Draft Digipak Cover Ideas

These are my first mock up ideas for my final cover idea, working through and making improvements I have created my final idea for my draft digipak. In the first mock-up I have used a 'stained paper' style background to give the cover a vintage feel. I have used the font 'Scarlet Ribbons' from my research for the artist's name, I have also added an outer glow to create a 'bubble' feel around the word, which adds a fun and pop element to the overall appearance of the cover. The main image used within the cover is a 'retro' style milkshake which ties in with my idea to incorporate the america diner style to reinforce the 1950's era of influence. I feel the prop itself and the high contrast and saturation used in editing makes it represent this idea well. The text used at the bottom for the album title 'Ghosts' is in the font 'Air Conditioner' which also works really well with the 1950's retro american diner theme as it reflects this perfectly. However, I felt that this album cover could be improved because, although all the elements work they way I intended and well represent the ideas behind it, I felt the overall look could be altered as the texts used don't balance well.

In the second mock-up I have used all the same elements, however I changed the text used for the artist's name. I really liked the font and the editing so I decided to change the placement of the text to try and better balance it with the title, 'Ghosts'. I did this by removing the arc layout, making the text straight and in line with the text at the bottom. I felt this worked much better as the layout made it easily broken up using the rule of thirds. It also meant the text was straight and better matched the straight line at the bottom. However, I still felt that the feel of the appearance was not right and it could still be improved and better balanced. Within the third cover mock-up I removed the editing on the title, so it was just a simple title that let the font stand out better. I made the colour of the font match with that used for the album title as this helps to balance our the two texts. However, at this point, I did not like how different the two fonts I used were, as I felt this was the reason they were not balancing and so at this point I started considering what other fonts I could use. Looking back at the fonts I found whilst researching, I experimented with various fonts for the artist's name, as I felt the font I was using up until this point, 'Scarlet Ribbons' was too bold and didn't fit the elegant and simple appearance I had created. After trying several fonts, I decided the font 'Channel' was the best option, as it was thinner but also still bold enough to make the artist's name stand out. I also felt that this font was better balanced with the image of the milkshake, as after changing the font and looking back at the previous font, I felt that the 'Scarlet Ribbons' font had taken too much attention away from this main image. Although I much prefer this font, I felt that it was still unbalanced as this font didn't have such a 'straight line' appearance. I then started to consider what I could change to improve this, and so I decided to add in the line either side of the text so that it appeared more in balance as the album title as the also had the line either side of it.
Therefore, this was one of the key changes made for my fourth mock-up. I also decided to experiment with changing the bottom font used for the album title 'Ghosts'. I had refrained from this previously as I felt that 'Air Conditioner' font really well reflected the ear and the 1950's retro american dinner theme. However, at this point, I felt that using the same font for both text elements on the cover would help to balance the appearance of the overall cover. I first decided to try using the 'Air Conditioner' font for both the artist's name 'Lexi and the Spectrum' and the album title 'Ghosts'. I really liked the use of this font because it best fits the era, however, when using it for both text elements on the page it became lost and make the main image more of a statement than I intended. For this reason I felt the font 'Air Conditioner' would not work for my cover. I then decided to use the font 'Channel' for both text element; I feel this works much better and gives the cover a really balanced look. At this point, I also decided that perhaps a photo of the artist would work better on the cover than an object such as this milkshake, as this is a prop that could be used elsewhere within the digipak, such as the back cover with the track listings. I experimented with these ideas and created my final first draft digipak cover and back as shown here:

Digipak Cover:

Digipak Back: