Individual Digipak- Miss Miller

As well as creating an individual magazine advert, I also created my own digipak. The purpose of creating a digipak is to attract fans and promote the artist. Digipaks have 6 sides to them, all in which give information about the artist and more background information about her. Its important for an artist to have a digipak as it allows for the target audience and fans to connect with the artist more and build their relationship as the audience are given pictures and a paragraph from the artist herself.

It is important to make a digipak conform to the genre of the music in which your artist is, which is why I planned carefully what I would include in my own digipak. I thought about the colours, the images that I would use, the typography and the layout and design. The colours that I used were mainly dark colours such as dark greens and blues. I used these colours to make the artist seem mysterious and therefore leading the audience to want to know more. The blues and greens hint towards the feel of nature, representing the artists personality as friendly and warming.  The darker colours used within the digipak, subvert the conventions of the indie genre as it allows for the artist to seem negative and gives a hint to the audience that her song are gloomy and unhappy. However, another picture included within the digipak includes the element of high key lighting, this in which conforms to the indie genre as it enable for the artists personality to be shown to the audience as positive an happy. The high key lighting also makes the generic conventions highlighted, such as the setting, iconography and clothing. These enable for the indie genre to be enhanced, attracting the target audience. 

I have used many different conventions of the indie genre within my digipak. Specifically through the use of mise-en-scne, with the elements of clothing, body language and iconography. On the middle page of the digipak, I  have used a close up of the artists face, and the artist is looking directly into the camera, this allows for the audience and artist to make direct eye contact. This is conventional to the indie genre as the artist is able to look into the audience's eyes and show off her individual features. Through the eye contact, this builds the audience and artist relationship as the audience feel as if she is looking directly at them and making the digipak have a more personal feel. The use of the clothing use throughout the digipak is again highly conventional of the indie genre. For example, the audience are shown a denim jacket, tight leather jacket and bug boots. This gives a high indication to the audience of the indie genre and enhances the stereotype of an indie music artist. The iconography used is the use of the guitar and a cigarette, the guitar alows for the artists talents to be portrayed and which the audience may find appealing. This also shows her as multi talented and that she is successful because of her talents. The cigarette makes the artist seem rebellious and which shows off another aspect of her personality and makes the audience intrigued and want to find out more about her. The inconography is coventional to the indie genre s they make the artists personality more aware to the audience and the audience are able to connect with her more as her personality may be appealing to them. Overall the conventions o the indie genre included within the digipak, allow for the target audience to be attracted to the album. As my target audience is indie genre fans of the age of 16-21, I believe that the conventions included are highly stereotypical of the indie genre and will ultimately make the audience attracted to it and will make them want to find out more. The guitar, showing off her talents, makes the artist an inspiration for them.

The layout I decided to use within the digipak was to include the artist on each section of the digipak. I did this in order to make the artist the centre of attention and that it would allow for the audience to focus soley on her. This allows for the audience and artist relationship to build as the audience are seeing her many different angles and shots, making the audience feel more connected to her and are more able to see aspects of her and her personality. The close up image of her, allows for the audience to have direct eye contact with her. The way in which her hands are placed on her face, allows for the audience to see the quirky side of her personality, which they may be attracted to and want to find out more about her. This image makes the artist seem bubbly and funny which the audience may like and like her more. I Ultimately wanted to include the artist on all parts of the digipak in order to make her stand out and to make the audience aware of the fact that she is challenging the stereotypes of the indie genre.

The typography that I decided on using for my own digipak was flowing and bubbly font in which is easily readable for all audiences but also, making it conform to the conventions of the genre. The colour that i used for the font for her name was in blue. I used this in order to make her name stand out against the dark background, making it aware to the audience she is a bold, stand out, artist. I also wanted to use a bright font to reinforce her name to the audience, with her name being Lola Starr, the bright colour enhances the idea of a star being bright. I believe this is successful as it allows for the audience to make the connection between her name and her artist image. The language that I used within the digipak is also very simple. I wanted the digipak to be accessable to audiences and to do this I had to use simple language that all audiences could read. The simple language however makes the digipak more relatable for the audience.


To create my individual digipak I used photoshop in order to create the effects that I wanted. I had some difficulties when using the photoshop programme as it was one of the first times I had used it so therefore simple tasks seemed to be much harder for me. One weakness that I found was trying to recolour an image. I wanted to brighten an image in order to make the image stand out more, however, when I tried to do this the image when to bright and didn't look effective and successful enough to put as a side to my digipak. However, I overcame this difficulty by filtering the picture adding lighter tones and highlights in order to make it brighter. This worked and looked successful which I then included in my digipak. Another weakness I found was cropping an image successfully to the corners. I wanted to create a ripped look for the back page of my digipak. To do this I went on to the internet and found a ripped paper image which i then transferred onto my image. To make it look successful I had to clip around the image to make it looked ripped. I found this difficult as the clipping had to be precise in order to make it look good. I blurred out the extra bits of the image to speed up the process. The strengths I found with using photoshop was adding effects to the image. I added a darker border to one of the images, I did this in order to make the background darker and to make the artist stand out. This was highly sucessful as it allowed for the artist to stand out and make the audience fully focus on her.

I believe that my individual digipak conforms to the conventions of the indie genre. I have reinforced the genre by using such elements from mise-en-scene, being clothing, body language, iconography and make up. By including these things in my digipak I was able to promote the artist and the indie genre. This enables for indie genre fans to be attracted to the album and makes a wider audience seemed interested in the artist. I also believe that some aspects of my digipak subverts the genre. For example, the location is in an alleyway, giving the digipak a more grungy and darker look rather than the typical indie look. The personal message also will make her fans feel a more personal connection with her. Creating an individual digipak will help to ensure that our groups final digipak is successful as it will allow us to show all aspects of the indie genre and will promote our artist successfully. Putting all of our ideas together will allow us to make sure we have included every aspect in which we want.



**** screenshot of digipak****