5) email

E-Mail to Island Records
'Island Records,
For out Media coursework we are required to shoot a music video and are in the process of song choice. After much debate we have agreed that Frank Musik's Gotta Boyfriend would be perfect for us to get across a fun and quirky music video that allows a lot of creativity. I am e-mailing to ask for your permission to use this song and film our own music video. Jack willis

6) DIGI pack

Record labels use promotional packs to publicise their artists. This "promotional pack" consists of many different things such as t.v advertisements, bill boards, radio interviews and digipacks. A digipack is a type of CD packaging and is usually a 4 page document that show track names, lyrics, pictures of the artist etc. The digipack is placed inside the plastic CD packaging and can be folded out for viewing.

La Roux is an electro pop artists, as is Frank Muisk and this is one of her album covers.

The simplistic layout of the cover, makes La Roux stand out. She

positioned directly in the middle of the page, which focuses the viewers attention to the singer. Also the white coat makes her the focal point against the dark black background, again drawing our attention towards her.

The back drop of the cover looks to be new york city, also to carry on the American theme she is standing in front of an American muscle car, despite the fact that she is a British pop artist who grew up in Brixton.

Another elctropop artist is Lady Gaga, this is the album cover for "The Fame Monster" this a very simplistic image. The color scheme is very simple, Black and White. This helps the view define what they are looking at. Lady Gaga is in the center of the shot and is dressed all in black. The style of hair cut "boxes" her head in and all we see are her eyes and nose. This draws the viewers eyes towards hers as if she was staring at you. Her title is in very simple font and in two lines at the bottom of the image.

This is Frank Musiks "complete me album". The Font that he uses can be found on almost all of his merchandise and is something that i would want to replicate in my digi pack. Once again its a very simplistic composition and seems to be a similar theme between this type of music artist. The name of the artist is at the top with the album name below and to the left. The Pink is the only color in the entire album and is generally the colour Frank uses on his websites. He is also the main (and only) image on the cover, he (like lady gaga) is also staring at the viewer and creating eye contact. This make the viewer feel important as it has a more human touch.

This is my front cover.

I wanted to create something very simple yet very effective. I thought it would be best to keep the same color scheme as Frank as it is his song that we are using. I kept a very bright white background because after comparing many other album covers they all have dark background colors, so when the album is on a shelf it will stand out amongst the rest. I replicated his font and displayed it in a banner formation along the top of the album. This was to help the audience to distinguish what artist they were looking at. Also i displayed the song name along the bottom of the page in the same color, to help tie into the whole image. The number along the bottom of the bar-code is actually a secret code. If you were to type that number into a phone with predictive text, it will come up with FRANK MUSIK. (however it will correct it to Frank music). I wanted to do this because it will get people talking about the product and telling there friends about this cool "trick". Plus it was a good way to promote the product through advertisement. The bar-code is a plain and simple image. I did some research into sales techniques (as i was creating an album and advertisement to sell to the public) and it said that there is a technique call suggestive advertisement. This basically means that if you discreetly suggest something, customers generally agree. I used the bar-code to replicate purchasing the item and as you can see on the inside cover it shows a cashier till with the CD on the conveyor.

This is my finished inside left image. It is a picture of a cashier at a check out, as she scans the CD. I used photo shop to change the color and insert the CD. In order to get the desired colors I changed the contrast and brightened up the image. Also when i tried to insert the Cd into to image it kept distorting and didn't quite "fit in". Im still not 100% happy with the finale product but it was the best that i could do with my limited experience and tight time frame. I tried to get the color to match to Franks "Electric Pink" and placed some "shocking" green in to the picture.

I think these colors really complement each other as there both florescent and bold, also quite shocking when the reader opens the Cd case.

This is my back cover of my album. Once again i wanted to stick with the very simplistic approach, but also have a contrasting side. Almost as if the album had two sides, a light side (being the bright white front cover) and the darker side (that being the black mysterious back cover). The back picture is of a dark alleyway with a lighted path. The light starts off big and then finishes with a small light in the central focal point. This is to drag the readers eye towards the center of the image and helps to retain there attention. The song titles on the back are arranged in a specific order, so that each line gets smaller and smaller. This also helps the readers eyes to focus on the image.

This is my inside right display (where the CD will be held). This is a picture of a bar-code scanner. The typical laser is a bright red color but in order to fit in with my color scheme of pink and black, i had to use photo shop to change it. The proses was quite difficult as when i changed the contrast the whole image changed color when i only wanted the laser to. So i had to manually select each visible line and adjust the color to florescent pink.

Over all i am quite pleased with my finished digi pack as i think it represents the artist images and style.

This is my finished flat plan for my digi pack.

As you can see my album cover is very simple. The artists name is across the top of the page and is clearly visible when amongst other albums. The Bar-code and Numbers represents the artists and is described in detail further on.

The inside left page is an image of a checkout till, i saw a similar image on the front cover of the Arctic Monkeys album and wanted to create my own. To carry on the shop/buying theme the inside right cover (where the CD is displayed) is of a laser scanner. (like the one they have in superstore). Instead of the typical red color i wanted to carry on with the color scheme of Electric Pink. The back cover is of a dimly light alleyway. I wanted to create a contrast between bright white front cover and a dark black back cover. I originally wanted the main boy and girl in the shot. The girl being in the fore ground and the boy being in the background, however when i did some test shots and tried applying them into my digi pack, the lighting didnt quite match and it disrupted the visual balance and central focal point. So i decided to remove them from the shot.

This is my flat plan for my other two digi packs. The top left flat plan had a lot more color in it and the front cover is very similar to one of Franks other albums.

On the back i designed i huge question, GOTTA BOYFRIEND. This was to help the viewer to easily establish what song was on the disc.

The next digi pack (bottom left) was all designed around Franks "logo" of a lighting bolt for an S.

I used two different colors, Orange and Pink for the lighting bolts, and then used the opposite color for the text underneath. After i designed the flat plan i realized that the colors pink and orange didn't quite match and that the back cover wasn't quite engaging enough