Final Digipak

Front cover

Part 2 & 3 (CD holders)

 Part 4 & 5

Part 6 (track-listing)

This is the final product of my digipak. As you can see when comparing this version to my first draft, I've made many changes to it and improved it in many ways. My first draft's main image of Georgina is the the same one I've used here except before it was a lot more zoomed-out and blurry. When receiving feedback from my teacher, she told me that I should zoom in on the main image a bit more to get more of her face on show and therefore make it look more professional; also allowing the audience to identify with her more. So, I cropped the image, and then the teacher pointed out that the image looked too 'raw' and needed a filter on it which I agreed with. I had been planning to add some sort of different colour to the picture anyway as I knew it was only my first draft, but my teacher made me realise this even more so. I played around with different filters by going on the 'change colour' tab and 'adding blue' or 'adding red'. I found that I liked the image with both a blue and red filter on it, so it was difficult for me to decide. Therefore, I decided to make two different versions of my second draft which I knew I could then ask my target audience which one they prefer and also decide by myself which one I liked most. So as you can see, the first second draft of my digipak front cover has more of a 'red' filter on it which I thought really portrayed passion and love, in comparison to the second version which has a 'cold blue' filter to it which I also thought was effective because it made her face stand out and made her look innocent, which is exactly what my music video does. I didn't play with the main title too much as I liked the way it initially was, apart from enlarging it a tad. I also made the main image sharper so that it looked more professional. Lastly, as you can see there are some 'sparkles' placed underneath the first version of my digipak's title here. I knew that my digipak needed just something more to make it stand out, and I wanted it to appeal to my target audience as much as possible, so I simply googled 'sparkles', imported the image to my digipak front cover, selected the unneeded background on the image and removed it, then played with the opacity of the image and placed it underneath the title. I know it's quite blurry and not perfect currently, but it gives me something to work on in the future. Also, on the second version of my digipak front cover I realised that you can really see where Georgina's face has been 'cut out' as it is rigid and does not look professional, so this gives me reason to choose the first version as my final front cover after I've improved it. I didn't feel I needed to make many changes to the rest of my digipak for my second draft, however of course I will be for my final digipak. For my final digipak, I will most likely choose the first version of my front cover and maybe add a bit more of a 'blue' filter to the image as I prefer this, and there will be many other ways in which I will be improving it.
However in terms of comparing it to my second draft, I have changed a lot in my digipak because I felt that the front cover was too plain. I asked for my teacher's help and agreed with me that the front cover needed something else to 'liven it up'. We thought of many methods of doing this, and in the end, I changed the font into Gill Sans Ultra B... and changed the title so that it was all bunched together in quite a modern fashion. Therefore, the writing was more bubbly and 'full'. Overall, it just looked a lot more modern and less old-fashioned like before. I then changed the font colour by matching the ink colour to Georgina's hair, which is a purple colour. I felt that although familiarisation and consistency is important, I wanted the house colours to differ a little from my album advert, instead of it just being red and white. I felt the purple added quirkiness to my front cover and a bit more spark. Then, I realised that 'Lights' sidewise looked too orderly and it would benefit being diagonal instead, so I changed this. I kept the bevel emboss and drop shadow on it but removed the inner glow, as it stood out too much from the actual 'Ellie Goulding' title with this. Then, I searched for a Lens Flare and placed this at the top of 'Lights' in the corner. The little orange-coloured light really represented its title, 'Lights', and I found it added just a bit more spark to it, when it had originally been fairly plain. It also adds purpose to my front cover because it actually represents aesthetically what the whole music video is about, which I feel the audience will appreciate. Then I added a blue filter to Georgina's face to make it have a more 'cold' look, so that there was a glow to her face with an air of mystery. In terms of the rest of the parts of my digipak, I simply added a pale pink/red filter to all of the photos to ensure that the house colour theme is consistent throughout, and all the photos have a slight red tone to them. In result of this, the audience can identify and familiarise with them and the digipak will be more fluent. As well as this, I also took the drop shadow off of the track listing text on the last page of my digipak, as I felt it looked too unrealistic and fake. This made the text look more realistic and it blends with the background more. I also felt that part 4 of my digipak needed some sort of small text on it, as it was purely just an image of Georgina discovering the ribbons, so I added Ellie's twitter name @elliegoulding and her website to the bottom of the image on the right hand side, in small white text. I felt that this was a good way of marketing her social networking sites because the audience would feel she is 'just like them' with these sort of accounts online, and they are more likely to want to try and connect with her on this level. I also cropped the image a tad and zoomed in to it more, as I felt too much of the background was in it previously, when it needed more focus on her finding the props in the image. Overall, I am really pleased with the result of my final digipak.