Final Promotional Video

 This is the blog that includes the final video, the digipak album's cover, back cover, and insides, and the social media page (there will be a link to it).

Click here to go to the YouTube link/video version of it

DIGIPAK

FRONT COVER

INSIDE LEFT

INSIDE RIGHT

REVERSE COVER AND SPINE (DOTTED LINES FOR REFERENCE OF BORDER ONLY)

INSIDE (MOCK UP BY CARRICK)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Here is our link to the social media account (Instagram) - https://www.instagram.com/official.jmuse/

Audience engagement on this post - https://www.instagram.com/p/DHD30IVpOPn/

Audience engagement on this post - https://www.instagram.com/p/DHD4e6hpjm5/

Final Critical Reflection

This is my Final Critical Reflection where I critically self reflect on my experience on doing this whole music video project.

Our group's RNB music video is Leave The Door Open by Bruno Mars, starring Jaden Mutty, under the persona 'Jay Muse', a chill yet emotional loverboy. The story follows a date bringing excitement & preparation for a man, only to be ditched last minute, emphasizing the theme of romantic dissapointments.

Our Music video is made of various factors to tie them all together. The main star, Jaden, plays a persona of a chill, down-to-earth, yet very emotional loverboy. Dominant reading is a story of someone who seems to have a planned date for the later night, and seems to be quite excited for it and prepares all day for it, going out to places, only to get ditched later night and feel melancholy about it which follows a theme of romantic dissapointments. The visuals often have a bright, warm sunset light, with a very tropical the ming for our Star's persona, the use of many tracking/trecking camera movements in many outdoor areas give a sense of dynamism and outgoing that adds to his personality, contrasting with the more static, darker more intimate scenes that focus on his emotions and feelings. The MV's themes follow the ripple effects of heartbreak and trying to reflect on one's experiences after said heartbreak, and the escapism that follows when trying to avoid the emotional turmoil, such as drinking alcoholic drinks and finding peace in a casual and beautiful beach area.

The conventions of RnBs are that it's usually slow-paced, a jazzy or funky yet pretty stylish and down-to-earth vibe. When making the music video, we conformed to this by using slow pacing and an emotional personal vibe, allowing shots of the main star to linger for longer. We also replicated the outfit style, mainly making me use tropical-themed outfits, which fit well with the beach setting and themed set pieces. We felt these were staples of RnB. However, we also subverted a decent amount of elements from RnB, such as having more more outgoing scenes than usual, whereas RnB music videos usually have more indoor settings with a focus on lighting. This was done to create more variety in locations and provide distinct vibes, which'll enhance the Mise-en-Scene. The contrast in emotions emphasized through technical elements made the emotional weight of certain scenes hit harder, making sure the audience could feel the highs & lows of the story more deeply.

A digipak is supposed to be the actual album cover and another way for the artist to express their identity in a visual sense and show off their their style & themes within their bubble of music. RnB has a distinct yet iconic aesthetic, so in order to be faithful to the genre, we searched up and analyzed other popular RnB artists such as Bruno Mars (our own star), Steve Cooke, etc.. There were many various ways we tried to follow RnB's style; Thier face was clear and directly gazing at the audience most of the time in the cover, so a close-up angle shot with slight high or low angles (but not too much) was efficient to use, as the audience could connect with him with said technical elements. Typography wise, we tried to use a font that felt very refinedly elegant and fancy, cursive too as it's common in the genre. Also the colors and even the shirt patterns (like having fruit patterns) had to be kept consistent to reinforce a certain vibe or theme, in this case casualness and tropicalness. As mentioned just now, trying to be faithful to the genre helps reinforce our Star's status as a RnB artist, which'll help fans recognize his music and connect wit him from the screen. A clear iconic design across all media such as the music video itself, album covers, hypothetical merchandise, social media posts will lift up his ability to have an image that stands out. In terms of how we subverted the RnB conventions though, our RnB representation had more outside, organic settings such as the aforementioned beach places. In general we didn't try to be all that serious or brooding with the music video, at least not most of the time, as J Muse presents himself as much more casual and relaxed, almost as though he could be approached by others, with a genuine smile to be expected. We chose to subverted and go agaitns the grain of certain conventions so that J Muse can be helped to stand out and distinguish himself as an RnB persona in the music industry, by reinforcing his easygoing personality that comes with a down-to-earth vibe while still trying to fit within the genres minimum requirements to count as that genre. The use of more natural settings for most of the video and more casual informal posing and expressions and body language helps him, once again, feel like some the audience can be in the shoes of.

