Digipak progress 6

I'm adding the finishing touches to my digipak, but finding the right font and colour for the font is harder than I thought. To make sure there is continuity between all aspects of my digipak I will use the same font for all the major text on the digipak (including the title, artist name, and tracklist), but will use a simpler and more formal font for the copyright information on the back. I've also decided to include some logos such as my record label, a parental guidance logo, and a barcode. This will therefore make it look more authentic.

Digipak progress 5

One tutorial for double exposure I found was really useful in teaching me how to create the effect, and because I thought the end result was quite successful I'm probably going to end up using the image I made as the front cover of my digipak.

This is the tutorial I used for the double exposure effect, but I tweaked some of the steps to more suit the end result to my needs (being more colourful and not having some of the settings that appear in the tutorial probably because of a different version of Photoshop I was using).

This tutorial also introduced me to some techniques and features that I used for other images I edited such as the refine edge tool. This meant that when I had to remove the background from an image using the quick selection tool it wasn't so messy and the detail of things such as hair and fabric remained.

Before refining the edge                                                                      After refining the edge

I also experimented with the opacity settings as unfortunately I couldn't find a useful tutorial on how to blend images together and so just faded them into the background instead.

Digipak progress 4

I'm trying different ideas that I had initially sketched out but they don't really live up to my expectations and so I've abandoned them and have moved on to other ideas. Some got further than others before I realised that I wanted to do something different, and as I spend more time on the digipak I find it harder to pin down an idea that I want to use as my final front cover. The whole process is also made more difficult by the fact that I'm still a relative beginner to photoshop as I had only used it briefly at GCSE and even then only used basic functions on it. A lot of time is being spent on looking up tutorials and getting familiar with the tools, but I've found some good step-by-step guides that will hopefully help me later on.

This was my first idea, and an idea that I sketched as part of my digipak plan. I used the quick selection tool to remove the background and replace it with several layers of different images of the sky. I then used the opacity tool to fade the sun into the image behind it and brightened the image using the hue/saturation tool. I also added a lens flare to make the brightness of the sun more realistic. I was going to have text on the tree in a 'carved' style to make it look like they had been chipped into the wood, but I abandoned this idea before I reached that stage.

A lot of the time I would create different layers and edit the colours of one without changing the other. This would give a surreal effect and incorporate the colourful theme that I wanted to have throughout all 3 of my products

Before I knew how to do the double exposure effect, I created another layer and reduced the opacity so that a background layer (a skyline) could be seen. Editing the colours of the image also allowed the background layer to come through. While I wasn't completely happy with this version, I knew the direction I wanted to go and what image I would use.

Website progress 6

Some features and details that I decided to go back and add after completing the initial bare bones of my website were to make my website look more like a conventional (and realistic) artist page. One of these was a subscription box where fans would sign up and receive updated via e-mail from the artist. This is located on the "Tour" page and features the blue/pink colour scheme in the text and button.

Another detail that I thought provided some more synergy between the website and the digipak/video was the text that I added at the sides of the screen that appear on every page. It again shows the colour scheme and advertises the album/music video. I noticed that some artists did this when new music has been released, and as this is true for my artist I thought that it would be an interesting promotional detail for my website to have too. I also animated the text to fade in from the side to catch the eye of the audiences.

Social media is a key part of any modern artist's persona, and so I added social media links at the top of the page which, like the title and navigation bar, appear on every page. The icons themselves are a minimalist black design which suits the theme of my website. Above the icons is a shopping cart item where audiences can see their purchases.