Research: ancillary summary



Adobe photoshop

Today in media, Rebecca with a bit of help from Tony, explained the importance of digipaks and advertisements for artists. As albums and EP sales are radically decreasing, Artwork of albums or digpaks are crucial considering that they are competing with every other digipak on the shelves. Each design must be unique but simple in text so that it will stick in a viewers mind. Some fans prefer to own both the digital and physical digipak of their favourite artist in order to feel 'closer' to them. This is why their designs must fit with the artist and look valuable to buyers in order for them to feel that it is worthwhile. Digipaks are like collectables for fans.Here are some notes I jotted down for the production of ancillary:

• Artist name: large, clear font; preferably simple font; needs to be recognisable; bigger than album name
• Back: may include promotional stickers; production information; barcode; record label; track list
• Style: uses only 3-4 colours maximum; no more than 2 fonts; use some element of graphic design
• Inside: needs to continue visual style
• Advertisement: picture of digipak; release date; A4 or A5
• Panel/pane of digipak: 12cm x 12cm; two panels 12cm x 24cm; can consist of 4, 6 or other

QuarkXPress

Rebecca made it clear that there must be some relation between our music video, digipak and advertisement in order to gain more marks. Both digipak and advertisement are equal in marks. We were also introduced to Photoshop and QuarkXPress durign the lesson as we will be using either one or both of the programs to produce our ancillary work. We were shown a couple of ancillary works of ex pupils of both good and bad which we had to identify. Lastly, Rebecca presented us with a purposely bad digipak of Dan which we had to produce our own using the same artist and album name: 'Dan London' (artist) & 'It's my time' (album). We all use photoshop to do so which I found quite difficult due to the fact that it was my first time. After some help from both my peers and Rebecca, I soon got the hang of it. We were meant to complete a Dan London digipak and advertisement within the lesson but there wasn't enough time to finish one of them let alone start the other. I found this lesson rather challenging but enjoyable (as I've learnt a great deal today) at the same time.