What have I learnt from my audience feedback? - Digipak

I wanted to gain audience feedback on my digipak to be able to make an evaluation, also to gain people's personal opinion for my own creational benefit. I made use of social networking websites such as Facebook and Myspace to post my digipak on to show my friends and family. Alongside my work, I prompted my audience with three main questions to gain their comments, these were:

1 - What do you like about the digipak?
2 - What do you NOT like about the digipak?
3 - What would you improve about the digipak?

By asking questions such as these, I was now able to have a deeper insight into the postive criticism from the perspective from someone who was outside of the creation of this album cover. These personal responses would now enable me to make adjustments and alterations for my third ancillary task which is to make a magazine advertisement. I have summarised my feedback into the same question headings...

What do you like about the digipak?
The majority of my audience feedback has put forward to me that they like the way in which my album cover definitely portrays my music genre of pop/rock through the main image of the guitar. A male respondent replied ''...also the use of the guitar in the form of graphic art really appeals to an audience who likes rock music...''. Another element in which the majority of my audience feedback sent back to me was the way in which the font of the bands name 'The Lightning' had white around the edges as it showed and illustrated the name of the band through colours and imagery instead of just writing. Another respondent quoted ''I like the way the band's name has white around the edges as this is symbolic of lightning...''. Also, many people from my audience feedback liked the way the background was of a bland and neutral colour as this helped to make everything else on the album cover appear more flamboyant compared to if it was a bold colour which is on many album covers, especially that of a pop/rock genre. Additionally, only a couple respondents commented on the fact that I included the parental advistory sign in the left hand bottom corner of my album cover. The respondents liked the way this sign made an appearance as it helped to enhance the professionalism of the artistic appearance of the overal album cover. One respondent said ''...the use of the parental advisory sign shows how professional the album cover really is...''.

What do you NOT like about the digipak?
Around half of the respondents replied saying that the album cover needed more colour as it only consisted of a few colours which could make it appear rather dull compared to other album covers when placed on a shelf. However, one of the respondents who agreed with this point of view said ''I liked the way the colour navy blue was the colour which stood out the most, however the digipak could have been replaced with a brighter colour...''. I believe that this was an interesting point, as I have come to notice that as blue was the brightest and most attracted colour on the digipak, a way in which I could have made it stand out even more when placed on a shelf would have been to exchange the colour blue to a more flamboyant colour against the blacks and whites of the album cover, possibly a bright yellow or possibly orange as these colours relate to fire and lightning. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents also commented on how the font of the album name and the font of the band name were too similar as on album covers which attract their eye subconsciously the most are albums which have a range of fonts to make it appear more ironic and irrational as this is a sign of uniqueness. Another respondent replied ''I don't particularly like the way that both fonts of the band name and the album name are very similar as this makes it appear boring''. Therefore, for future reference, I know to not have the fonts to similar as this would appear dull and lifeless for something which is supposed to catch the public eye.

What would you improve about the digipak?
The majority of my audience feedback told me that they would change the colour scheme when trying to improve the digipak as this would make it appear more lively and energetic, especially for the music genre of pop/rock as this would help in how attractive it would be when placed to a range of other album covers on a shelf, for example in HMV. A respondent quoted ''A way in which it could be improved would be to use more colours of the rainbow such as greens, reds and lighter shades of blues.''. Another respondent replied to the question by saying ''...however to improve the digipak, there could be more graphic art instead of just one guitar''. Therefore, next time if I was to ever design another album cover, I would use more than just one image so that there is more than one piece of imagery to focus on, however the reason why I used this particular one image of a guitar was because its intention was to be iconic to the band 'The Lightning' as it was supposed to be the guitar used in the creation of their music. On the other hand, my last respondent stood out to me the most as they said ''A band or music logo would be a way of improving how professional it looks''.