Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Looking at the conventions I used within my digipack.

1. The Digipak

2.  When creating my digipak I didn’t want to challenge conventions much as I
wanted my final product to look professional and if I were to challenge
conventions too much I think that my overall product wouldn’t look very good
due to the lack of conventions followed. I found that researching into already
existing digipaks really helped me before creating my own digipak as it helped
me to realise what conventions exist within digipaks which helped me to
create my final product. In the following Slide share I’m going to be
comparing my product to already existing products to show how I followed
conventions and broke conventions to create my final product.

3. Front Cover
Front covers for digipaks usually feature an image
of the artist. I chose to challenge and break this
convention by not including an image of my artist
as I thought that the because of the ambient style
of the track that I wanted my digipak to follow
the abandonment within my music video so
instead of featuring my artist I chose too include
the locations within my music video instead
therefore still having continuity between all of my
products but at the same time breaking
conventions. However I chose to follow
conventions such as including both the Artist and
Album name on the front cover because I felt this
was an essential factor to include for buyers to
know what they’re consuming. Moreover I chose
to follow the conventions of sticking to a colour
scheme which I’ve used in my other products
which is minimalistic white text. Once again I
chose it to be minimalist to follow the ambient
feel of the song and music video.

4. How does my front cover relate to other
conventional front covers
As you can see from this album cover
from bloc party the first thing you see
on the front cover is the name of the
artist and also the name of the album as
this is the main selling point of this
cover. Furthermore you’ve got the main
image which in this case is a white
snowy field which relates to the album
“silent alarm” in the same way that my
album cover relates to my music video
and song as it’s based in an abandoned
building which is why I chose to have
that as my main image on the cover of
my magazine. Moreover the font that is
used is also minimalistic just like the
font I’ve used and I think this makes the
text looks more professional and also
stands out more compared to a more
intricate font.

5. Back Cover
Once again with the back cover of my digipak I
wanted to follow conventions of real life cd back
covers as I wanted it to look professional by
following these conventions. I tried to use as
many conventions as I could whilst making my
back cover. Firstly I included all the tracks that
feature on the cd and placed them in the centre
of the back cover, this is conventional of back
covers as it’s essential that the buyers know what
songs are featured in the cd. Moreover I
conventionally used a barcode, copyright
information, the record label and social media for
the band. I kept the following in the corner of the
back cover as this is conventionally where they’re
usually placed. Moreover I tired to keep my back
cover symmetrical so that it was more eye
pleasing to look at and also keeping the track list
in the centre is quite conventional. I challenged
conventions by not including the name of the
album or artist on the back cover as I wanted to
keep it as minimalist as possible and by taking
away the artist and album name I managed to
achieve the look I was aiming for.

6. How does my back cover relate to other
conventional back covers
As you can see from the following back covers the
barcodes are usually placed in the bottom corners the
cover. I followed this convention within my own back
cover as that is not a main focus that I want people to
view when looking at it. Moreover the copyright
information and logo’s are also placed at the bottom
of the corner once more as this is not the main focus
of the back cover so doesn’t want to be to big or
central. Furthermore I followed conventions by
placing my track list in the centre of the back cover
as this is where the viewers would stereotypically look
for what tracks are on the cd which I followed by
placing mine track list in the middle in large white
font that is easy to read. I also used an image from
the location where I filmed my music video to keep
continuity of the abandoned feel of the album and
also to keep to the house style that I created.
Moreover I tried to create symmetry within my back
cover which I achieved by using a picture of a
symmetrical building and placing the centre of the
image as the centre of my back cover and also placing
the text central which over looks really professional
looking.

7. Inside Panels
For my inside panels I simply wanted to carry on
the theme/ house style that I’ve had throughout
all of my products which is the setting of my
music video so I just used images from the set of
my music video and used them for the images of
my inside panels. I found it difficult to follow
conventions when creating these panels as there
isn’t really any conventions to follow apart from
keeping everything within the same theme which I
did.

8. Disks
For The disks for my digipak I once again just
chose to follow my house style/ theme of my
digipak by using images from the setting of my
music video. I didn’t really want to put text on
the disks as it was hard to read and I felt like it
ruined the minimalistic feel that I was trying to
achieve through my products which you could
also say I was breaking conventions as usually
there is text on the disks stating the content or
which disk that certain disk is.

9. Digipack
As I whole I think that I did well
following the conventions of
already existing digipacks however
adding my own style to it by
making sure I kept to my
minimalist house style and using
the images from the set of my
music video throughout the whole
of the digipack. Moreover I
followed conventions by keeping
the front cover, back cover, disks
and inside panels as this is
conventional of all digipacks and I
didn’t want to challenge this.
Furthermore another convention
that I followed is representing the
artist thought the digipack which I
tried to do by making it very
ambient and minimalistic as this
relates to the songs within the
album and I thought I achieved
this really well.