Digi-pak planning

I am currently in the process of designing my digi-pak and have been researching into albums of similar genres in order to gage a better understanding of the affiliated features. Most of the 'indie' or 'indie rock' albums i came across reflected the same attitudes - mainly featuring photographs of the people looking ruggedly hedonistic - casual clothing,messy hair, urban setting, indoor party location, and so on. The images reflect a snippet of their snapshotted everyday existence, thrusting them into the ordinary (yet sensational) world of 'the average teenager', making them seem accessibly relatable for the typical lower middle class audience type. Often the photographs are of the band/artists advertising this unconventional lifestyle. 

                            

                                   

Though mostly they abstain from using the artists themselves in an attempt to propose that their music & passionate originality of their work, comes above their call for commercial success and fame; strongly contrasting to the glossy airbrushed covers of the macro pop market for example : Rhianna and One direction. Often dressed in clothes which suggest a rejection of society & structural routine - as though they have chosen this urban look rather than a stylist created something unreachable - ( as well as the gritty working class / household location).  

 

The imagery used advocates the rejection of the mainstream, conservative society and promoting - 'teenage rebelling' and 'breaking the rules' - often featuring party scenes, fisheye / disposable / Diana / polaroid camera shots,  people (models) hanging about informally advertising their spontaneous boundless lifestyle & ethos over their star image. The imagery often reflects a continual appearance rather than concentrating on a set album name & style and decorating that cover to follow suit (another key pop feature for example Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album)    

Many of the Indie album covers i studied reflected extremely post modern values for example the 'Two Door cinema club' album with a poodle on the front - seemingly irrelevant, yet equally interesting & enigmatic as the plastic poses of chart topping stars albums which commonly advertise them as an object of sexual desire rather than musical success. As such i have began creating a collage of miscellaneous images to create my album cover. I would have loved to take photos of a house party on a polaroid / disposable camera, or a gang of boys hanging around on empty mattresses smoking, or on the South bank in London, or dressed up in different historical or intertextual costume. However i knew from the start with my slim resource availabilities & contact limitations
i wouldn't be able to build upon these thoughts & expand them properly. I have photographed a group of young boys to pose as the young band & hope to get simple shots of four 17/18/19 year old boys as well to encapsulate a sense of realism in 'Suburban typo'. However i felt that by perhaps exploring a genre renowned for difference and down-to-earth, alluring creations, i felt that by creating a succession of images which reflected the indie culture, were symbolic, or had 0 meaning at all, i could encase a cover which presented the diversity of contemporary popular culture.
                                 

          

I Searched through tumbler & instagram accounts as well as blogs & band websites, i listed objects / people / activities which were reflected on the sites of indie artists / people, in order to expand my understanding of this culture. Many of the covers i looked at incorporated graphic artwork & collage thus using the combination of seemingly unconnected images i also sought to explore the meaning of the word 'indie' in the modern age - a genre which used to be extremely discrete & has now become unwillingly mainstream. Through this i also came up with the idea of using festival photos on my website in order to reflect this obscure, 'yolo' rocky / hipster / unconventional genre & life style. Reflecting the spontaneity of teenage rebellion &  anti system songwriters.