Individual digipak - Miss Miller

Within our group of me Sophie, Devon and Lucy, all made an individual digipak for our artist and her album. We done this in order to test our photoshop skills and to take certain elements from our individual digipaks and put them together to create a successful group digipak.

In my individual digipak I used red throughout, this portrays conventions of our chosen genre; soul. The use of the colour red is used to connote passion and love, this gives the audience an insight to the personality of our artist and shows that she makes passionate soul music. The colour red is very prominent throughout my digipak which can appeal to the audience as red is a bright, attractive colour. Also the use of white writing is used to stand out as it is the artist's words, this makes her seem like a star as what she is saying is important and has to stand out form the rest of the text on the digipak, the pink writing on the front cover matches the coat of Sophie's, this makes the digipak look professional as the colours match and go with each other, also pink is very feminine which gives the audience an insight to the artist as conventional as most female soul genres are very feminine.

Some of the elements from my individual digipak conform to the soul music genre and some subvert, for example the vintage colours, the dark red used typically signifies love and relationships, this conforms to the soul genre as soul music artists usually sing about relationships and love, this gives the audience an insight to Sophie's music as the connotation of the colour red used in my digipak, reflects the artist's music. Also the use of a pink coat on the artist shows her femininity, this is conventional of the soul music genre as most female soul artist's are very feminine to attract the male audience.

The images used in my individual digipak are chosen specifically to portray our artist in a certain way. For example the image on the front cover shows the artist in a rose garden, this reflects happiness and joy, this subverts from the soul music genre and more specifically the music video as the song is called 'only love can hurt like this' and the video shows her going through a break up, this subverting of the genre could excite the audience as she will stand out from the other stereotypical soul music artists. Also the use of a rose makes the digipak have a red tone, this presents the love and passion of the song which the artist sings, also a rose has thorns on them which shows that something beautiful can hurt you, this specifically relates to our song and video as it is called 'only love can hurt like this'. Also the background of the track list shows a lonely, empty forest, this presents the artist as alone, this is conventional to the soul music genre as soul artist sing about being alone after breaking up with a partner. This also gives the audience an insight into the artist's life which is what a digipak is all about as it creates a more personal feel.

The layout and design of the digipak typically has the text and artist images standing out the most, this is to successfully promote the artist and her album, also the images of the artist will appeal more to fans are the digipak will help them create a relationship as they feel they will know more about the artist. Also the text written by the artist is bold and bright which shows that her words are important which portrays her as a star, this will appeal strongly to the fans who buy the digipak as it is a personal message from Sophie to her fans.

The typography used in the digipak is chosen carefully to create a personal feel for the audience, lexis such as 'guys' makes the audience feel like they are on personal terms with the artist which will make the digipak appeal to them more. Also the front cover contains 'Sophie Mae' and 'A true reflection', this beinf the only words on the front cover makes them stand out more and appeal to the audience, this will promote the album more and make artist seem like a star as her name is in bold, the track list also contains nothing but the song names to make them stand out more to the audience ans stop them possibly getting bored of reading pointless text.

Using photoshop to create my digipak was hard at first as I struggled with some of the tools, for example removing the background from an image was tricky as I had to select the correct tool to do so. After some practising and attempting to do this with different tools I eventually found out how to confidently use the magic wand tool and the magnetic lasso tool to remove the background from an image to add to my digipak. Also editing the texts I used was difficult as I did not know how to make an outline or a shadow effect, after trying different effects with the text I eventually found out how to do this and furthermore found out how to make a reflection effect which is shown in my digipak.

I was particularly good with editing the images in photoshop, for example using the filter gallery to give the image different effects, after experimenting with loads of different effects I ended up with the cartoon looking image which I used in my digipak above. Also the blur effect in the 'filter' options I was familiar with and knew how to make either a slightly blurry image or very blurry very well, I used a slight blur on my background image on my album advert to make the artist, artist name and album name stand out more and appeal more to the audience.

I feel like my digipak mostly conforms to the conventions of the soul music genre through specifically the colours and images used. The use of red portrays the artist as passionate and in love which is further presented in the song 'only love can hurt like this' this also gives the audience an insight into the artist as a person and that she may be passionate herself, this will allow the audience to feel more personal with the artist as they know more about her. Also the images show the artist in lonely places which makes them feel like they her with her, this again makes the digipak appeal to the audience as it will make the fans seem again, more personal with the artist and make them feel like they have got a connection through her music.

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I feel like my digipak does appeal to my target audience as it gives them what they want which is an insight to the artist's life and a more personal relationship between them. My digipak includes this through the use of a personal message and exclusive pictures, this will not only appeal to the audience, but promote the artist's album through this. Also the vintage colours present the artist as professional as the digipak is well made due to my knowledge on photoshop, this will appeal more to my target audience of 16-40 year olds as it doesn't look boring or tacky.

Creating an individual digipal instead of a group one straight away allows us as a group to look at each others adverts and take elements from each of our individual attempts in order to make the group digipak the best that it can be as some of our group members are better in different aspects of photoshop. For example I am the best at editing the images where as Lucy and Devon are very good at editing the typography, Sophie was very good and linking the images and text in order to create a professional digipak. After looking at each others individual digipaks we now know what we want to do for our group digipak, using elements from each of our individual attempts.