Noel's Colour Schemes

Whilst looking at the CD covers for the singles 'What A Life', 'If I Had A Gun' and 'The Death Of You And Me' we noticed how the same colour theme is used through-out. The text of which shows the bands name and the song title are both white, and the actual image has a gradient of colours. The gradient used makes the left side of the cover orange, and this fades to a turquoise/green on the right. As a group we decided that we should too use this style for our digipak, as it will follow Noel's house style and we believe that the effect in general is an artistic touch which works well. 

We also noticed how the photograph used for the single cover for 'What A Life' is a shot from the video itself. However the other covers such as 'If I Had A Gun' and 'The Death Of You And Me' had images were not evident in the music videos, this poses a question for the group on whether to use a shot from the music video or not for our digipak.

Jay then had a go at creating a similar styled gradient on Photoshop to see if it would be possible to make one easily for the digipak.

Gradient Tool

He began selecting an image of Noel Gallagher; as this was only a practice run. The gradient is then added by selecting the image, and then the 'gradient tool' which is located on the side bar to the left of the Photoshop layout.

Gradient Options

Once the 'gradient tool' had been selected this options box appears, it allows the user to choose what colours they wish to make into a gradient and how transparent it will be. Jay then chose the colours of turquoise and orange for the gradient. Once this was done the gradient covered the whole image, and Noel was no where to be seen.

To fix this problem the 'Quick Selection Tool' was needed so that the gradient could be re-done but only to the background. This enabled us to see Noel clearly and the gradient. The outcome was positive and therefore we can use this effect for our digipak, which will hopefully connote a similar theme to what Noel uses for his digipak. 

 

Finished Gradient

The image on the right is the finished gradient added to the image of Noel Gallagher compared to the original image. The group and I are pleased with the outcome as it relates to the other singles he has produced, and therefore will aid our digipak into following a similar idea to what Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds use for their album and single artwork.

What Makes An Effective Digipak

To try and broaden my knowledge of what will make an effective digipak for Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, I searched the question 'what makes good album artwork?' in hope of finding people's opinions and ideas.

I found the question had already been asked on yahoo.com which was helpful, as the person who answered gave a fairly valid opinion, this will therefore aid the group and I whilst creating our own digipak as we can considor these aspects in order to make a product which attracts the target audience.

Noel Gallagher's Digipak Style

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds are a recent band and they only have one official album released, which ironically is called Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. After researching across the internet and various magazines such as Q, I found that Noel had different digipaks for his singles and the actual album. The album cover has Noel blurred and in-front of some white lights, the main colour is a faded green and the font used is relatively simple and placed on the top right of the cover.

The other images are for his singles within the album, these are 'The Death of You and Me', 'AKA...What A Life', 'Dream On' and 'If I Had A Gun'. This therefore gives us more freedom with our digipak as we can follow either of these themes if we need to, the same style font on each digipak also connotes the bands iconography. In order to make our digipak look professional, yet original, we need to use either similar styled fonts or the same if they can be found, and a simple styled photo to be used as the cover. Each cover either has Noel's face turned away from the camera or blurred, so this may influence our cover too.

After researching the font which is used through-out the Noel Gallagher digipaks on dafont.com I have created a short list of possible fonts we can use for our own digipak. I believe the top three fonts are of similar style to that of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds which is why they may work well for our digipak, as hopefully they can connote similar iconography to Noel's album. The fourth font is a different style completely, however the top two covers shown above seem to be set in a Western American location, as the traditional American Muscle car is often seen in states such as Texas and Alabama. Therefore the final font could be considered as it may follow the Western style used in the top two CD covers.

Here is a close up of the fonts used in Noel Gallagher's album and single covers. The font used to show the track title is a scrawly, handwritten style which is used through-out his singles. Therefore we need to find a similar style font to show the name of the song 'What A Life' for our digipak. The font which is used could well be Noel's own handwriting, this may have been done to add exclusivity to the digipaks, as when fans buy the song the fact they have Noel's own handwriting style could entice them to buy more. The last part of each single text is also in capitals, evident by the words 'AND ME', 'GUN' and 'LIFE!'. This one of many styles used by the band on their album and singles artwork. They may have chose to put these words in capitals to show the importance or that they are key lyrics during the song.



