The Making of Our Digipak

Our first idea for our digipak was to use a leaf linking with our band name 'Autumn of the Jolly'. I suggested using the leaf on the back of the album placing the track titles within the leaf. Whilst we were out taking potential photos for the front we tried to see if we could attempt the leaf idea. Kerry with her steady hand placed her camera towards a tree which hosted a lonely leaf. Looking from the underside she managed to take a blur free photo of the leaf which also happened to be of good shape and colour. We then started to photoshop. We started by taking out some of the unwanted branches and leaves in the background. We took out most leaving just the corner as we felt we didn't want the image to be too plain or over manipulated by at the same time we wanted to attention to be on the main leaf not what surrounds it. Therefore we also changed the contrast of the sky making it lighter and intensified some of the colours of the leaf. Strangely enough we found by taking some of the contrast down on the leaf that the colours separated themselves more clearly and the red part was very diminished from the rest of the colours. Now with the back image complete it is just the case of adding the song titles and adding bar codes, copyright terms etc. However we also prepared to change parts of the back cover considering an idea for the front cover hasn't yet been finalised.

The leaf before manipulation:

The leaf after manipulation:

'with the tracks added'

We now looked at making our front cover. We wanted the main image to be pure and simple. Therefore we took a few shots of the main artist with our favourite shown below. The face is neutral and the hair, in particular the fringe, sits well. However my favourite thing about the photo is how the guitar is pictured. It's close to the camera with all the detailing and is at an angle which extends the neck of the guitar. The hand positions are also believable and importantly are not blurred. The girl you see in the background is holding a light. My partner who is more of an expert in photography than myself informed me that by taking the picture in a dark room with a light will eliminate myself and will help to darken the background in editing; hence the girl with the light.

Now with our image we began to darken the background to just leave myself and the guitar as the main picture and the give us the opportunity to change the background. Through photoshop we eliminated parts of the background and turned them black and used the burn tool closer to the image. We also used the spot healing tool to remove any dust particles from the camera lens. This stage is represented below:

Now with our darkened image we had to create something that would stand and be different. We looked at various filters until we came to one we liked called 'charcoal'. With our leaf on the back surrounding by a blue sky we used blue as the background with an orange outline. However, we felt that it generally looked tacky and unprofessional but both agreed that we liked the orange outline which had a drawing effect. This image is represented on the left hand side:







Not particularly keen on our blue background we tried white instead. This looked much, much better in our opinion. It really highlighted the detail of the picture and picked up on my favourite part of the image originally which was the guitar. For example, you can clearly see the frets and neck markings. To finish it off we thickened the strokes to fill out my hair and facial features but also 'rubbed out' a few 'stradely' hairs. We then added our 'Autumn of the Jolly' band logo which was originally created for the website.

'completed front cover'

Above is our finished front cover. You'll notice that the band logo is now in a light blue colour described as 'duck egg' blue. We felt the black was a bit bland and that the blue colour had a lovely contrast with the orange. It also felt 'edgier' and modern. To finish we resized the image to 12.2cm x 14cm so that it would represent an actual sized CD cover.

With both our front and back covers now complete it became apparent how they may not match that well in terms of them theoretically being put together. Therefore we used the same 'charcoal' filter on our back cover as we felt we liked the idea of the front cover more than the back. After changing the filter we thickened the lines and changed the text colour to maroon. We felt the maroon complemented the leaf well and although we would have liked to have used the duck egg blue, it failed to show up as well as the colour chosen. At the bottom of the album we have added the compact-disc logo, a barcode, the website address and the record company copyright 'signature'.

However after finishing the back cover we realised that the hinge of the album would sit on the right hand side of the image therefore we reversed the cover to rectify this. We are very happy with the front and back covers and are glad we have tried to match them. Admittedly they seem simple but yet they both seem extremely effective and we really love the filter we've used.

'completed back cover'

With the back and front covers completed we know need to work on other areas of the digipak. Below shows our spine of the CD case. The background is a block orange colour to complement the white areas around the edge of the front and back covers. It also features small white flowers to continue to theme of Autumn. Placed on top is the band name clearly shown in the middle. Alongside that is the record company name and the serial code.

Next is the CD itself. From my textual analysis it shown me how the CD can be very much based on all your other features from the design. With orange and white being our common theme it made sense to make one of them the base colour. As the base colour for the front and back covers is white we opted for the orange. We then used a custom brush downloaded off myphotoshopbrushes.com, to make the white 'splodges'. The first reason was to make it look as quirky as the rest of the album but we felt it also represented the rawness of releasing a first album and shown the band as real people who have made it, as the paint could represent a labouring job etc. We then added the band name and album title to the side of the hole. Noticeably the heart next to the album title is the same colour as the tracks are in on the back cover. We then added the copyright notice and serial codes at the bottom of the disk in that same brown colour. Here is the finished design:

'The Disc'

Next we had to design the two inside covers. Firstly we started with the disc side (inlay) where the CD sits. Going with our autumn theme we decided to use a photo that my partner had taken recently; a beautiful shot of the trees in the sunset. We made the image look brighter with a warming filter and by increasing the saturation. We then added the two inner circles and middle binder to make the inlay look effective and a full product design.

'the inlay'

Finally we needed an inside cover. Because the faces are obscured on the front cover we felt we needed a clear image of the entire band to give them a firm identity. After taking a few photos we selected our favourite. It was taken on an attractive wooden bench which sits infront of a multi-coloured wall which had been painted. We also used props such as the guitar and drum sticks to reitterate the group as a band, possibly interupting a rehearsal to take the shot. It was then the case of brightening the image followed by cropping the top to cut out the high windows. Finally we added text at the top of the cover to introduce the band on their debut album.

'inside cover'

The text reads:

"Autumn of the Jolly were formed in early 2010. Since then they have gone from strength to strength. This is their first album on sale in the UK and they have a tour planned for Summer 2012"

With all the parts now finished we had our work viewed by Brendan Way who gave us professional feedback. He advised that we added the other two band members to the front cover to avoid people viewing it as a solo album. There is more detail of this in my evaluation. We also added an album title which we intended to add after realising it was a major part missing from the cover.