Logo Ideas

Just some ideas for the Digipak logo/how I would have the name. I circled what I liked in the end, hopefully it will turn out well in the finished product.

Advert Research : Duff McKagan's Loaded - The Taking

Duff McKagan's Loaded - The Taking
The first thing I noticed about this advert design is theme of grey colouring. I only notice two colours other than black, white and grey. There is a tiny purple line around the CD design to the bottom right and the red star in the band's name, this, however, upon checking up on the band, is often there in the name, so I know to ignore this for the particular advert. There are also colours in the icons at the bottom (such as the facebook and twitter icons).

I notice that the album name "The Taking" is written in black marker pen over a line of duct tape. This, along with the hands tied with rope, connotes a feeling of being imprisoned or kidnapped. I assume that this is a feeling that will resonate across the album, being trapped. I notice that the skin is also very pale and the image of the band is also kept in the black and white effect.

The Colour grey is a very neutral colour, and is quite a conservative colour. There are many things it can be used for, some are relevant to this picture, some aren't. Here are a few that are:

• Cold
• Gloom
• Horror Elements

It is very important to use colours that would work well for your genre. This band is a heavy metal band, so they use darker colours. However, a country music band would use much lighter, softer colours such as green, yellow and light blue.

The white lettering over black/dark grey colouring makes it stand out, so you can see it better. If they'd use simple black lettering, it would be near impossible to read with the background. There is no single theme on the lettering of the advert, the name of the album, the name of the band and the information about songs to the right is all used in different fonts.

The use of the hands being tied on front of an advert is quite an entropic look. However, due to the magazine I pulled this from being a Heavy Metal/Rock magazine, it's not nearly as entropic as it usually would be. It's not quite redundant, still odd but it fits in more. However, if a pop musician did this, then it would be very rare and entropic.

There are, as always, the redundant images of the bands record company "Armoury" for this band. And the facebook, twitter and youtube images at the bottom are also redundant. They have only been implemented on adverts, etc, recently, but the 'craze' quickly caught on, and it is no an everyday thing to see.

I like the use of the hands being tied up, and that is an actual photographic image, not something an artist created. I don't have the funds to pay an artist to create/draw band images, so it would be a lot easier if I used a photographic image like this. I also like the image of being tied up on this. I might use this idea, but make it my own, it would have to be different.

Advert Research : Of Mice & Men - The flood

Of Mice & Men - The Flood on Prezi

Presenting my Research - Findings

After attempting both the use of Prezi and Blogger to show my findings, I have found both are a good source to research. However, both have upsides and downsides. For example, I found Blogger was a lot easier to go into details of the Digipak, however, on Prezi, I could point to what I was talking about and be more interactive. After thought, for my next piece of research, the adverts for CDs, I will again present two pieces, but one in blogger and one on Prezi.

DigiPak Research: Linkin Park - Meteora

DigiPak Research : Linkin Park - Meteora on Prezi

DigiPak Research: Foo Fighters - One By One

Front Cover

Foo Fighters - One By One

Throughout the Album, I notice the image of the heart coming up (on the front cover and the inlay), this could be a representation of the album as a whole, considering their use of 'One By One' in dark red text, which often connotes the heart itself. This is a recurring theme throughout the album and adverts for the album (I checked quickly through the use of Google).

Back

On the back of the DigiPak, there is a large group image of the band. The lead singer is at the front and the rest of the band is slightly behind him (a redundant image). They have used photoshop to make the image black and white, which is also a recurring theme throughout the DigiPak at least, as shown by the black and white image of the heart on the inside and the front.

Other than black and white, only red is used, both in the text of the album name, parts of the back and for the side of the DigiPak. Red is  very emotional and thought of as passionate.


The colour red could be used on this DigiPak for (1):

• Grabbing the attention of the audience
• When attempting not to sink into the background
• Using small doses can work better

There is, of course, the credits on the back, along with the song numbers & names. This is needed, as without it, we could not see the track list, nor would it be easy to recognise this as a CD/DigiPak. There is also the Records Companies & Producers, etc, on the back - Eg. Roswell Records & RCA. This is a standard expectation for a DigiPak or CD design, as is the Barcode.

There isn't much Entropy within this DigiPak, however, it wasn't until more recent years that the obsession with seeming hugely different has seemed to appeared, and as this album is nearly 10 years old, they almost certainly weren't focused on appearing completely different to everyone else available.

I like the use of only a small amount of colour in this DigiPak, and also the way they have taken around 1/4 of the back on the left side to put the credits & track list on, I will attempt to use this in my DigiPak if possible.

DigiPak & Advert Research: How I plan to present my research

For my research in DigiPak's and Adverts, I decided, I will attempt several ways to present this. This will include at least one research article just using Blogger & at least one on Prezi. The Blogger Research will be a simple Essay, just writing out ideas, etc. The Prezi Research will involve a more interactive way of looking at it, that way I can point at specifics, etc, using arrows. After creating one of each, I will decide which I prefer for presenting my research and will continue to use that in the rest of my blog.

Music Video & Redundancy/Entropy

Redundancy
Redundancy is the result of high predictability. It is something which his predictable or conventional. An example of a redundant image is a cute dog picture.

Entropy
Entropy is, simple enough, unpredictability. A piece of media is entropic if it contains unpredictable elements.

My Music Video
As my target audience is not mainstreamers, and is towards Rockers and Individualists, I will be allowed to use a more Entropic approach to my own Music Video, however, I can't simply go completely Entropic, as it wouldn't make sense. Everything needs at least a mix of Entropic and Redundant elements. I would lean slightly more on the use of Entropic pieces (the dual camera shots), but will still have Redundant elements (Shots of the band playing somewhere else, having an actual story, etc).