Evaluation Question 2

How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

My initial idea for my digipak was to show Chanan after he was signed to show the start of success. I would of created this feeling of success through simplicity throughout the digipak as i believed this may connote that he’s in a world of his own, as everything would be so clear and simple, with Chanan being the main focus of the digipak. Another way to show success would have been by the use of costume worn by Chanan. Most of my inspiration for this idea came from Ryan Leslie

For further inspiration and ideas and started researching into digipaks from my favourite artist such as, T.i. and The Game, when I came across.. ‘T.I vs. T.I.P’ (picture below) ;. The album was based to show his split personality of T.I.P when he was heavily involved in the drug and gang scenes in Atlanta America and T.I for when he became a huge successful artist and globally know. This inspired me to Incorporated this idea of split personality into my digipak, but using the narrative in our music video of Chanan on his ‘hustle’ before he was successful, to when he got signed to ‘Platinum Records’ which was the start to his success instead.







As you can see, the split personality from mise-en-scene used in both of these pictures.

Using this concept of chanan during and before his success, I started drawing ideas of how I could present this. As I dint want to use the idea of having a split album cover, because I felt that I’ve just copied and not created this myself. I again started looking into more digipaks of albums I personally own, when I came across ‘Recovery’ by Eminem. For the front cover he had a booklet with an image on both sides of two different, but similar album covers. (Picture below)



This inspired me to create a small booklet also with two album covers, one side with Chanan when he was successful and the other with him before he was successful.
I then started thinking of possible camera shots and poses I could do, and decided to have a mid-range shot of Chanan like the one used on ‘Ryan Leslie’ album cover. However I came across T.I.’s latest album ‘No Mercy’ which had a close up of T.I. looking down which I thought connoted a sense of failure. When I thought I could use such as a pose, to create the same feeling. After debating which idea to use, I decided to go for ‘No Mercy’ for inspiration, as I could use a close up of Chanan looking down to create a sense of failure before he was successful and a close up Chanan, with his head held up, to create a sense of power and success.

As I decide to go with the idea of a booklet with two different album covers, inspired by Eminem ‘Recovery’ I needed something to fill the booklet with. So I decided to have a few images of Chanan before he was successful in colour and the same amount of images of Chanan after he had been signed, in black and white, to link my digipak to the narrative of our music video.
In conclusion I used elements of every album cover that inspired me, from the simplicity in ‘Ryan Leslie’, the split personality from ‘T.I. vs. T.I.P’, the booklet with two different album covers from ‘Recovery’ and the pose from ‘No Mercy’ to create my own. I believe doing this allowed me to incorporate my idea of representing the narrative from our music video of Chanan through to my digipak.
As we designed a company ident for ‘Platinum Records’ as shown in our music video, I wanted to carry this out through to my didgipak as it would create a sense of branding. So I started looking into more album digipaks to see where the majority of company logos and sponsors are placed.
After researching, I found that most albums would have the company logo and sponsors on the back jus under the track list, so this influenced me to do this too. I also placed the company logo onto the poster, to show a sense of branding and continuity.
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Example of Nas album track list, with company logo on back.


Example of use of ident on my track list and poster.

I wanted incorporate the street look from our video into my poster. I did this through the mise-en0scen. For costume I had Chanan wearing a plain white t-shirt and a black hood jacket. I felt that this would help create a sense of ‘street’ as this is the sort of style and dress code, used by the sense of ‘street’.
For my location I had Chanan in a vandalised area which had graffiti all over the walls. I used this as this also created a sense of street, to relate it back to the narrative in my music video. As the street scene, before Chanan was singed is used a flashback and is under the ‘day into Night’ affect to give a Black and white look. I incorporated this idea into my poster as I was trying to create street look. I believed this made a big link to my music video.