Digipak Designs

When designing this digipak I used the masks as quite a heavy influence, as you can probably see from these images. I chose to make a link between the website and the digipak by planning on using the same sort of grungy effect (not that you can see in the plan) and then a link with my video by using stills from it, namely of Andrew wearing the mask and then without it, since we hadn't found a use for that shot, and it was a pretty cool shot. But I still think that mask should be the main link with both, as they're also on my webpage, albeit small on the website.

CD Cover Comparison

Out of the three that I analysed, I decided that the KJ52 and Aesop Rock covers would be most relevant to me and decided to compare them. Both have colours (obviously) but use them very differently, where the Aesop Rock cover has a fairly limited palette, the KJ52 one seems almost random with the colours chosen, giving it a much more lively feeling than other. They also have a different feeling, the Aesop Rock's cover's cartoon makes it seem considerably more mature than the guy sitting on the television and indicates the difference in age of the target audience, leading me to believe that the Aesop Rock one is aimed at an even older audience. I feel that this is reflected in the music, as Aesop Rock's music does tend to have a much more serious tone than KJ52.

I still stand by my decision that the KJ52 iconography isn't as strong as the iconography for the Aesop Rock cover. Although the genre itself is easy to tell, within it's genre it's not very unique at all, where as there aren't that many bands with a similar iconography to Aesop Rock's. The KJ52 iconography could easily be copied and made just dissimilar enough to avoid lawsuits, like Tetris and not being able to call a falling blocks game anything ending in 'tris'.

I've learned that the iconography itself can be easily tweaked or meddled with to make two completely different looking covers that still fall within the same genre iconography. I've also learned that the late teens to very early twenties are quite the varied bunch. Many of the covers aimed at them that I've seen are completely unlike another of the genre.

The KJ52 Five-Two cover features the lead in the group of the band, suggesting that he is the main focus of the music. From this and the way he's dressed I'd say that this was a pop group or RnB. The colours used within the picture also suggest this because they're all pretty bright like pop music albums usually are. Subsequently, I'd say that the target audience were teenagers. due to the clothing style and the colours used, bright colours usually appeal to younger audiences, but by dulling them down slightly (in this case making them lighter) lifts the target audience's age range from children to teens. I think it's not a very strong iconography itself, but it could be easily translated to other media, i.e. using light colours on a website or the artist wearing the same style of clothes in the video.

The Aesop rock cover for Bazooka Tooth features a cartoon of a boy, rather than images of the band, implying the the band is indie or alternative. The colours used are also mostly yellows, browns and greens, again a common colour scheme for indie music. From this and the more mature style of the cartoon, I'd say that the target audience were people in their late teens to mid twenties. The fact that they seem to be in school uniform doesn't change my opinions on the matter, due to the colours and style. I think it's successful at creating a brand identity

purely because of it's cartoonish style, in a similar way to the Gorillaz are famous for their cartoon alter egos and I can quite easily see them having an animated video and patterns like the wallpaper in the background.

The cover for the Tchaikovsky Collectors edition, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra features a photo of Tchaikovsky as the main focus, and the addition of decorative floral patterning indicates that this is a classical album. The mentions of symphonies and orchestras also helps to make this completely clear (though the Trans Siberian Orchestra's probably not the best example for mentioning orchestra related names connoting classical music.) From this I would say that the target audience is probably gender neutral, due to the mention of Romeo and Juliet, and aimed at people around 28-36 because of the grey colour scheme. I'd also say that it was people fond of Tchaikovsky's works, due to the large picture of him on the cover. I think that this could potentially be a fairly strong iconography, though it could have been stronger had it been related more to St Petersburg. But as It's probably for people that know the artist, they would probably know that he's Russian.

Narrative Filming Done

Awwyis. We've finished filming the narrative part of our film. It looks pretty awesome so far, but the doors here don't know how to close themselves. They kept opening when they were like, less than an inch open. Bleh. But apart from that, all went well. Though we might not have enough for the whole song, we can just film a quick performance if we need more meat on the bones. To make a clear iconographical link we could have the group members wearing the mask and can then put images from the video into our CD covers and website.