The social issue we was representing in our music video was romance and relationships, and the hardships that come with it when expectations are high and not moderated. The traditional representation of mance and relationships usually has idealistic and dramatic versions of real life relationships, that make it seem like the whole world or setting of the story revolves around said relationship. However our representation tried to give the dominant reading that romantic relationships can be quite dissapointing and that the realistic truth is that relationships don't always magically turn out to be as good as either partner's ideals. The technical elements that support this is mainly J Muse's performance and acting, something that was really important despite being subtle. His acting was more so natural through it's subtlety, being all chill and down-to-earth. The setting choice is also quite important, as places such as beaches and restaurants/homes with a casual vibe give off a realistic sense, which makes the audience feel as though the life he follows is as grounded as everyone's every day experience, which adds to the relatabily. The lighting was also quite crucial, as the use of cozy, mellow lighting which could signify romance and emotional euphoria highly contrasts with the darker, melonchloic lighting that is used in J Muse's more introspective, and sad moments that are also combined with Close-up angle shots to focus on his emotions on a more personal level for the audience. The goal, in my eyes at least, was to present the harsh reality of romantic relationships in comparison to idealized romance, as real life romantic relationships may not work as well as how people imagine them to be. According to Stuart Hall's Representation theory, media doesn't actually reflect meaning but instead it CREATES meaning, and many romantic forms of media tend to idealize romance as if it were perfect, but we wanted to subverted against that and show the different meaning we Created instead, that being romance not being as good as one may think.

Our social media page connects with the audience by giving specific and exclusive content of our star, Jay Muse along with his everyday life, and the intent such footage behind the scenes and other types of photos. This adds to the theme of relatability and makes the fans connect with the star more. The fans, speaking of, can also connect with J Muse on a more personal level by checking out his casual photos and personal updates about his life that he posts. Behind-the-scenes content also adds upon this. These types of posts encourage connection by interacting with him, which will make him feel more approachable and human. J Muse's posted content fills what the audience needs in context of the Uses & Gratifications theory by Blulmer & Katz, by appealing to the two reasonings of diversion as the music video and star can be pretty engaging, comedic, and in general appeals to audiences with high visuals, and also personal identity as audiences, as mentioned before can relate to J Muse's persona as a emotional yet romantically struggling person with a strong desire for connection. The technology that helped make this possible were applications such the slide creator 'PowerPoint' but more importantly the video editing application 'CapCut', both of which can help create and modify social media posts to make them look professional yet ever so visually engaging at the same time, and is also what was used to make the video and have the branding be consistent most of the time.

Working on becoming a star of my own made me realize and appreciate the process of star-creation, it shows me the process of how stars have to show off a version or image of themselves that is meant to spread a specific message or reading. However whether or not they were successful is a different question, as the social media page could've admittedly gained more attention. Next time, I will have to both bring more attention to the social media page, and also pick a star that I personally would have more confidence in playing.

Here is a digital link to the Google documents I made this reflection on

Social Media Research and Development

Here is the research and development of our social media page - completed by Giorgio, Carrick, and Kaka

Research

Bruno Mars - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brunomars/

Bruno seems to post very high quality images of himself with other artists. The lighting and mood of each photo is very regulated. Other posts that Bruno posts are ones regarding his music ratings as well as promotional videos for his other songs and collaborations. The photos of him do feel rather personal as per the fan comments which are mostly very positive of Bruno Mars despite being professionally produced by someone else who is creating the content for Bruno. The comments provide a way for fans to interact with Bruno and other fans where they can connect and share thoughts. Livestreams which Bruno often does help him to connect with his fanbase and learn what they want to see from him in the future. Bruno's social media account promotes new music and releases through posting photos of collaborations with other artists as well as promotional videos with the music in the background. This social media has influenced me by showing consistency in both the lighting, mood, and clothing of the artist.

