CD Digipack

History Of Music Recording 

The first recording was created by Thomas Edison who created the light bulb as well. In 1877 he created the phonogram which was sound recording played off wax cylinders, the quality wasn't something special but bemused many people and made it look like it was witchcraft.

After the phonogram was created the Gramophone was invented which gave the opportunity for customers to buy this, however you'd had to be extremely healthy, the wax cylinders were still used and were played out of a trumpet type output which was sold onto the market. The first records were spun round between 60 and 120 RPM.

Thomas Alva Edison discovered a method of recording and playing back sound. What had started out as an apparatus intended as part of an improved telephone led to the development of an instrument which would change the world, making it a happier, even a better, place to live


Vynl was then created and was very thick so it didn't break so easily, this came about around the 1930s and meant that it enlarged the customer market. Microphones were then introduced so you could speak into them and it picked it up. In the 1940s Vynl was changing and in 1960 they began to become more flexible instead of smash able. In the 1970s  audio tapes were invented, a cassette tape which was played in a tape play which would read the tape and the music will be recorded on the tape.

In 1979 Sony invented the walkman, the first portable music listening device, as of today we have phones and mp3 players, but in 1979 the first one was introduced, it was a portable tape player with head phones attached to it so you can walk and listen to music, hence the name walkman.







1978 First announcement of Compact Disc from Philips Industries:

After tapes which ruled the 1980s, CDs were invented so music would be played of this circular disk which portrayed the music by having lasers reading the back, they also brought the same out for films. CDs began to rule however music was then being played off mp3 players, mp3 standing for MPEG which also 'means of compressing a sound sequence into a very small file, to enable digital storage and transmission'   

Online streaming also then became a thing from big companies which created Youtube, Spotify etc, driving MP3 out of business but not to extinct.

Many people listen on MP3 still and collect vinyls, tapes and boom boxes but at the moment music is mostly played on online services and is continuing that growth.

1982 Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album released by the Columbia subsidiary Epic Records ultimately sold 40m copies of CD's and tapes

CD was then officially launched in Japan

1983 CD was officially launched in the UK on 1 March. 1986 After slow initial sales, 50 million CD units were sold in the year. 

1998 Music piracy on the Internet, using the MP3 format, became a cult activity. People and audiences to this day still use MP3 and is found on multiple devices ranging from phones, tablets and computers. there is still more of the recording industry to come. Lets not forget that there are sites such as last FM and Spotify where you can listen to music anywhere you like by applying for their membership.

Codes and Conventions of CD covers:




Artists are typically found on the front of an album or CD to promote their self image like Rhianna or Beyonce, particular with these there are alot of self exploitation with nude to also promote them to men as men sometimes seem to objectify women therefore seeing it as a marketing opportunity.

All the CDs we had researched had the artist or art on the front cover, with the inside cover showing a special thanks to some of the artists who played the instruments in the album and with the inside back cover heal a disk and extra information like writing or contact details and on the back also had the artist but this time with different art in the background.  Also on the back held writing which shows us where the album was made, if there is a problem they give some sort of contact. It tells the audience who distributed the CD and who created it.

The CDs seem to be quite bright so they can attract a customer's eye, if the cover is nice to look at then it's also another positive for the customer to look at. If the art on the front cover is also incredible it may attarct those who think that their music will be good. Stereo-typically if you look at the cover you are able to judge and guess what genre the CD/Album is just by looking at the font/artwork/artist.

There are CDs and albums which have an inherited audience either if the CD is made by a film someone likes or perhaps a person likes a celebrity and the celebrity decides to make an album which will in fact already have an audience.

Fonts and Art work can usually attract someone to the album as it looks like something different. For example. Coldplay's album 'A head full of dreams' is very multi coloured and shows the name of the album on top which is also something typical you get from those who make it. Coldplay's album attracts alot of people because the different colours and how it looks friendly, you can also tell their target market which is aiming for 'hippies' or those who are very calm and light hearted.







Analysing  of CD packs:

Here I have analysed 3 CD packs to help myself be able to find codes and conventions I will be able to use for my upcoming CD pack and some possible ideas for Music Magazine Advertisement.

If I were to pick my favouritre covers I'd pick the second one as I think the features stand out the most, I can tell that the cover is very eye catching, I can tell what the genre is just by looking and engaging myself with the artist. The covers on RYE X are all different and amusing , it gives me ideas to what I can do with my upcoming CD covers.

Practice with Photoshop and creation of CD Digipack:

Here I begin laying out what I want my Digipack to have, I want to use the chemical symbol for MDMA because it's used for a whole range of things. I place the picture on the front cover so it measures out correctly between the lines.







I began testing out different backgrounds by using the bucket tool, and I went for a light blue/normal blue background to symbolise coldness and how drugs may can make people lose limbs as if it was a frost bite. I also wanted to show something to tell our target market that it has a hospital type theme as the artist name is ' HEALTH'

Here I darkened the background so it isn't so bright when looking at it, I also added an extra image of MDMA but I added some photo effects to it so it doesn't look completely obvious/ plain and boring.





Though with the pictures I have inserted we are not allowed to use as we can only use our own photography, but this is simply a practice with photoshop.









