Digipak

With my CD Digipak I have taken inspiration from pre-existing Rockabilly & Psychobilly artists which have influenced the outcome of my overall digipak. As was required all of the images used in my digipak have been taken and edited by me. For the photos I used my Nikon D3200 DSLR camera and its capabilities for both light and dark settings. Some of these images were taken on the night of recording the Mojokings (on the 21st of November 2015); these images make-up the inside of the digipak with the left hand side being a group photo mid-song. The other two images were taken after filming the Mojokings and these are photographs featuring a female character up against a plain wall wearing the bands t-shirt.

First of all the colour-scheme is different and controversial as I have deliberately subverted from the genre convention which typically use warm colours such as red, orange and yellow which is keeping in with connotations of fire. I decided to go with a blue theme to make the CD cover and overall product stand out from other albums. On a shelf it would more prominent as very few bands use the blue theme and also the black & white idea work well as a contrast to the predominantly blue album. The colour blue connotates depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence and truth. Things such as trust and loyalty are something which is desirable in a audience for a band. The contrasting colours black and white gives a connotation of mystery but also light or goodness. The overall idea was to replicate a mixture of a 50's Rockabilly pinup look and also a energetic capture of the band live at a gig.

Front Cover: The front of my digipak depicts a female character leaning up against a wall and she is wearing the bands t-shirt. The idea behind the image is that it is typical of the Psychobilly & Rockabilly genre to have a female character promoting the album, this shows a mixed fanbase to what is stereotypically a male dominated music scene.

I edited the original image using online professional editing software called PIXLR. With this I drained the colour from the image to make it black and white, then I used a filter to give a blue tint to the whole image. After it was tinted I then emphasised this by increasing the vibrancy of the blue while also turning up the contrast to make the black shadows stand out (this also made the text and sleeves on the t-shirt appear the pure contrasting black). Finally I used a whitening tool to change the t-shirt from blue to a bright pure white colour. I finally used a border tool to create a ripped-paper edge to the image. Then continuing on PowerPoint I used the text tool to make the title of the album "Whatever Happened To Rock 'N' Roll?". The font used is 'TrueCrimes' which is a 1950's poster/ comic style font which links back to the roots of the genre. The text was then manipulated to make it central and emphasise the middle of the sentence. There was no need to have the bands logo as a separate graphic as it has been incorporated into the original image by way of costume. The costume itself was the Mojokings navy blue baseball-tee.

Continuing looking at the female character, I have used this idea by having the female character as the icon of the album, it is like creating your own iconography for the album and the band (this style also continues over to the poster). It is quite common for bands of the Rockabilly/ Psychobilly genre to use women as a brand/ icon for an album for example The Rhythm Shakers album "Voodoo" and Hillbilly Moon Explosion with their first album. It is not entirely clear from the front cover but the character featured has the 50's vintage pinup look which is a typical look for Rockabilly/ Psychobilly women. In addition this look references the genres root from 1950's Rock 'N' Roll.

The use of the scratches/ scribbles is a reference to a band The Peacocks who used this style for their 2010 album "After All" this element shows off the frantic and 'rough round the edges' style of the Psychobilly genre. The idea of having the torn edges is for the same reason having the image which is very pure and untouched in terms of overlaying graphics by having a ripped effect it gives the the rough look it contrasts to the clean cut of a normal album cover making it stand out.

Inside Left: For the inside of my digipak I have chosen to use an image of the band, this is quite a common feature of most albums in general giving some information about the band i.e. as I have done the name of the band members and what they play.

With the image I have continued with the blue theme. This was again achieved using PIXLR photo editor and with the image similarly I took out the colour from the original image and gave it a blue tint, then saturated the blue so it was more vibrant. Additionally the contrast was enhanced and I used a similar ripped border effect with a worn/ rough overlay to the image to give it texture and this adds with the sides to give the album a used effect.

The image itself  was selected at is is capturing the energy and enthusiasm each member of the band put into their performances. It is a good picture which shows all the members individually clear enough as well as an action shot of all three members. The text used for the word graphics on this part of the digipak is consistent with the front cover (True Crimes) for the same reasons of carrying over a vintage 1950's/ comic book style look and it has been manipulated to fit around the band members.

Inside Right: Note: This is the side where the CD is placed so just to show this I have drawn the outline of it on. there is a lack of text and other graphics on this side deliberately since it mostly will be hidden by the CD making it even when it's off rather hard to read anyway.

 On the right hand side there is a photo of the band's drum bass which is one of the main icons of the Mojokings in their performance as it illuminates when they play it is big part of their unique overall image. This image like the others was edited to be blue and also used the whitening tool (like the front cover) to bring out the whiteness of the front of the drum and then the contrast was altered on top of that to make the bands logo stand out. The border is also parallel with the main front cover with the ripped white edges which is giving reference to the Kitty In A Casket album "BitterSweet" one of the most popular covers in my audience research.

The use of this image also comes from my continuation of the music video by using an image taken from when I saw the Mojokings for recording it gives the effect of what it would be like to be in the audience seeing the image.

Back Cover: For the back of my CD I have continued with the female character and pinup look again using the scribbles to cover her eyes adding an element of curiosity and mystery to the image. It is like the image on the back is the full picture of the cover. I have done it so it is like the female character is looking at the track listings to draw attention and emphasise those. From this picture it is clear to see the person on the back cover here as mentioned above we can clearly see the Rockabilly/ Psychobilly style with the bands t-shirt featured again as well as 'Freddie's' vintage style jeans and 'suicide roll' hairstyle. This is continuing the reference to the look of female Rockabilly/ Psychobilly followers.

In the editing process there were very similar techniques as used for the front cover. I used PIXLR to make the image black and white, then tinting it and enhancing the blue to give the vibrant colour. From using this similar method it has given the same effect to the t-shirt making it go a dark colour, this was enhanced further by turning up the contrast making not only the t-shirt but also the bottom of the wall which contrasts the blue and also complements the outline of the track listings.

To keep in-line with the theme for the album I decided to continue using the same font throughout "True Crimes" this on the back however is a white text with a black outline to go with the contrasting  colours of the edited t-shirt, jeans of the character and also the wall. It is important to keep consistent with the fonts in order to keep the product looking professional.

At the bottom of the image there are logos of social media account which the Mojokings are on so that people who like and have bought the album can further their enjoyment of the product and keep up to date with the bands latest news about other albums, merchandise or tour dates. Finally at the bottom is the bar-code which is essential for the product when if being sold in music shops.


The Spine: This is the final piece to my digipak which connects the different sections together. With this I have used the same font as with the rest of this production and gone with a simple black and white colour scheme. The background colour is white as it goes with the white ripped effect edges of the front and back cover. In addition it will help to identify the CD when on a shelf with other products as the white will stand out. I have also used the bands logo on the spine again to help people identify album. I have deliberately gone simplistic for this section as it is the smallest part of the digipak and having too much detail on it will make the text hard to read and would be too busy to concentrate on. The purpose is to be simple to it can be easily identified when stacked up, by going with a font and colour theme which reflect this and the style of the album it should stand out and look unique (comparing to other Rockabilly/ Psychobilly albums which generally keep with the theme of red on a black background for this section of the CD).

Here are the before and after editing pictures, the ones on the left are the unedited originals taken straight from my camera.