the music video itself was quite rough and did not portray her as a successful artist and therefore we chose to change her outfit, hair and make-up slightly but not too dramatically that she will not be linked with the music video. The colour scheme of the front cover is consistent as the colours in the image are used

for the text colours also.A way we have challenged typical conventions of digipak’s is in the editing of the

image we have used on the front cover. We decided to emphasise the lips and eyes, making the rest of the photo quite faded in colour but sharp. I feel this gives the

final image a professional look which does link with typical products but also

In what ways does your digi-pak use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The inside cover of the digipak links to the front, developing many conventions of existing products. Firstly, the image links with that on the front, keeping the case consistent by showing her in the same clothing and make-up but still

emphasising the lips and eyes. However, this photograph has a different style to the front one,

appearing to be more eccentric and reflecting the carefree personality of the

girl in our music video. This links to many digipaks, for example Rihanna’s ‘Talk that Talk’ album which show the

Therefore, the CD we have constructed develops typical conventions of products from artists of similar genres. Taking the lips from the front image, however, was

our own idea which we have not seen used on typical products, though Rihanna’s ‘Loud’

album does a similar method of using a common image from the front cover (a rose) as the only image on the CD, suggesting our product shares this

Behind her name are lines of Kesha’s

initials, similar to the way we have

presented Ellie’s lips on our own CD.

The actual CD in the digipak shows a repetitive pattern of Ellie’s lips,

immediately showing that it links with the rest of digipak, keeping the

lips as the main focus, while the background shares the colour from the front and inside covers. From

research I carried out, I found that a basic, repetitive pattern is quite common for a CD, for example

Kesha’s Animal album:

Behind our CD is quite basic and took a few designs before we decide to go with

a message from the artist. This challenges typical conventions of media products as not many have messages

from the artist. However, I believe if this was an actual product it would appeal to the audience as they would feel the artist

is directly talking to them.Ways this meets conventions however is the way it links to the rest of the digipak,

in both the background colour and the font. This font is only used for the artists

name and so by writing ‘love’ and ‘x’ after her name makes it even more

on the front cover, giving an insight into the album; I therefore believe this image has successfully done this, making it appear realistic. However, this image does

also challenge typical conventions by cutting off the artists forehead but we ensured the eyes and lower part of the face could be seen to prevent it from

looking amateur.In the bottom right hand corner of the inside cover is a line from the song saying ‘Ignorance is your new best friend’. This develops typical conventions as a similar idea was used on this section of one of Kesha’s album. It links to the music video,

making that song in particular stand out to the audience, while the font links to the

Our back cover of the digi-pak mainly meets typical conventions of real products. Firstly, the colour scheme links throughout, with the

back cover also using a pale blue background and black and red for the text

colours. In addition, the information presented on the back cover is typical of an album back cover, with the song list being

the main focus and then further information on the record label and contact details on

the artist.Research showed that most commonly

digipak’s do number the songs and so we also did so but putting the ‘#’ sign in front so they are read ‘number 1’ and so on. We have added a third font to the digipak here as we had planned to use the ‘Elle’ font for

her name only, while the font for ‘ignorance’ is quite thin and therefore was hard to read

and is also bold so easy to read. Though it may challenge conventions using a different font on the back, only three are used throughout, keeping it realistic and

linked to real products. The text at the bottom is also written in this font and therefore keeps the back cover consistent, while the contact information is in the

‘ignorance’ font meaning it does still link to the front cover.The image shows about two thirds of the girl, with the rest being cut off the side of the case. Many real products include an image on the back cover but a slightly less

obvious or full view of the person; for example Rihanna’s ‘Rated R’ album back cover shows her back as she walks away. We therefore also decided to use this

convention by cutting off part of the person, while believing it made it link well to the front cover image which also cuts off a small portion of the girls hair. In

addition, the editing of this image, like on real products links throughout with all being quite faded in colour but sharp, with the lips and eyes emphasised.

A way this part of the digipak does challenge real products, however, is through the contact information we have included beneath the list of songs. Instead of

addresses and names of the producers, we decided to put the twitter, MySpace and Sound Cloud accounts of the artist as these are three websites which are

currently highly active in the music industry and particularly popular with teenagers (the target market for this artist).

The spine of the digipak is fairly basic but this reflects typical digipak spines. We decided to use the same fonts from the front cover in the text across the spine as the same information is presented here. In addition, the background colour links to

that throughout the digipak, developing typical conventions of digipaks.A way the spine of the digipak challenges these conventions is in the way we have not included the record label logo on the spine. However, we did not mention the record label throughout and so felt it would look a bit out of place and random if

only mentioned here. Instead we only included the artist and album names, making them stand out as the only information.