Audience Research MindMap

This is a mind map i made showing the main focus of the research and questions i need to be asking the audience about The Feeling, the brand, the CD cover and advert.

Audience Research

The end result of audience research is to find out about our target audience and what they think the finished products (Cd cover and magazine advert) should be like; this is because they will be seeing the advert in magazines, persuading them to buy the album as well as buying the product when it has been produced. It is important that the target audience has a strong influence in the design of the product as it needs to be recognisable as part of The Feelings current theme and brand, as well as being eye catching as if it was on a shelf in a music store. I will be ditributing questionnaires via social networking sites as well as email and also on The Feelings website forums, because then i will be gathering data from the already existing fanbase and target audience of the band. To do this i have signed up to become a member of The Feelings forum where i can make new posts and host the questionnaire to the rest of The Feelings fans that are members of the forum. <The Feelings Forum>.

Digipak Research

As part of the brief, we need to design and create a digipak in which the CD will be presented, as well as a recognisable cover, band information and pictures. There are two main designs of digipaks; the 4 panel and 6 panel. These are usually made of cardboard or other hard card materials with a plastic jewel CD case. This is good because it prevents the cracking and scratching of the plastic in more conventional CD case styles, however the cardboard is prone to fading, ripping and feathering due to excessive use and age.

4 panel Digipak

The 4 panel being smaller and not having a fold out design. This design is much more conventional and similar to the original jewel case used for single CD releases.

6 panel Digipak

The 6 panel digipak is larger as it has more panels and folds out revealing the CD on one panel and information or pictures on the others.

Here are some example digipaks;

Textual analysis/Brainstorm of our old CD cover

Evaluation of our CD cover

After discussing with the rest of our group, we have decided to re-do our C.D cover so that it fits more with the specification and the brief of the course (making the whole C.D case instead of just the cover, however this was due to lack of information) as this would make the whole product look much more professional; as if one would buy it from a shop.

Our original C.D cover was proficient however it strayed from the original concept and theme of the digi pack and the band, making it stand out (in a bad way) from the other products we made which were more concise in meaning and relevance to the brief.

However technically proficient the C.D cover was, it would not make up in lack of meaning and consistency that the C.D cover is supposed to have. This is one of the main reasons for changing our C.D cover, as well as not actually producing the C.D pack.

When re-designing our C.D pack

When re-designing our case, there are many things we need to think about including;

• · The style of the case
• · Artistic influences
• · The design in relevance to the band and video
• · What is included in the case
• · Images, photos and themes
• · How the audience will recognize the C.D on a shelf in a shop

I think that because we have already designed one C.D cover, we now know what to do and what not to do when going through the research, planning and construction processes. This will then help us to manage our time more effectively and help us to create a more professional C.D case that fits with the specification of the course.