Categories of Bruno Mars' posts can be summarised in the following:

• Personal: Shots of live performances, recording sessions.
• Promotional: Grammy wins, concert clips, music video highlights.
• Humour: Playful interactions between Bruno and other artists.

Craig David - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/craigdavid/

Craig also posts very high quality images of himself in a cheerful mood. Most of the time it's just him but sometimes he features another artist he is collaborating with. The lighting and mood of each photo on Craig's page is also very regulated. Craig posts other posts too which include recent highlights of concerts and memes that were made using images and videos of Craig in a recording studio. The posts don't really feel all that personal as it is usually just very corporate posts that are pretty obviously produced by someone else who works for Craig. The captions of each post are very long and do not feel like they were written by Craig himself. However, on one post regarding a book he is publishing, many fans felt that they could relate to Craig as evident in his comment section which is one post that feels personal to fans. Fan also seem to write their favourite concert memories in the comments of the concert posts which gives an opportunity for Craig to interact with his fans as well as fans interacting with other fans. Craig's page shows that even though most of the page is corporate and is very obviously not run by Craig, fans are still able to relate, interact with one another and feel connected with Craig. Craig's profile picture is of him being thankful to God based off where his eyes are looking (up). His bio talks about how he feels and expresses it through emojis. His link is a link tree that are related to Craig.  

Neyo - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/neyo/

Neyo's page again feature high quality images of himself, but this time his page also features a lot of other posts that are amateur or are snippets of podcasts or behind the scenes places where Neyo shows himself to be vulnerable, opening up and talking about success and his personal life. Neyo's captions highlight his relatability to his audience and feels like they are written and posted by him which makes the connection between his audience and himself personal. Neyo's fans are often encouraging him and asking questions. Neyo's profile picture is consistent with his branding of being a mysterious masculine man which is shown through his clothing and pose. His bio is very straightforward in promoting his new media product and the link is placed perfectly under the bio. 

Development

Below is a very rough sketch of our social media ideas that we will most likely base our page off.

We went with these posts because we want to show that JMUSE is down to earth, connecting with his fans in order to ensure he is in touch with his base and relatable. Fans will find this interesting and intriguing as it takes the corporate and industry parts of his work out of the picture so fans can solely focus on him. 

Bio and Link

Here are a list of bio ideas that we came up with:

• Reaching for the Stars! 
• "LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN" OUT NOW!
• "Leave the Door Open" OUT NOW!
• Nothing Lasts Forever
• Looking for Love
• Just making the muse
• Living on a dream
• I have a dream
• Bookings at jmuse@bookings.com
• BOOKINGS AT JMUSE@BOOKINGS.COM
• Book me at jmuse@bookings.com
• Linktr.ee/jmuse

We decided to include these two to use in the social media page biography as we believe they are most relevant and are in line with what most artists of all genres seem to do. This encourages both fans and business enquiries to seek more information and listen to his music. The linktree is where fans can find songs and other fan resources. 

Here is the result

Personal Posts

JMUSE's ideal persona is authenticity with his fans and followers, which is why we decided to go with pictures that he took of himself. As he is a teenager, it is expected that a lot of his pictures would be amateur which is why they may be a little bit on the lower quality spectrum. However, some of the pictures that I'd like to post do look a lot more on the professional side and we would like to incorporate some of them. Below are pictures we want to post. 

These photos were taken by Jaden, Nathan (our friend from school), and Giorgio. 

Here are the photos incorporated into posts with captions and hashtags. 

Videos

The purpose of these videos is to convey unto the audience JMUSE's progress and behind the scenes in filming the music video. This provides the audience an opportunity to get a sneak peak at the final product. This will hype up the fanbase and excite them so that they will not be disappointed by the music video. Below is the process of making these videos.

Giorgio used capcut for to search for templates and utilise them to create the videos. Very short and simple process that took less than five minutes.

Below are what the final videos look like.