Planning: Initial ideas for CD designs

We've come together and gave some thought about what we want to do with our CD digipack:

Initially we thought with our front cover we would like to have our logo with art in the background or perhaps the artist on the front, this would promote the album and intrigue our market. Sean sketched out what the loo may look like on the front. it  isn't going to be up scratch but it is a prototype and a basis we can go off to start our planning for our CD cover. Beginning with we had the idea of the artists mouth, but however we thought with there bing a logo it gave Sean a chance to show off his photoshop skills and i can also learn from it to add on my technical experience. We also had the idea of lyrics from the music video song we are going to be using coming off the logo e.g. Euphoria.

Sean sketched up some ideas to what the front cover may look like:



Representing the letter 'T' in health as a medical sign is a powerful symbol when wanting to produce our CD cover. It gives our album an artistic edge as viewers will be intrigued with why it is put there, but a symbol relating to the name of the album would be very visually pleasing.


Planning: Feedback from initial ideas

Idea 1. Health sign.

From what we gained for feed back on the initial ideas below is that the our 1st option was that very intriguing, however they did say (as we are including the artist in our photo) that it might go well with some of the photography on the front cover, but on its own it wouldn't be a good idea as it would be too simple. This was the main reason to why our idea got a tally of 2 people.

The second idea was our highest tally at 5 people, they said that "the MDMA structure could be drawn and you could have the artist fading in to the background (They are talking about front cover). Me and Sean like this idea but we understand that our own photography will have to be used so we plan on making our own MDMA structure and fitting it in with photos we took from our actor. Although despite positive feed back we gained a negative, we were told that we could probably use a different medical structure relating to drug use but a healthy type of drug such as the structure Codeine.

Codeine Structure drawn.

Though we found that this can come across as much more unique and different to viewers as the MDMA structure is more popular in this day and age. 

Idea 2. MDMA sign

The last one was considered as very simple and couldn't imagine it with the song we have chosen and that if it were to be choose it would need higher improvement. However this could be used for the background when creating our music magazine advertisement but me and Sean will most likely rule this one out due to other better ideas.

Apologise for the poor quality, the paper is not to be found but luckily we took photos of it. Idea 3.

Below is our total of what we got put into a table so it is easier to read. 8 people tallied .

The first photo I developed from this is this, showing the type of ice we would like to go along with although at its initial stage:

Front Cover

I first applied a dark background to research the mood and atmosphere with  this piece.

I then added the photo of our spray panted chemical symbol and faded out the background so it looks like the  drugs are stuck in his head.

Similar sort of action here but added our blue drawn version with added on chemicals.

However these ideas came to a sudden halt because we wanted to portray the song's name within the photo so it provides stronger context, so we want the photo to be happy but have the same idea I have included within this. 



Photography Schedule: 12th January/ 13th January

I plan on having a photoshoot with Max on this date, I'll be using a white wall so when it comes to using photoshop we can easily cut around him. Max displays his personality excellently in terms of being photogenic and it can really inspire me and Sean to take things to the next level when it comes to producing our covers for our CD digipack.

Photos of our actor taken by Sam: Photoshoot.

Construction process: 

I wanted to have the front cover extremely similar to the music magazine advertisement which we had created, so I was going to use the same photo and image as feedback as told me it look visually appeasing.

I transferred our actors face to the front cover, whilst also creating a pink/burgundy background so the colours mix well when it comes to editing our other parts of the CD digipack.

However I did not like the colour that was provided in the back ground so I started from scratch once more and put in the top of the MMA as the front cover of our CD digipack as this illustrates a certain type of synergy.


Here I duplicated the top of our MMA to the front cover, I fixed it to size by making sure it was a smart object.

I then went to add the same font I used in the MMA as this creates a connection. I create the word 'HEALTH' and put in blue, however that colour didn't mix with the scenery in the background so I changed it to a gold/yellow. This indicated a happy vibe but also an electronic genre sort of vibe, therefore I went with the colour and put the name of the album underneath the artist name to indicate that it's brand new.

Afterwards I wanted to create the sky blue/pinky background to illustrate the intention of our musical products.

The back cover now looks as if it is fading in towards our actors face creating a more intense atmosphere. The back cover will be very faint and plain because it will include a track list and a copy right statemeant from the label company Electronic Central Recordings.


Now that we have created a barcode and copyright statement we started to import our tracklist in a yellow sort of colour, this ensured that we are keeping continuity within our products.

 

We then started to type in the spine, it was small but it added to the professional detail towards our existing product, it conveys the artist name, the artist's band name and the barcode number

 Above is the rotation so we can now start to work on the inside front and inside back cover:

Below is a photograph of our actor standing behind some metal bars, this creates an urban mood and atmosphere which is what we liked so we also added an ' Action '  filter on it to make the inside of our CD digipack seem more intense and artistic.





 
 We then overlay the picture so we sense a type of fade, similar to what's going on with the front and back cover. However in this photo evidence I apply a darkish setting to pinpoint existing codes and conventions which are CD digipack is portraying.



Finally we add the pinky/sunset colour to the photo to create the full CD digipack.