Date: 25 February, 2026
Product: “POETRY” Digipak
Photoshoot equipment: Canon EOS R50, Godox Softboxes.
Editing Platform: Photoshop and Canva
I originally planned to have 6 panels: 1 front cover, 1 back cover, 2 inside panels (right and left), an extra panel, and a final panel containing the CD. However, as I progressed with the Digipak production, I realized that keeping it simple made more sense given the minimalist brand image I'm building. Since I'm cultivating an artist who prioritizes creativity and artistic value over mass appeal, a simpler Digipak made more sense. I wanted the design to guide buyers to the music itself rather than distract them with extra, potentially unnecessary items. That's why I settled on a 4-panel Digipak.
From my photoshoot results with over 300 images, I first narrowed it down to approximately 90. Then I separated them into different categories: portrait, close-ups, and body shots. From there, it became easier to choose the appropriate images for each part of the Digipak.
As I look back at the analysis I did on Billie Eilish’s digipak for “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” as well as Lana Del Rey’s “Ultraviolence,” I was able to draw the pattern of artists using photos of their faces for the front cover for branding purposes and to increase the chance of recognition from buyers.
I started to look for inspirations on Pinterest and chose this as my reference:
I was drawn to the lily's unique placement and to how the blur creates an overlapping, déjà vu effect. For my version, I shifted the color contrast toward pinkish-red tones to evoke a more feminine yet powerful feeling.
I considered a couple of images, including:
Tina’s expression here was quite nice; however, the full image (as the one above is cropped) was taken at an awkward angle, so I decided against it in the end.
I later believed that the flowers would interfere with the additional lily that I would be adding to match the reference ⇒ unsuitable
Same problem with the flowers, and I also thought that she looked too happy:)
Though the soft contrast is easy on the eye.
I chose this photo because the eye-level angle creates natural appeal, and the surrounding space gives me more creative flexibility.
In Photoshop, I cropped it to fit the Digipak front cover ratio (approximately 5.5 inches by 5 inches). I then added an adjustment layer and dragged the saturation panel all the way to 0 to make the image black and white. Subsequently, I added another layer for Curves, altered the contrast to my liking, and made a clipping mask so that it only affected the layer below.