Final Piece

Drawn digipak rough

Good Charlotte Digipack rough

This is a draft for my digipak. I initially had an idea to base the artworks on the influence of drugs, and punk. The drawn design I had was a pill bottle, next to a cigarette partially lit, with "Good Charlotte" as the brand. "Anxiety"was going to be part-scribbled onto the label of the pill bottle, and the "GC" logo was going to be slanted approximately 45 degrees anticlockwise.
The rough here shows a slanted pill bottle as the artwork. I used pink for the bottle as this is a colour I really like to add, but this also makes the bottle look like a screenprint, in a punky style.
Next, the digipak would be opened once, to see the definition of anxiety on the left. This was inspired by Guns n Roses' music video for "Estranged" where there is a definition of "Estranged" before the video starts. On the right, there is the actual added text album artwork, using a scribbled effect "Anxiety" in pink to merge with the idea of the bottle. This font was "Jenna Sue" downloaded from Dafont. I then used the original idea of the "GC" approximately 45 degrees anticlockwise, this time in black to make the "GC" stand out from the pink and white. The font I used for this was a font I suspected as: Old English Text. I then downloaded one called "Old English".
Next, the digipak would be fully opened, revealing the cd, to show an ash tray behind the disk, fitting with the drugs idea. I did the ash tray black because it's supposed to be a background picture for the disk. I also did the ash tray for the circle shape of the disk.
To the right, there would be what seems to be another album design. This is cleverly just showing the album and artist, so you wouldn't forget. Also, this is the band picture, in black again to emphasise the band rather than the titles. The last piece of text shows who the band is. The band members are the people in the music video.
On the track listing, there is again the same shade of pink, being two cigarettes, linking to drugs and the ashtray. I then used "Print Clearly" font for the listing. All the tracks except for track 11 "Game Over" are genuine Good Charlotte songs, picked for the drugs and "I hate my life" idea. I used a barcode from the Internet, and cheekily added in the bottom left "Produced at Home Studios Film and Music Productions" as this relates to my company idea "Homestudios10".

Website Research

The Good Charlotte website has:

Site menus, links to:
Band Members
Tours
Band gigs
Behind the scenes
Media (photos, videos)
Forum
Store
Links to:
iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace
Incudes GC iPhone app.
Samples of tracks
Band blog, music video
The typeface for the band name is Old English Text, with the typeface for the rest of the page something simple like "Futura".




(play video for website)
The Papa Roach website has basically the same features of the previous website, with their name on their latest album cover as their banner.
The site includes the band blog, facebook, myspace, tumblr, youtube, but no itunes.
The typeface for the previous band titles was quite gothic, and fitted with the GC font. This title, however, is more futuristic.


Again, for the Linkin Park website, are the tabs: Blog, Tour, Music, Videos, Photos, Community, and Store. Interestingly, there is a last tab for purchasing their newest album.
The website has Linkin Park's signature typeface, with their official logo next to the tabs. To the right of the Linkin Park text, there is an advert for LPU12 (Linkin Park Underground 2012). LPU is Linkin Park's fan group. The advert changes to an advert for the latest album (Living Things).

This is a screenshot of the Muse website and this one appears to have a tool bar at the top right and this gives you the option to select the language in which you would like to view the website. The name of the band is found at the top left of the main page and directly beneath this are details of their latest tour. The main page has buttons to such things as news, tour dates, images, map, forum, shop etc and this is typical of the websites that I have looked at. This website has the 360 app for the iphone and ipad and this is not always found on some of the other websites. The colours used on the websites are very dark and for the Muse and Papa Roach websites, are more developed in regimental and formal views. However, Good Charlotte still have a sort of Gothic appearance, very much like The Pretty Reckless, Black Stone Cherry, and Evanescence.

This website has all the necessities of the previous sites, and a similar layout. The band image is just below the band title, with two badges on the banner. Lastly, Simple Plan appear to have a charity that they run for young people in need.

Simple Plan have myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube, and "SP Crew"

This website has a similar layout, with the menu bar at the top, showing the basics, with a few added extras: i.e "Lyrics"
Visual link to the latest album "Hit Me Like a Man EP"
Name on top, in a gothic font, with the visual link below.
Band blog
Facebook, twitter, youtube, iTunes, myspace, buzznet.

This website again has similar layout, but with the menu bar fixed to the bottom of the screen. This goes slightly against what the other bands have done. The bar again has the basics, with a few extra tabs: Bio, Fanclub, Links, and E-News.
The advert for Evanescence's Spotify switches to the new album, with an image of the band, a new music video, the fanclub, and a new app available from the Appstore (Apple), android (Google), or Nokia.
The background remains static, while the media moves, very much like a blog function. The colours on the background probably back up the band as a sort of spiritual gothic feel. The font backs this up very strongly, by looking extremely gothic (curly and sharp).

The difference between the appearance of the fonts between Linkin Park and Evanescence, is if you imagine you have made their band name graphics in a metal workshop, Linkin Park are very more "We're this band, in this massive block capitals", and Evanescence would probably be a very delicate structure, that you could probably snap, but also really badly cut yourself before you do. This reflects the kind of music they produce.