Digipacks

Digipacks

A digipak is a book-style type of CD packaging with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD attached to the inside. Digipaks are visually appealing and allow the artist to creatively convey the artist's song and image

What is included in a Digipak?

• Photographs - usually of the artist, however creative images that reflect the artist, and or the music's message can be used. 
• A track list - often including writing credits
• One box with a disk impression, in which the disk will be placed in front of 
• Information about the music label, musicians, a message from the artist, copyright and year of release
• Barcode and QR and a logo for the record company

Digipack Layout

This is a simple 6 page layout of a digipak, this is the type of layout I will be using for my digipak. I plan on using this design since a 6 panel digipak provides a larger canvas for CD artwork and information about the band. It also includes a stem to print the name of the band and album so it looks professional and can achieve full marks.

Example 1: Duran Duran

My first example of a digipak is this digipack for the remastered version of Duran Duran's album Rio. The original was released on the 10th of May 1982 and this remastered version was released on the 7th of  September 2009 as a Special Edition digipak.

The main purpose of this new digipack was to obviously remind people of the album. Since it was originally released in 1982 and was remastered in 2009, they are obviously still around as a band and so there is no need to put that actual band on the cover as everyone already knows them and they already have a star image motif.

The original can be seen on the left and the remastered digipak can be seen on the right. Both versions have kept along the more animated style in terms of the lady featured within both of them. However there is a lack of colour in the remastered version in comparison to the old; the new being predominately black whereas the older was red. The point in this could be to suggest how the band has changed within the 27 year gap between the digipaks. The band have matured more and are more official and so have gone for a more sophisticated black colour to represent this rather than the red they had before. It also brings a big contrast to the two albums and so people are more inclined to buy it if they are fans of Duran Duran as it's a different piece more merchandise (especially as it was labelled as a limited edition remastered digipak).

Example 2: The 1975

The main image on the front cover is a black rectangle with white lights around it creating a white glow, this simplistic album cover is quite appealing to it’s target audience, as they are a alternative/indie rock band, the dark greys and blacks are colours commonly associated with rock. The album cover doesn't’ contain any images of the band, just their logo of a black rectangle, this could be in order to attract a certain audience – their core fans who know them and respect them purely for their music and to attract people who are mainly interested into the music opposed to the bands looks which is stereotypical for boy bands- they gain a fanbase according to their visual appeal. This album cover is fairly simple , although it does not scream rock, there are some definite connotations to it.  

The text used is consistent throughout the album, the use of the light to make the bandname/album glow as well as the lighttend rectangle follows the theme of a contrast between light and dark which is consistent throughout the album design. The fact that the album is self-titled could be to show that because the band are fairly new they want to broadcast and advertise themselves as much as possible, so when people think of their music they think of the band and vice versa. The boldness of the album title shouts rock, with rock being a loud genre of music, the loud font is a definite representation of the genre. Never the less, sterotypically rock albums are quite bold and have a wide use of colours and bold images where as this album only has a stand-out name, the rest of it is visually lacking in colour.

The album follows a simple grayscale colour scheme, this is a huge juxtaposition to their music which is a mixture of synth pop and alternative rock. 

This colour scheme is consistent throughout all of the bands released material, EP’s etc. 

The CD is matte black which follows their rock style, alike the album cover the CD is simplistic but lacks vidsual beauty, there’s no text which is unlike a typical album. 

The back of the album contains a track listening and company acknoledgements, this is very typical of the back of an album, once again the grayscle colour scheme is used. 

The inside album booklet contains pictures of the band members, this helps appeal to a female audience who will find them attractive and will listen to their music because of this, this also reinforces their original fanbase who know who they are, this imagery can be seen as something of sentimental value to fans.