 

Olly Murs - In Case You Didn't Know

Front

 The front cover of the digipak is similar to the Dizzee Rascal album, in that they both have very simple and basic themes which are easy to read and yet still attractive to the eye. This cover has Olly centered and directly looking at the camera, this attracts the audiences attention due to the eye  contact. The colours are very bright, which may resemble his style of music which is pop and usually vibrant in tone. The more colours used here could have been done so that it attracts more of the target audience, this is often middle aged children, teenagers and many adults. The bright colours will certainly attract the teenagers as it would be easily recognisable in a music store. The font used portrays a playful and simple style, although it doesn't seem to exert importance as some more smooth, bold fonts it still dominates the front cover of the digipak.

Back

 The back cover of the digipak connotes the same theme seen on the front. As the actual photo is the same as the front, however Olly isn't present and instead the track list is centered in-front of the white wall where he was for the front cover. The house style has been kept with the same font which is used for the album title on the front and the track list. Again the back panel of the digipak includes a bar code and the record company's name, for this album it is SYCO Music, SONY MUSIC and EPIC.

Inside

The left hand panel of the inside of the digipak there is a list of Olly's tour dates, the title of the panel uses the same font as does the album title and track list texts. This helps follow the basic style of the album and still adds colour to what is a simple page, as the background is white and the tour dates in a clear, black font. The CD however, is completely different to the digipak itself. The CD evokes a much more formal style compared to the rest of the digipak, this may have been done so that Olly's image is still professional and so that he is taken seriously, due to the rest of the digipak promoting a playful style.

Dizzee Rascal - Showtime

In order to try and understand the concept behind creating a digipak for an artist I began by looking through my collection of music albums. I wanted to see how in this case Dizzee Rascal's album keeps a house style and connotes his type of music genre, which is a blend of rap and pop. 

Front

 Here is the front cover for the album Showtime, this was released in 2004 and is seen as the album which kick started his career. The cover is simple, yet effective as the dark background and vibrant colours contrast with each other, this essentially makes the album clear to the audience when it is on the shelf at music stores amongst many other albums. The font used for his name and album title connote an idea of a west-end show, or the typical style of neon signs in Las Vegas on nightclubs and casinos. This style matches the title Showtime as many neon signs advertise shows and this style of font is a classic yet modern theme in recent music albums and videos. The matching colours of red and yellow also creates a more professional image as they do not clash, yet they carefully make the cover bold enough to be noticed. The clothing worn by Dizzee Rascal connotes his style of music, as the baseball jacket and loose jeans are often associated with the rap genre. The red sleeves of the jacket also follow the colour theme used for his album cover. 

Back

The back of the album is again relatively simple in design, but has the colours to make it stand out easily. Another neon style font has been used for the track list which is simple to read, and large enough to make the back cover bold and attractive. Typical digipak conventions are seen on the back cover, these being a bar code and the record label's name. In this case the record company is XL RECORDINGS LTD and is seen beneath the bar code; which is needed for all album covers as it allows the shop selling it to scan the item and therefore let the record company know how many have been sold. 

Inside

This is the inside of the digipak for Showtime. This follows the theme used on the front and back covers as it is very simple, with a dark background and the red and yellow font. The CD imitates the front cover so that when the user is playing the CD they can easily tell which digipak it belongs to. The left panel shows the copyright legislation of the digipak, along with a personal message from Dizzee Rascal to his mother, fans and artists he collaborated with to make the album, part of it reads "First up I wanna thank god for makin this possible and also my mum for being so strong through a lot of bullshit I love you". The font used here seems to be a standard font as it is legal content, and needs to be clear to read so no copyright is committed. The right hand side of the left panel is part of a photo of Dizzee Rascal, it is shot from inside a broken window, which may represent his broken past.