 

 

Award Post

This post is a screenshot of a billboard music award top 100 which showcases the main song of our album being in the top 8. This post has the purpose of getting fans excited and talking about JMUSE. The process was not hard, all I did was copy paste a previous billboard, cover up the eighth song, and replace it with JMUSE's song. All of this was done on Microsoft PowerPoint.

Here is what it looks like on the instagram.

 

Reflection: It was interesting to see the social media account and what it would become, because it would contrast our music video's/star's typical vibe as the social media page would have memes although it would also have some sentimental and cheesy pictures about love, fitting for the RnB genre. It also made me realize how hard it is to grow a social media page, as even posting this on a public school chat with  60+ people would only get us 2 followers, so this taught me that you had to really get the attention of people if you people to notice you or an accomplishment of yours.

Branding

 Here is what my group and I decided with regard to a persona for our star to be reflected in our products.

Here are some questions provided by my teacher to help us construct an identity for our star.

Here are my groups' ideas

Reflection: Despite our usual chaotic and discordant group dynamics, this is the one classwork where we agreed together on something and was one in agreement. It was honestly pretty crucial to get this done first and I can see why, as this simple white poster would be the foundation of our music video and star/persona's identity that would be presented to them, it would be the core principle. This makes  things easier by giving us a sense or direction of the bare minimum of what our music video and artist has to follow. Despite being geekish over internet things myself, admittedly, I have never actually devlved deep into the popular music videos or artists I've probably known since I was a child, so it was interesting to explore classic artists - popular and niche - and see the process behind it all. In order to keep insistent with the persona, I'd probably need to be reminded to stick with what's basically our blue-print for out persona. Though it's pretasy for me to get into music genres and understand music videos given how much time I spend on the internet, I simply know the norms and everything. It was quite simple to come up with what kind of persona our star would have, AKA me, given how Bruno Mars has a distinct style and is honestly quite iconic & recognizable. We changed J Muse's (in my opinion Muttylasi would've been a better name however I understand the change since it would be too edgy) outfit colors to mainly dark blue so most of our photos could fit with it.

Editing

Here is the development of the editing stage - completed by Gio

I used Google Drive to store all the footage that was filmed using my Leica smartphone camera. I used movie ratio during filming directly so that I won't have to add an effect or change the ratio later on during editing.

I'm using Capcut to edit the Music Video (MV). Capcut offers many premade effects and editing tools. It's very easy to use, easy to learn, and practical. I have been using CapCut for almost 2 recent years, so I'm fairly good at it and still familiar with it. I have bought CapCut Pro which gives me access to more features and effects that I normally couldn't use with normal CapCut. So, with this membership, I'm hoping I'll finish things much more smoothly and without hindrance like the limitations of normal CapCut. I will be using my computer to edit on CapCut. 

Here is the overall timeline of the project in CapCut computer. 

SIGNIFICANT EDITING CHOICES AND METHODS

The Intro will have an opening title of the song, I used a text element and animated it for the title introduction: 

The title serves to give context to the audience. 

I changed the text's color to match the branding and overall lighting.

I chose a color that compliments the background lighting and scenery. It is important to make it visually appealing so that the audience doesn't feel odd or get distracted by it leading to not being able to focus on the content. 

I use filters to color grade the footage for better quality and make it more cinematic. 

The highlighted elements are the filters:

Color grading is a very important aspect of editing as it creates meaning and stories in the media. I could make the music video seem horror and scary with dark color grading, or enunciate certain colors to create the branding of the video. As for our music video featuring J Muse covering "Leave The Door Open" I go with a filter that matches the persona of J Muse which is laid back, cool, and down-to-earth, which is why I picked a filter that enunciates the warm colors like yellow and orange, as well as ones that compliments the lighting of the footage. 

I used markers to symbolize the beats of the music/audio. It helped me with matching the timing of footage cuts and transitions. 

The audio is at the bottom, the color is blue, and the markers are on top of the audio, the color is light blue:

MINOR EDITING CHOICES AND METHODS

I used special effects to give a dreamy look on the artist's face during part of the song where the lyrics talk about being clean-shaven.

