Digipak

This is the design for our digipak. We used an ongoing theme of the birds that is also in our magazine advert so that audiences would recognise and identify the band from seeing the advert. We also used the same photograph of the beach with the man standing on the left side, as we did in the advert, for the same reasons.

To gain audience feedback we uploaded our design onto Facebook and asked people to give their comments and opinions about it, the image below is what we uploaded and below it is some feedback we gained:

I was pleased with the feedback as it seemed people understood the bird motif and why we had continued it throughout the digipak. People also seemed to find the digipak visually attractive and eye-catching which is exactly what we wanted for it. We also found that our photos of the band, which were cut with rough edges, connoting the band as anti-mainstream, was also understood and recognised as a typically indie/alternative quality. I believe the symmetry of the inside of our digipak is partly what makes it easy to look at and aesthetically pleasing, it draws the eyes towards the centre of it and therefore the band name.

Advert

This is the magazine advert we designed for our album. We used the same photograph that is on the front of the digipak, meaning that audiences will recognise and associate the two together, and the main themes are also continued throughout; the swallows with the title in the black font is continued in the advert as it is on the digipak also. Continuing these themes and images means the band's album can be immediately identified to an audience. We decided not to put the actual band in the advert and on the front of the digipak, because we wanted to give the impression that the band is more about the music than about their image. This is slightly unusual for a debut album, as usually new upcoming bands want to immediately establish their image and for audiences to see them, however, some bands, such as Stornoway, also have not had pictures of themselves in their adverts. This means there is no distraction for the audience away from the music, and instead of identifying with the way the band look, they are identifying with the name of the band and their music instead.

Kings of Leon have also used this technique for their new album, Come Around Sundown, where the album cover features only a picture, the band's name and the album name. However, although Kings of Leon are very famous and no longer need to establish their 'image' on their album covers because they have a well-established image already, their previous album covers are also similar, in the way they often don't have images of the actual band on them, meaning they connote the idea that they are more about their music than the way they look. We believe this is a justified way of presenting our band, as we have still shown the band in the music video, and therefore their image is identified and presented, yet it is just not presented as the most crucial thing to the band.

Kings of Leon's new album cover for 'Come Around Sundown' as well as some of their previous and earlier album covers that also did not feature the band itself.