DIGIPAK: Research

I looked at three different digipaks, two from the indie genre and one from a pop genre to see the contrast and tried to notice common conventions and distinctive features on each.



Front Cover
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Kasabian Empire (Indie)

Pixies Indie Cindy (Indie) 

Sam Smith In The Lonely Hour (Pop)

The three front covers I looked at, these are the common conventions:

• Front Cover image/design 
• Band name + Album title
• Parental Advisory Sticker (if needed) 
• Stickers to highlight special edition or limited edition explaing whats in it

Not much different rather than a striking image on all of them which the audience will recognise. Also increases chances of being noticed in a CD store or another retailer such as US number 1 retailer Walmart.

Possible Influences
Sticker with limited edition
Striking cover

Back Cover
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Ariana Grande Yours Truly (Pop)

Arctic Monkeys AM (Indie) 

Oasis Stop The Clocks (Indie/Pop)

These are the three back covers I looked at. Common Conventions are:

• Track list
• Barcode
• Copyright statement
• Copyright logos
• All these will be on our digipak

The recipe is seems very similar just with different art styles, Indie being a bit more subtle sans serif bold font whereas Ariana Grande has a serif bold font and has colour coded where someone is featured. The font is also pink rather than white. Arctic Monkeys and Oasis have also gone for a design as a back cover rather than an image of the band or lead singer etc.

Possible Influences
Track list + copyright statement + barcode and copyright logos + record lable logos

Inside Cover
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Coldplay Ghost Stories (Soft Rock/Pop)

Depeche Mode Violator (Dance/Indie) 

Metallica, Metallica (Heavy Metal)

 There are a few common conventions I can spot here but each seems to have a small difference.

• Copyright logos
• Compact disc logo
• Band name on CD + Album Name
• Tracklist on CD
• Blank or minimal inside cover

I also noticed that Metallica has the track list on the inside as well as on the CD where Coldplay has the copyright statement on the CD and Depeche mode has both the copyright statement and tracklist. Depeche Mode inside cover on the left has the record company name and a P.O box for fans "Depeche Mode fanclub".

Possible influences
I think we might go for a minimalist design, maybe with the band being part of the both sides.

Spine
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Queen Greatest Hits ll (Classic Rock)
David Bowie Changesbowie (Dance/Pop)
AQUA Aquarium (Electro/Dance)

Common conventions:

• Band name/logo
• Album Title
• Serial Number (with letters) 
• Mainly formatted album title in middle with band name a bit to the left

There is also a universal logo for aqua album 

Possible  Influences

We will have both band name + album title and serial number, maybe even the band logo

GEN CONVENTIONS 6: UGC

What is UGC?

UGC (User generated content) is one of the conventions for the industry and audience of music videos. There are many examples of this online, for example fan made music videos, covers of songs online or any content posted by users such as on social media or wikis.

UGC is one of the most popular marketing methods and utilises visuals taken by real people. Audiences are tired of seeing the same type of marketing campaigns with similar-looking people, set to the same backdrops.

Instead, they demand more authenticity and want to feel a stronger connection with brands. This is where UGC plays a vital role; it’s a way for consumers to see people just like themselves in marketing promotions.

MGMT - KIDS

Music Videos

Original Video

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UGC...
 
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Above is a example of a UGC for the music video "KIDs" by MGMT, despite being made for a school project it amassed a total of over 52 million views. This is a brilliant example of why UGC can be so effective because of the potential reach it can have to people.

Examples:

Radiohead "In Rainbows"

In 2008, Radiohead started a competition for their album "In Rainbows," that gave fans a chance to make a music video of one of their songs and win a prize. This meant fans had a chance to be personally recognised by the band and to share their work.
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This use of UGC by Radiohead was made to market their new album and get people engaged with their content. This seemed extremely effective and had many people interact with the band.

Drake "In My Feelings"

Another example of a artist interacting with fans through UGC is Drake's "In my feelings challenge," in which fans would get out of moving cars and dancing to the song "In my feelings," and upload it online, clips of this were then put into the end of drakes official video for in my feelings.
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Fan Made video compilation
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Official Video

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The use of UGC for in my feelings blew the video up, at the time of writing this it add over 120mil views and multiple in my feelings UGC videos ha dwell over a million views.

Fan-Made/ A-level videos:

More examples of UGC is the videos made by A-level students for Media Studies, such as the ones we are trying to make, a good example of this is a Bring me the Horizon video made by students at our school.
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Depeche Mode - Its No Good:

Another example of fan-made videos is Depeche mode, below is a official video published by the band and the other is a unofficial, fan-made, alt video using footage of the band. The fan-made video has more views with a total of over 26.5million views whilst the official only has 12.5million.

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Official video
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Fan-made
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Mannequin Challenge:

The mannequin challenge started in 2016 and went extremely viral, based around the song, black Beatles by Rae Sremmurd, the videos feature a camera panning around locations with people frozen in a pose.

This is our Mannequin Challenge from our school:
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