This makes the visual more impactful and engages the audience more with the song and music video, as it immerses them better with special visual effects. 

Reflection: I am honestly surprised yet proud with how our final video turned out despite the quality of the recording being... let's just say it could be better or reach a standard, but Gio was able to piece together a really well-made final PIECE. in retrospect however, given my own experience with vdeio editing, I felt as though I should've lent him a hand in editing the video, as being the main director and filmmaker was probably a lot of weight on his shoulders, hence why he might come across as a bit more tempered than us when it came to the project, but I understood his fustrations.

File Organisation

 Here are the ways in which we organised our files which made our editing and production process a lot simpler - completed by Giorgio and Carrick

    

Advantages of our system of organisation

• All the footage available in one place
• Accessible to all members of the team

Disadvantages of our system of organisation

• No labels to determine which footage is good or bad
• No thumbnails
• Everything very disorganised

Advantages of using Google Drive

• All our group members were able to access all the video files without having to uploading all the videos to a DVD drive and downloading it from the DVD drive
• Automatically updates when someone deletes, uploads, or renames a file
• Allows for any file type to be uploaded
• Compatible between mobile phones and computers

Disadvantages of using Google Drive

• Must have internet to access the files
• No offline back up
• Can only take up to 15gb of storage compared to DVD drives

This type of file organisation benefits us as we are typically organised when we are disorganised. This means that the style of disorganisation best suits us. Having all the resources compiled in one place is very beneficial to us as it is accessible to us at all times when we have internet.

Reflection: Even though I didn't use it most of the time, during the last few days of the project work this was a REALLY useful tool to keep and contain all our recordings & images during the project. I used to it to send screenshot to my friend so that he can make a new digipak since our older one wasn't of the quality that was required or expected. However a few problems (although this was our fault) was probably the lack of organization. Perhaps if we organized or labeled specific files or names, it would've been easier to find which file is where. Also since I didn't use this file a lot or at all until the last minute, I had to deliberately dig through old messages to find it, this serves as a lesson for next time, I need to preserve or save or contain the file in somewhere where I can clearly see it or access it with ease, such as starring or favoriting it on Google drive, or also on WhatsApp groups since WhatsApp has a feature to star/favorite/pin messages. All I'd have to do for the latter is type or paste the link to the drive of files to the texting bar and send it into the respective group, then hold the message to open a prompt that lists a bunch of differing options on what to do with the message, and click the "Pin" button (which usually has a pin symbol next to it, usually on it's left). Then on the chat for a certain amount of time there will be a button at the very top that could be clicked that will lead you to the message very fast.

Digipak Research and Development

Here is our research and development into the Digipak - completed by Carrick and Jaden

Research - Digipak Dimensions

Before researching into digipak covers, we first needed to know the dimensions of the digipak. This was to ensure that we get the dimensions right so that there wouldn't be any awkward gaps or missing areas in the digipak. Below is a diagram I took off the internet that I used to learn this information.

Research - Digipak Cover

Here is the research conducted on behalf of the group with regard to digipak covers of male R&B artists because our artist is a male R&B singer covering the R&B song "Leave the Door Open" by Bruno Mars. The following diagram showcases the digipak covers we found interesting and that may follow and match the mood, vibe, and aesthetic of a teenager who is a hopeless romantic. 

Each digipak cover shows the star's face and the top part of their torsos in one form or another which take up a great portion of the middle of the digipak cover, with Bruno Mars' Doo-wops and Hooligans (middle top row) digipak cover being the only one to subvert that, showing Bruno as a very small silhouette following the path of a rocket. Most of the digipak covers do not have the artist cover the text or vice-versa but rather the text is next to the artist, with The Weeknd's Starboy digipak cover (top right) being the only exception to this rule. Two other digipak covers (bottom right) also subvert the convention by not even using text but rather using the artist (The Weeknd) as a means of describing the album contents through his facial expressions and picture colouring which suggest a sinister motive in the mind of the artist. 

