Digipak advert planning

1. DIGIPAK
ADVERT PLANNING
by Victor Chi-Chung Chan

2. NEW STUDIO ALBUM FOR THE KILLERS
PRODUCT IDEA
For our product, we are going to create a new studio album for The Killers.
Therefore we will follow the conventions of their studio albums, such as their
styles, composition of the cover for your digipak. Apart from that, we still have
some elements which differ from their conventions.
Because this is a new album, so we will name all the new songs except our
music video is regarded as a remake version.
Since The Killers is a band founded in Las Vegas, there are many elements in
their music videos emphasising they come from a city. So we want to remain
their city-band image in our new album. The theme in our new album is also
about city, but we don't want to highlight the grandness of city. Instead,
following the pessimistic tone of The Killers’ work, we want to introduce
another side of a city. A image of city which is not beautiful as people assume,
this is exactly the rebellion of the rock genre. We think a city makes people
lost, this is the initial idea of this album. As a result, we decided to name the
album ‘The Lost’.

3. DIGIPAK PLANNING
FINAL DRAFT

4. DRAFT OF DIGIPAK
We want to create a 6-panel digipak which includes front cover, back
cover, inner cover, booklet, CD and DVD in order to feature more
things for audiences to experience from this album. So one CD is
not enough, we will have a DVD with their footages, including the
music video, will absolutely attract audience to buy this new album.
FIRST DRAFT
In this first draft, we listed what
contents we are going to include on
each panel. We didn’t visualise
anything at first but only listed so
we could have details on each part.

5. DRAFT OF DIGIPAK
After listing out all the details on every part, we needed another
draft with graphics on it. Since we have visualised our ideas, we now
know how it will look approximately.
FINAL DRAFT
All panels on the digipak need to have
a constant colour tone so there won’t
be any discontinuity of the style.
Also, we will use city landscape of
Hong Kong for the digipak because it
is a good representative of city. All the
photos we adopted are found from
Google. We will use some photos I
have already taken by myself before.

6. FIRST DRAFT OF DIGIPAK
FRONT COVER
This is the front cover of the digipak. On the
top, there is the band logo in big font. The
supporting title with smaller size underneath is
the album title. Because the band’s name is
more important, the band itself is a brand to
their audiences. So the band’s name should be
larger.
Darker colour:
According to our audience research, most of
the interviewees/respondents said that they
like to see darker colours. In order to enhance
such depression, we decreased the brightness
of the original photo.

7. FRONT COVER
Compare with other albums from The Killers, we followed many
conventions of them to remain their styles.
In the examples from The Killers below, I picked these three albums to
side-by-sidedly compare to our design. Their albums usually follow a
composition of placing the titles on the centre/top with a landscape
placed on the bottom third. Top two thirds of the CD front cover is
usually or just one pure colour as the sky so there are not many things
stealing attention from the titles.
1st album 3rd album 4th album 5th album

8. DRAFT OF DIGIPAK
BACK COVER
Following all the conventions of digipaks, the back
cover contains all the information about the product
is listed on this panel.
The basic contents on this page are the track list and
the legal text. Because people need to know what
songs they will listen to if they buy this album. We
reckon the album will contain 12 songs. More than
that, we also decided to include a DVD in it.
Therefore there will be 2 lists on the back cover to
show all the digital contents in the discs.
On the bottom is the legal details of the music and
all the materials used for this product. Because all
the materials in this album are original, so they
should be listed and protected by copyright. They all
are the bar code, label records and company who are
responsible for it.

9. CD & DVD
According to the other studio albums’ CDs, the designs of them are
usually simple and minimal. Only one main colour dominates a whole
disc with some text on it. But the colour has to differ from the other
colours used in the digipak so we can emphasise the main products.
Since we have both CD &
DVD in our product, we
would like to separate
them to 2 panels. So they
don't need to be
cramped, but have their
own space so they look
more important.

10. CD & DVD FINAL DRAFT
In our plan, we will only use a single colour for each disc. It has been a
convention of The Killers since their first studio album - Hot Fuss was released.
They only used red to dominate the whole surface of the disc with some texts to
label the band.
We did not plan much
on the CD & DVD
design because we
don't mean to have
any graphic on the
discs.
Since the colour motif of this album
is black/grey, so we keep this colour
on every element as possible as we
can. We also want the CD & DVD be
more customised. So the colours of
the discs are different as the CD is
grey and the DVD is dark blue.
The Killers
Hot Fuss
CD design

11. DRAFT OF INNER PAGES
BOOKLET
Since we mainly use images, such visual
elements to address messages to the audiences,
there is no much space for us to add text in the
digipak. Therefore, we have the digipak to
contain a booklet.
The booklet will include information of the CD &
DVD. For example the lyrics, the ideas of the
album, some making-of contents. Audiences can
know more about the background and the
intents of The Killers.
In order to contain the booklet, there will be a
black paper covering the booklet on top so the
book doesn't fall off.

12. DRAFT OF INNER PAGES
INNER COVER
This is an inner page of this digipak which
contains some contents apart from covers and
the discs. They are some messages.
There are many messages from the band are
wanted to be addressed to audiences. Most of
the deeper meanings of the album are told
inside the booklet. So this page has one page,
there wont be many messages to tell
compared to the booklet. This inner cover
only contains the separate photos of each
band members and introduction of the band.

13. MAGAZINE ADVERT PLANNING
In order to promote our product to
music lovers, advertising is one of the
most direct way to address the
audiences.
Because the main purpose of this
advert is about the new album, so all
the contents focus on the album itself.
The first draft here is for us to mark
down how to compose the
information onto an A4-size page. The
advert contains all the essential
information audiences need to know,
such as the band, album title, release
date, etc.
FIRST DRAFT

14. MAGAZINE ADVERT PLANNING
FINAL DRAFT After we have composed all the contents, we made a final draft to visualise the contents.
Band name - The Killers:
Because the band itself is the brand is the most
attraction for people to buy the product, so we set
the band’s title in the largest font in the whole poster.
Album title - The Lost:
The most important information following the band’s
title because it is also the product’s title. Therefore we
placed in right under the band with a smaller font to
hint the audiences that it is a product by The Killers.
Releasing date:
Just like promoting a film, the releasing date of
the film is a must in the promotional package.
Because we need to inform the audiences when
the product is available.
All the supporting information, such as releasing date of the
product and official website, is placed on the bottom of the poster:
Main image:
The background is a city landscape of Hong Kong,
which is the concept of this album which is about
the people feeling lost in a big city. The photo is
also used for the front cover, so the audiences can
recognise the appearance of the album.

15. MAGAZINE ADVERT PLANNING
FINAL DRAFT After we have composed all the contents, we made a final draft to visualise the contents.
Song featured:
Before an album is released, there are usually some
songs have already been released on Youtube or other
social media so that audiences can listen some of the
songs as a preview before they decide whether they
should buy the album or not. In this poster, we notice
the audiences that this hit single - For Reasons Unknown
is featured in this album. So it might arouse the interest
of the audiences to buy the album if they like the song.
Website & record label:
- A website is listed on the poster for the
audiences who are interested in this album can
search for more information online. Because we
rely on the Internet, so we don't list all the
information on one poster.
- The record labels are placed at 2 bottom corners.
They must be shown on the poster because these
companies are responsible for it. Also some
audiences’ tendency of purchase might be affected
by the record labels since some record labels
distribute some specific genres of music.