Latest Digipack Ideas

Here is my idea for the album's front cover:



Here is my idea for the back of the CD booklet (the inside left image when the case is open):

Here is the image I hope to use for the inside right-hand side of the case, which would be behind where the CD is held:

Here is my design for the back of the album:

Album Cover Designs/Experiments

My first music video idea was set on a beach, so for my first album cover idea I incorporated the beach into the design; the beach would have related to the music video, and may be associated with the acoustic genre. Also, the use of a beach fire would have been useful in illustrating the name of the album 'Time For This Light To Shine'.

I started off taking photos of the beach at Sea Pauling near Norwich, but decided that although such images may be appealing to look at, they don't promote the artist or relate to the music or it's genre. Here is an example of the photos I took of the landscape:

I also took photos of the fire, trying to capture an image with a dark surrounding so the fire stands out. The idea of having a beach fire meant the beach (and the fire) could be associated with the acoustic genre, but also the fire could relate to the name of the album. However, this too did not promote the artist himself. here is one of the photos of the fire I took:

I took photos of the artist next to the fire with his guitar. This was to try and use my initial idea of using the beach and the idea of using fire to go with the name of the album, but with the artist being shown and an acoustic guitar; this would help further enforce the acoustic genre connotation, and also promote the artist. Here is an example of the photos I took this way:

I tried to take the photos in time with when the fire gave of small embers from the top, so that the low shutter speed of the camera could capture lines of light coming from the fire rather than small specks of fire; the lines of light make the photo more attractive, but also go with the font I chose to use for the writing. The font I chose looks like glowing light/flames, and also as if someone has written it by waving a sparkler around - this goes well with the name of the album and also the images of the artist by the fire. However, the artists face is not clear enough in the images to successfully promote him on his first album, so I chose to think of a new idea. Here are two examples below:

Album Cover Research

Here are a few of the debut albums I found for acoustic artists. It has come to my attention that they all focus on the artist; they all focus on the artist's face. This may be to help promote the artist and get them well-known faster.
After realising this I decided to look into debut albums from other genres and found that there is a trend for artists' first albums to have a clear image of the artists face - then after they become well known, albums then start to focus less on the artists appearance and may use other designs.

After deciding I would conform to the generic idea of using an image of the artist's face for my album cover, I came across Queen's first album (shown below). This uses images of the band members' faces, but in conjunction with a dark black background. This style gives the image a dark feel to it. As the album I am designing a cover for would be called 'Time For This Light To Shine' after the song I made a music video for, I thought it would be good advertising/promoting to incorporate the music video's narrative into the album cover. To do this I have decided to use the black background with faces idea from the Queen album. Instead of the blackness to give the album a dark connotation, I will use a image of candle-light with the faces to give the opposite feel; the use of light in the darkness, along with the name 'Time For This Light To Shine', gives the image the connotation of 'light' rather than dark. This 'light' with the two faces (the artist and his lover from the music video) suggests that there is a 'flame' between the two people (a relationship between the two people, as in the music video). Having the artist's face on the front cover and the girl's face on the back makes his identity stand out when people see the front cover - which helps to promote the artist and help people to start to recognise who he is. The black background also help make his face stand out, to attract attention to the album cover.