The digipak covers that really stood out to us were the ones featuring Sam Cooke (bottom left) which depict him as a cheerful happy-go-lucky person which really fits the persona of our artist who is a hopeless romantic looking for love. The other digipak covers have a more serious facial expression which make them all look like they're on a mission to complete something or are determined to get their own way by how they're dressed. Dark colouring and also seems to be a theme in these digipak covers as it sets the mood of the album. The text and typeface seem to send a message too as most if not all use a serif font which creates a certain appeal which allows audiences to identify the artist. 

Out of the 15 digipak covers shown here, we decided to research four of them in more in .

Doo-waps and Hooligans - Bruno Mars

Camera angles: an extreme long shot of Bruno at the beginning of the path created by the rocket’s smoke.

Mise-en-scene: Bruno looks to be wearing a fedora hat and from the back vaguely resembles a suit, which suggests that he feels optimistic about this adventure. His walking posture is looking up with the hands being forward implying walking, with his head looking forward to the end of the path, which shows that he is preparing for what seems like a big uphill adventure.

The meaning created is that Bruno Mars has a very fancy yet adventurous personality, that his album will make the audience feel as though it is very adventurous and “high-flying”.

The imagery reflects Bruno Mars’ very smooth, sophisticated, street-like personality with his fedora and suit, free and charismatic personality.

Bruno does have a logo, however it's not very consistent and can vary in font, shape, and color. The album cover has influenced us because of its minimalist art style and the idea/concept of the album. 

Starboy - The Weeknd

Cover

Camera: Medium shot of the guy, with text behind him

Mise-en-scene: He has a very dark blue color which is very monochromatic, in which the contrast is very very low, he is very masculine, does a very mysterious, cool, seemingly defensive and protective pose, and has a cross symbol necklace. He stares directly at the camera.

Insides/CD

Camera: Long/Medium shot of the cross and lightning

Mise-en-scene: A purely red background along with yellow cross and two lightning bolts by the side of both. The whole thing has pure colors, yellow and red, no shading or gradient whatsoever.

The medium camera angle is used to show and focus on the pose of the artist, which is actually a pretty symbolic pose of some for of defense or detachment of some sort, combined with the very dark blue hue adjusted for the singer, suggest some kind of serious or melancholy or emotional reasoning for said defense or detachment. The man is wearing a dark leather jacket that also reflects his masculine physique, which shows masculinity and strength. However, he is also wearing a cross necklace which is commonly used by rappers, singers, and sinners. Those two combined show the meaning that the person and his album is being strong, materialistically and physically. He is also edited to be posing in front of the title. 

This hasn't really inspired us all that much but the facial expression is something to consider because it seems to be consistent with other digipak covers we've looked at on the internet. 

Neyo

Camera: Close-up of his face with slight low angle and tilted, and the background purely focuses on Neyo. The background text is blurred.

Mise-en-scene: The background resembles a black chalkboard with various white writing with hand-written style/font, likely using white chalk. Wears a fedora that’s tilted downward, earrings, blue jacket with a white outer collar. His presentation is that he looks at the audience, but with a chill, looking-down, slanted head. The lighting is soft and spread out, which makes a warm and close atmosphere. On the left side of the album cover, there is an image of binder holes of a piece of paper/note. 

Well-dressed, young male, earrings, tilted hat, white tops under his formal shirt. Head leaning to the other side. 

Meaning(s): The close-up of his face brings focus and attention to his emotions and builds the personal connection with the audience looking at him. The angle of the face too being tilted and low gives a little more dynamic to his expression, as the tilted adds some mystery and deep introspection but the low angle makes him feel a lot more confident and belief in himself. The blurred background with focus on Neyo’s face & and hand-written dialogue.

This hasn't really inspired us all that much but the facial expression is something to consider because it seems to be consistent with other digipak covers we've looked at on the internet. 

Sam Cooke

Technical Elements

Camera: Close-up shot of Sam Cooke’s face, slightly tilted. The angle is straight on, and the framing tries to focus on his warm expression & direct gaze.

Mise-En-Scene: The lighting is soft and natural, which highlights his smooth skin. Background is a soft blue sky with white clouds. He is wearing a button-down shirt, simple and casual. He wears a warm smile, and the “Sam Cooke” is written in bold orange-red letter with a more vintage feel, whilst “The Unforgettable” is in a smaller purple serif font.

