Evaluation Of Digipack

I found both of these very time consuming but also interesting as I enjoyed creating a star image for the band. We did a photo shoot of the band member but Oscar wasn’t there so we will have to meet with him another time and photo shop him in. After the photo shoot we used photo shop to edit the photos into a digipack and poster.

The digipack took quite a long time and lots of editing and drafts to get it right. Firstly Ally and I simply took photos of the band members on our phones and developed both and hand written and computerised draft. We then created the final which involved downloading the font off the Internet so that it was a unique style and different to other artists, we put their faces the front as they aren’t a very well known band to try and get band recognition instead of a simple or image as some established bands do. We also added a bar code onto the back, a list of songs and also the Virgin label. In the second draft we added smaller details such as more band information, background and knowledge as they are a new band to the market and we wanted fans to understand them and what they do and their past. We also added the song title on the spine to promote their most popular song.

When taking the photos I could see an element of one direction in their image, by their dress sense more than their music and example. I also think there music reminds me of second hand serenade but they are a less popular band than ‘you me at six’, I find that there isn’t that many bands musically very similar to ‘you me at six’ as they are fairly individual and unique which is a great part of there star image and star quality.

We used screen grabs to take images of what we were working on throughout the process so far, we have also used Photoshop and Pixlr.com to construct the actual digipack and the poster advertising the band and the fold out special edition poster that is contained inside the CD digipack. When making our digipack we were trying to construct a cool, chilled image for the band, we wanted them to seem very close and good friends so that the audience see them as more of a family than just a group of people. We wanted them to be ‘guys’ that boys could look up to, such as follow there fashion and image and also a group of guys that girls found attractive so that ‘synergy’ could be listened to by both a male and female audience between the ages of 14-25. By putting the poster of the boys inside we wanted there faces to be on there fans walls which would make there faces look more familiar to friends, also but putting there faces on the front they will hopefully become more recognisable which will create a fan base for them.

The ancillary tasks have really helped promote and market the band as there faces are everywhere, all over the posters promoting release dates, digipack and the fold out poster that comes inside the digipack. This will make them recognisable to there fan base extremely quickly. They are signed to virgin records which is a fairly big, well known company which shows that there music is developing and progressing, becoming more well known to a slightly wider audience. Due to this is means that their music can be sold and promoted on iTunes and also at supermarkets, and with their faces on the CD digipack people without realising notice their faces. I feel marketing is important for building customer relationships to make them trust or share and interest in what you are selling as well as creating product awareness. 
Without an effective marketing strategy you cannot expect people to be familiar with your media product you need something to get people talking and create and star image and brand awareness, marketing is the vehicle to do this. 

We have had good feedback from our audience girls say ‘They look cool and attractive’ and ‘they look like good mates like ‘The wanted’’. Boys have said ‘There image is pretty cool, I recon young guys could look up to them’. This feedback shows that our aims have worked well and the correct image is being put across to our target audience. The one thing that I would like to change about our band is that they look fairly young, if I could have guys that are between the ages of 21-25 that would be ideal but being at a college the boys are 16-18 which is a bit of a shame but we have worked with it and I think  they look good together. 
This has helped them create a star image 'a star is an image, not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials, stars are also commodities (something you sell) produced and consumed on the strengths of their meanings' Richard Dyer.  Audiences strive to try and make sense of an artist such as Lady Gaga or Jessie J, this is achieved when audience continually watch and follow the artist consuming them and their material. The performance of an artist seems to promise a completion of the image but ultimately leaves them unsatisfied so that they go and watch the artist again. The image can be used to create social values that are dominant in positioning an audience. Our band star image is shown within the music video stay with me but they aren't fully revealed to keep the audience wanting more from them, wanting to see them live and wanting to download more of their songs.