DIGIPAK RESEARCH/DECONSTRUCTION

INDIE-POP FEMALE SOLO ARTISTS

BY SORAYA TORMOS

Genre-Indie PopAll her album covers use the same method of presenting, the same serious, bold font behind an edited picture of her usually looking straight at the audience. The font is mostly always white, contrasting with the background. Due to her fame and status, her image in front of the writing doesn’t effect the complexity of reading, however if I were to create a front cover with my name ’Soraya’ behind a photo of me, I think because I'm not well known, it will be harder to interpret. Her image comes across as very elegant and slick, her hair is always down in a Hollywood style, She has a very 60’s vibe. She has a very serious face on most of the cover, reflecting her dark and deep music. I admire her look and will defiantly try taking photos in reflection of her albums, however our image is more upbeat and colourful, so I would have to smile more in photos, to reflect the happy music in my albums.

Lana Del Rey (Front Cover)

Lana Del Rey (Back)

All her track lists are very plain and simple, making it very clear to read. They’re mostly written centrally on the page, making it stand out. The one album that has the writing on the left hand side, is also the only one with a picture of the artist on the back, making it the not only soul focus of the page. I especially like the first track list cover because it includes some illustration, and for our digipak, we want an arty look that reflects the artists image.

Rose illustrations on the corners, making the cover more intriguing and it leads your eyes to the centre of the page(the lyrics)

This is a special edition CD that has a red background instead of white to stand out from the regular CDs.

This dark, contrasting cover has a very mysterious feel to it, it has an old fashioned effect on top.The picture of the artist looks sad and fed up, reflecting her music.

Lana Del Rey (CD)

Her CD designs are very interesting because they’re all very different, compared to her CD front covers, which carry the same style and format, her CD’s are very unique. One uses a photo of the artist which is normally rare to see on the CD from research, however the ‘Born to Die’ CD is very classical and basic with a black and white colour theme contrasting each other.

Lana Del Rey (Inside)

Genre-Indie PopAll her album covers use the same method of presenting, the same serious, bold font behind an edited picture of her usually looking straight at the audience. The font is mostly always white, contrasting with the background. Due to her fame and status, her image in front of the writing doesn’t effect the complexity of reading, however if I were to create a front cover with my name ’Soraya’ behind a photo of me, I think because I'm not well known, it will be harder to interpret. Her image comes across as very elegant and slick, her hair is always down in a Hollywood style, She has a very 60’s vibe. She has a very serious face on most of the cover, reflecting her dark and deep music. I admire her look and will defiantly try taking photos in reflection of her albums, however our image is more upbeat and colourful, so I would have to smile more in photos, to reflect the happy music in my albums.

Marina and the Diamonds

(Front Cover) Genre-Indie PopMarina and the diamonds has a very girly, edgy vibe to her image. She doesn’t tend to use pink or purples, but she wears a lot of elegant dresses and

In comparison to Lana Del Rey, Marina doesn’t stick to one font style, but varies from trends and stylesMarina and the diamonds has a very girly style that takes older trends and fashions and makes them new again. An example of her doing this is

Marina and the Diamonds Back

I think the Digipak back at the top looks very original and modern, you normally don’t see an artist picture at the back, but using her hair as a dark contrast the white track list is very clever because her face is not the main focus, dragging it away from looking too busy.

Marina and the Diamonds CD

Her CD’s have a very classic way of formally placing the relevant information in an elegant fashion. I especially like the way she has a boarder around the CD, it makes it look more important and stands out more against other CDs.

I especially like this colourful boarder because it pops out making the CD less serious but also fits her theme.

This bubblegum pink colour works well with her 60’s styled girly theme.

This font looks very informal and

Marina and the Diamonds

Inside She uses lots of images of her to feed her fans, this lets her viewers know her star image. She also has lyric sheets inside her albums, this lets her fans sing along to her music and it’s a great way of connecting to the music. However, all the pages with lyrics on them look far too small to read, knowing its for a younger audience, most of her audience wouldn’t struggle reading the text. When ordering the font sizes on our Digipak, I have to consider my target audience and how big the lyrics should be and make sure everything can be read from a distance.

This looks like its either been illustrated or Photoshop manipulated giving her skin a very smooth glow. Her stern face looks as if she's about to do something bad or judging by her hand placement, it could be a sign of power.

The lyrics change colour throughout her latest album, matching her colourful but sophisticated theme.

Ellie Goulding Front

Genre-Indie PopEllie Goulding uses a lot of Photoshop manipulation into her albums, which fits our artist style. Our group has used a lot of Ellie poses for inspiration and used purple/blue filters for our Digipak influenced by her. We liked this because its very edgy and original, not many album covers use weird colours, however I think it breaks up the genre from just being indie to pop and fun as well. Especially for our childish music video, which has lots of colours and paint splattering. The font she uses seems to be fairly consistent and very thin. Our group has recently changed our font because it looked too pop. She tends to look away from the camera on most of her albums, making her look very mysterious and cool.

Ellie Goulding Back

Analysing the backs of Ellie’s albums, she doesn’t use any artist pictures at all, making the main focus on the track list. She uses very harmonious colours, which doesn’t make the text too visible and stand out which I don’t think works too well. When it comes to designing the track list, I will make sure the words are big and visible like the black and yellow back on the top right corner.

Ellie Goulding CD

Ellie Goulding has a very simplistic way of presenting her CD’s, she makes the text and font her clear, a reason for this decisi0n would be to keep her target audience a larger range and not just young teens, but this approach makes it buyable for more mature people who wouldn’t want a very busy design. I think on our CD, we will make a combination of styles to suit a range of target audiences.

The artist name always goes first and it’s three times the size of the album name

Eliza Doolittle

Genre-Indie Pop

Eliza Doolittle has come across as a very modern, bold artist through her digipaks. She’s used very vibrant colours to appeal to younger audiences. Although I like the font a and crazy designs, our group are heading towards a more indie approach, to appeal to an older audience.

Her font follows through the entire digipak leading your eyes around the different components. She has used a very childish serif font which uplifts her image. The bubbly font contrasts well with her bright bright backgrounds.

This CD cover is very chaotic and busy illustrating the artist as a care-free, wild child. The sky background could suggest that her heads in the clouds. This also links to the song title ‘So high’. This fun digipak has clearly been strategically made to catch the eyes of a younger audience(10-15years old).

Her CD has been designed around her comic font and girly vibe. I like its simplicity because it sends a clear message which is clear to read. I also like the writing around the edge of the cd, this is something we could defiantly try with our design.