Meaning Created by These Elements

The Close-up shot and direct eyesight of Sam Cooke create an intimate feeling that makes it feel as though Sam is trying to connect with the listener on a personal level. The blue sky background has connotations of timelessness and purity. Him wearing casual clothing along with warm lightning to support it makes him more approachable, humble, and seem down-to-earth or real.

How does the Imagery reflect the star’s persona?

The imagery reinforces his symbol of charm & warmth. His positive smile and relaxing posture gives an uplifting one. The natural setting (sky and cloud) suggests his music’s themes and vibe are universal, which cements his status.

Does the artist have a logo? Is it consistent with their other media?

The album features the RCA Victor logo, which is quite consistent with Sam Cooke’s other releases under his label. On the flip side though, he did not have a personal logo (compared to artists of a later time with more unique branding). Simply put, just his image & name alone would serve as his most recognizable way of identifying him. The style of typography still has that classic, elegant feel that other Cooke’s albums have.

How has the album cover influenced you?

The warmth & simplicity of the cover make it so it seems like the person of focus (Sam Cooke) seems to have an aura worth listening to, which fits the chill, down-to-earth vibe of our Bruno-Mars-inspired persona, ‘Jay Muse’. What adds to this is the inviting expressions and smiles provides an impression that his music will lift the audience up, touch their hearts, and soothe them, further reinforcing the persona.

Research - Digipak CompactDisc (CD)

The following diagram showcases the digipak CompactDiscs (CDs) we found interesting and that follow and match the mood, vibe, and aesthetic of a teenager who is a hopeless romantic. 

Each CD design matches the colour schemes and themes of the digipak cover. It includes either a branding symbol and/or font or the artist's name and the song. Pretty dull and simple which we're all a fan of.

Research - Digipak Reverse

The following diagram showcases the digipak reverse covers we found interesting and that follow and match the mood, vibe, and aesthetic of a teenager who is a hopeless romantic. 

The majority of these reverse covers share the same common elements, that is that they all match their front covers, they include a list of songs, all have a barcode, and they all have some sort of copyright and legal jargon on them. The only differences I can see is that some of them have a picture of the artist which we find interesting. 

Development

The following is a rough sketch of our planned digipak which will consist of a cover, tracklist, CD, back cover, and barcode.

Tracklist

Most of these song names we came up with on the fly. Here are a list of suggestions for song names. We will only choose around 5-10 of them that we'll use for our digipak.

• Looking for Love
• Leave the Door Open
• Somebody Save Me From Love
• I'm Lonely
• Love, From J
• No More, I'm in Love
• Why Darling?
• Who's Jack?
• I Will Write
• Call Me
• Losing Hope
• Love Hates Me

Of course, we picked "Leave the Door Open" as it is the main song we are doing the music video for. 

The ones we highlighted in blue are the other song titles that will be included. To our knowledge, there aren't any songs that we know of that have the same titles as these. 

Album Name

Most of these album names we came up with in 5 minutes of thinking. Here are a list of ideas.

• Looking for Love
• Leave the Door Open
• I'm Lonely
• From J
• Why Darling?
• You

We picked "Looking for Love" because it seems to perfectly encapsulate the persona of JMUSE which is a hopeless romantic looking for love as well as how it summarises all the songs into just three words. It also helps that it is the name of one of the songs on the tracklist too. 

Our teacher also gave us feedback regarding our album name and he said it has to be the same song we are making the music video for so that's why we changed it to "Leave the Door Open". We did all the work below this with our original ideas before we got this feedback from our teacher. 

Digipak Cover

Here are some fonts that we looked at for the album name. We used serif fonts because that's the convention of the genre we looked at. Ultimately we couldn't decide on which font to use so we decided to have a look at them on the digipak drafts. Here are a list of designs we came up with. 

