Due to the epidemic situation in Beijing, we have been in online learning since November 15th. Annie and I largely used Wechat to communicate and do more work for our music video, digipak, and everything we need for the coursework.
My Digipak Mock
I tried editing 2 versions of the front cover. Annie and I had agreed that we will extend our color scheme (presented on our final pitch) on our digipak design. For the front part, I incorporated the artist, and symbolism that will also be present in our music video. For making the front cover I downloaded a red texture background and layered a picture of me (playing as our artist) holding a snake. After that, I layered more elements like a picture of our artist with a butterfly which is heavily inspired by the Silence of the Lambs poster. I also added a picture of the male protagonist to create a mysterious effect. I wanted to convey a message of letting go and sorrow on our cover because that is what the song "Marilyn Monroe" is about; letting go, accepting the truth, and choosing yourself in the end. If you zoom in on my first version of the front cover, you can see a mask and this implies the artist is pretending to fit into whatever things her significant other wants. Although Annie and I are not yet sure of what our artist's name would be, for my mock digipak; I decided to use "Myriad" which is the artist name I used when I featured on a friend's song that was released on Apple Music and Spotify. The front cover also features the album's title "Marilyn Monroe" in which I used Monroe's official signature, this serves as an intertextual reference that is also explored in the song itself.
Below - Front Cover
BACK COVER
On the back cover, I still have the title of the album and the artist's name. I also put in 7 extra tracks to create a tracklist. Ride or Die is actually a real song (the one I featured on as Myriad) while "A Letter to Ave" is one of the old song compositions that I didn't get a chance to record. On the back, I just used the same "Copperplate" font for the artist's name and the names of the tracklist. I also used another picture of a snake, Annie and I took when we shoot our MV. This is to put stress on the symbolism of the snake as rebirth, transformation, and healing. A message we want our MV to convey. The skull that the snake is crawling onto means the death of our past self, from the mistakes of the past we learn, learn, and transform into wiser and more-self appreciative versions of ourselves.
Inside Left of the Digipak
Using the same layering technique, I just added one photo of the artist holding flowers. I also added an eye with tear dropping, this is the same eyeshot I took of our male protagonist. The crying eye symbolizes grief, pain, regrets, and acceptance. I also penned a letter for the artist's fans. In the letter, I wanted to convey a sincere message wherein the artist talks about what the whole album is about and also to show that she is grateful to her supporters. I also put in the signature of the artist. I used my iPad's Apple pen and connected it to my iMac to transfer the signature. I wanted to give a handwriting look to the letter so I searched for free downloadable fonts on google. I eventually found the "James Fajardo" font and I really like how it looks on my overall layout, the site I got the font from is called 1001fonts.com.
For the front, back cover, and inside left of the digipak; I followed similar steps for designing it. I used Picsart, and iMac's Preview. First, I chose the black color background in size 3464x3464 and added a picture of a red textured background, and cropped it on the same square shape but I left a bit of black background to create a border feel. For every picture I would layer, I would also crop in the same square shape. I would then use the erase tool to remove details of the picture that I didn't want to include in the layout. Using my iPad and Apple Pen made the detailing better for my layout. Although the downside of using my iPad is that the screen is not that big (iPad Pro 11 inch) compared to using my iMac.
Disc Cover
The making of disc covers is the most difficult for me, I still tried to practice editing a disc cover design. The same concept with the overall digipak, I still incorporated the snake and flowers in my edit. I am really glad that I am working with Annie who has more artistry skills in designing cause she was able to put our vision into real artistic output. In the beginning, Annie and I decided that she will do all the final designs. However, after I sent her some of my edits she said we should use my design for the back cover, and inside left for our final digipak.
I also asked my sibling's opinions on my edits, my sister said that for all four designs of the disc cover, she didn't like any. Personally, I also didn't like any of my practice edits. All four kinda looked tacky.
FINAL IDEAS & CHANGES
After a lot of editing and brainstorming, Annie and I have agreed that I will use my designs for the digipak except for the disc cover. I will attach Annie's digipak design below:
Upper Left - Disc Cover
Upper Right - Inside Left
Lower Left - Front Cover
Lower Right - Back Cover
The front cover is from Hajime Sorayama's artworks/sculptures. Upon further research on Annie's design, I found out that Sorayama is very fond of using Marilyn Monroe as his reference for his artwork. This was really interesting cause this shows how extremely influential and iconic Monroe is. (The pictures below are from Sorayoma's website - http://sorayama.jp/works/)
