Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

On the left you can see the six different panels of my digipak, whereas on the left is several indie rock CD covers.
As you can see, there are several things that mine and the professional CD covers have in common, however there are also some differences between the two which help to distinguish them apart.


 


Firstly, my digipak does not have an image of the band members as it's front cover, which is seen as a convention for most indie rock CD covers. Instead I have an image of a smashed light bulb, which helps to play off of the album title of 'Illuminate'. This theme off of the word 'Illuminate' is reinforced through the use of fairy lights on some of the digipak images. I feel that this helps to give the digipak a flash of light throughout, which allows is to have a dynamic edge that is needed to create a successful digipak. This challenging of this convention allows my digipak to have a clear sense of identity and uniqueness about it.

Although my digipak may not have the band on the front cover, this convention is met to some degree as several images of the band are used throughout the other panels of the digipak. It is also important that these images of the band do not include them using their instruments. This is because this is one of the conventions of the indie rock genre (which can be seen by the gif on the left). This is because the digipak tends to give off a more relaxed and laid-back feel compared to a music video for example.

This feeling of a laid-back attitude in the digipak can also be seen by the back cover of my digipak. The image on the back cover is of the band members laughing and having a good time. This meets this convention used in other professional digipak's. Meeting, rather than challenging this convention means the digipak maintains its clear image of the indie rock genre.

Lastly, my digipak has a clear colour scheme running throughout it. These colours are of a brown/black tone, which meets that of the professional CD covers on the right. This again helps to give my product a clear image and makes it easily recognisable as a product from the indie rock genre. This is very important as making sure the audience can instantly recognise which genre the band is from which is key to creating a successful digipak.