Here are some drafts we did on Microsoft Powerpoint. After some long hard thinking and consideration we brought it down to just two typefaces: Sticky Sugary which is the serif font and Dharma Gothic E Heavy for the thicker font. We stuck with the navy coloured font because we believe it goes very well with the rest of the picture as well as the branding and person of JMUSE. In the bottom right you are able to see the logo of JMUSE in both Dharma Gothic E Heavy font which is part of JMUSE's branding. We experimented with the placement of all the text and came to the conclusion that the one with the green circle was the best one. 

Choice:

We chose this design because it fits JMUSE's persona of being a bit of a goofball, hopeless romantic, teenager just looking for love. His facial expression and clothing make it look like he really is trying hard to make an impression on someone he may find special to him. The background also is good as it is easy to integrate it into other parts of the digipak such as the reverse cover and the inside content. 

After having received feedback from our teacher, he said it does not conform with our branding of JMUSE and looks nothing like the music video, especially with the colours. We decided to standardise the font and use Sugary Dreams as the font. Our teacher also gave us the following rough draft to help give us a much better idea of where we should be in our digipak development.

Here are a line up of drafts we made for the new digipak.

Ultimately we made these changes because of how our previous design was not really all that good according to our teacher and did not conform with our genre conventions like we previously thought. We went with the first design as it emphasised the laidback and chill persona of JMUSE. This font is Sugary Dream and conforms with JMUSE's brand identity.

One thing I forgot to include in the drafts was the JMUSE logo which I corrected here. 

Tracklist

We decided to experiment with the typefaces a bit by just having a look at what Times New Roman would look like incorporated into this design. Our genre conventions tell us that there is no picture or illustration of the artist on this part of he digipak but rather it is either blank or has a tracklist which is what ours has. Below are a few drafts we made on PowerPoint.

We experimented with this design with the background of the photo of JMUSE. We decided to stick with the serif fonts for the tracklist after experimenting with a san-serif font and seeing it did not fit the genre conventions. 

Below is what we agreed upon as the tracklist.

We went with this one because it was easier to read.

Upon receiving feedback on our previous design, our teacher (as per stated above) also told us to revise our design because it does not fit with the artist's persona and branding. He gave us ideas such as to include a beach picture here. Another thing he said is that outline on text is bad graphic design.

Here are a line up of some drafts we made.

We picked this photo because it is in line with our teacher's feedback. The mise-en-scene of the couch conveys a sense of laid back and relaxation as well as luxury in that shade of green. 

Below is our final pick.

CD Cover

We made some mock ups of CD Covers that we believe conform to the genre conventions of an R&B digipak. Here are a few of those drafts we made on PowerPoint.

We went with the design encircled because of how the other ones looked. The highlighting of JMUSE's logo in white really stands out on the CD Cover and looks a lot better when the font is on the diametre of the CD rather than at the bottom or top of the CD. The colour fits the branding of JMUSE which is dark blue. 

Upon receiving feedback on our previous design, our teacher (as per stated above) also told us to revise our design because it does not fit with the artist's persona and branding. He gave us ideas such as to include a beach picture here. Another thing he said is that outline on text is bad graphic design.

Here ais what we came up with.

We used this image because it is the other half of the image cut in half used for the tracklist.

Reverse Cover

We didn't do this before getting feedback from our teacher so that's why there isn't a draft for a really poorly designed reverse cover. This time we really did conform to the R&B conventions of a digipak according to our teacher.

The reverse cover is the other half of the front cover. The dotted line is for reference only where the border of the spine and reverse cover is. We decided to go with the third option because it is the only design with the tracklist. 

Here is the final pick

Reflection: I was originally planning to do digital drawing and art for our digipak, but due to procrastination and also busy school weeks, that did not happen, so instead my friend had to quickly make one in power point just to have something, but luckily we were creative enough to use cool views as the video album and back covers, which lead to really cool visuals and also mise-en-scene and vibes that match the RnB conventions my star was trying to follow. However as a lesson next time, if I'm gonna try and draw something digital, I should try and draw a basic black and white draft or sketch first, to Kickstart the engis. I get so obsessed with the end goal or piece that trying to actually start it feels boring in comparison, but if I focus on the black and white sketch first, then it will lead me to making the full drawior art naturally. In general though, I do like the album covers that Carrick made, proud of his world and him.