Constructing the Magazine Advert in Photoshop

I opened up a new template in Adobe Photoshop CS5 for an A4 piece.

I then copied the already edited image of my artist from the front cover of my digipak. I am using this as my main image for the magazine advert. I left a blank white space at the bottom so that I can add information about the album underneath the image.

I then added a black line to separate the advert between the image and the information.

I then added the album title in the same font as the digipak - rage italic.

I added 'OUT NOW' all in caps to make it stand out and highlight to the audience that they are able to buy it now.

I added in other information underneath, such as where they can get the album from and the artist's web page. This gives the consumer more information on where to find information on the artist and this is a typical convention of magazine adverts for any product.

I then added a quote and a rating from a magazine, because this is a typical convention of media product advertisements.

I decided to change the colour of the text and the background - this allowed me to maintain some continuity with the digipak and get some colouring on my magazine advert as well.

I changed the quote from the existing music magazine slightly to make it flow better. I also added in a white line between the main image and the information to hide the crossover between the two.

This is the 1st draft of my magazine advert.

After looking at some more existing adverts I decided to add an extra star to really make it sell. I also made the text box containing the extra information bigger so that it all sits on one line for each sentence.

Final changes - Digipak Design

After completing a fourth draft of my digipak, I took it home and found some changes that I wanted to make to it after looking at some existing digipaks. I decided there were some elements that I could include in order to make it look more professional and realistic.

I increased the size of the album title and aligned the artist name to the centre.

I added a barcode using Barcode Generator and I also added a QR Code, which make the digipak look more realistic, this is how they will look when up for sale in a shop. I added some text to the bottom as well it states the writer and producer of the album.

I added some lines to this section of the digipak to hide the overlaps between the four separate images - this makes it look more professional by hiding any errors.

I added some more text to the back such as copyright information and about the record label.

I then added the Copy Control logo, because I saw it on the back of an existing CD.

I chose to make all of my images but one black and white, because I think it creates an elegant image. The black and white also makes it look like photos from the past - like memories. I wanted to create this effect because the artist was in New York, but is now back in Britain and it like she is looking back at the visit which inspired the album.

All of my images used on the digipak are black and white apart from one, whilst the other images maintain continuity, there is one colour image. I chose to leave that image in colour because it contains the iconic New York yellow cabs. If I didn't make anything else colourful then the other image would remain to look irrelevant compared with the rest of the product. I made the font of the artist name and album title yellow to provide a link with the yellow cabs

This is the final draft of my digipak. I then saved it as JPEG image and posted it in a separate blog post, click here to see.

Digipak 4th Draft Feedback

This a print-out of the 4th draft of my Digipak, I then put my own annotations on my product for improvements in order to make it look even more professional. These include:

• increasing the size of the album title
• aligning the artist name to the centre
• rotating 'Island Records' logo 90 degrees CCW
• adding a barcode and a QR code to make it look realistic
• adding text to the bottom centre image i.e. produced by... written by... etc.
• putting lines on the bottom left to hide the overlaps between each image

Constructing the Digipak in Photoshop

First I opened up the digipak template in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I then opened up my first image in photoshop, that I want to use for the back cover of my digipak.

I then edited the image to make it look more professional and eye-catching. I did this by enhancing certain colours of the image.

I then copy the picture and pasted it on my template and edit>scale>transform so that it would fit in the box of the back cover image. I also had to crop the image slightly to make it fit to the size of the template. Then I added text to the back cover in the form of a track list.

This is how the image looks in the context of the whole digipak.

I then opened up my second image in photoshop, this will be used for the top right image of the digipak.

I then edited the colour of the image so that it was black and white - in order to create a vintage feel of the product. And black and white creates a reference to the past which reflects how the artist feels about New York.

I then copied the image onto my template and then had to scale it down to fit into the box for that image of the digipak. I then rotated the image 180 degrees, because when it is printed that will be folded over for the other side of the digipak.

This is a closer look at the two images in their respective places.

I then opened up my third chosen image in photoshop, I changed the colour of this image as well so that it is black and white to create continuity with the other images.

I scaled my third image down to fit into its respective place, I also had to crop the image using the rectangular marquee tool.

I also had to rotate this image 180 degrees so that it was the right way round for the other side of the digipak.

I opened up a new image in photoshop which will be used for the bottom left image, which I have chosen to split into four separate sections.

I then changed the colour of the image to black and white to maintain continuity between the images and then copied and pasted it onto my template.

I scaled my image down to fit into approximately a quarter of the bottom left image. So that there is room for three more images.

I then opened up another image in photoshop again for the bottom left image of my digipak. I edited the image to make it black and white to maintain continuity throughout.

I then copied and pasted the image and scaled it to fit to about a quarter of that side of the digipak.

I opened up a further image in photoshop and edited the image so that it is black and white to maintain continuity throughout the images.

I then copied and pasted the image onto my template and scaled and cropped it to fit into approximately a quarter of the square.

I opened my final image for the bottom left corner of my digipak and also edited the image so that it is black and white, thus maintaining the continuity with my other images.

I then scaled down and cropped the final image to fit into the last quarter of the bottom left corner.

The above image shows the bottom left section with all four images on it. And I have now added two black panels where the spines of the digipak are.

I opened up a new image in photoshop of the typical New York yellow cab, which has already been cropped to just show the registration plates and the bottom half of the cabs. I will crop it to the size of the spine.

The above image shows the images of the New York cabs cropped to fit the shape of both of the spines.

I then edited the images of the New York cab so that they were black and white like the rest of the digipak - thus maintaining continuity and the style that I have created.

I then added text to my spine in the form of an album title and a artist name, this informs the consumer of what they are buying when CDs are stacked.

After I added the artist and album information I added a logo of Island Records to make the digipak look more realistic. I chose Island Records because Mumford & Sons are under that label - so it is extremely likely that my artist could get a record deal with them.

I then opened up a new image in photoshop for my front cover. I edited her face using the spot healing brush tool. And then copied it and pasted it on my template.

I cropped and scaled down my image to make it fit into the space allocated for the front cover image. I then added in a album title and a name for the artist. I used the same font that I used for the text on the spine  - rage italic - in order to maintain continuity.

I opened my final image in photoshop, which I then edited with the spot healing brush tool. I used this tool to get rid of any spots in order to make the image look professional. I then copied it and pasted it onto my template.

I scaled / cropped my image so that it would fit into the allocated space for the top centre image.

I then edited the image again to make it black and white. I also rotated the image 180 degrees so that it is in the right place when it is printed out and folded over.

This is the 4th draft of my digipak.