Ancillary Task: Conventions of a Digipak

The Mumford & Sons digipak above is a good example of a minimalist Digipak. The front cover features an album photo cover, with the band name and album name at the bottom of the picture. This shows how the band wish for the photo to be the main selling attraction of the album, and hope that the style of photography will become associated with the band. The rear cover continues in the same theme, with a very minimalist look, and the tracks of the album being shown in the same font. Again, the photo is the main focus of this cover, and is perhaps meant to represent the rear of the building shown on the front. This sort of technique is something that we will try and replicate in our digipak.

 

The minimalist theme is continued on the inside. The inside left cover is blank, and features just a small amount of writing in the centre. As well as drawing attention to the writing, this technique gives the impression that the band have been successful, as they have not had to squeeze information onto this pane, and can afford to spread information out. Another photograph is shown on the centre cover, which again helps people to identify the band with this type of style, whilst the CD holder is found on the right hand panel.

 

This digipak effectively represents the conventions portrayed in many digipaks of this genre, and we will try and use some of these techniques in our own work.

 

The second digipak above is for Coldplay's album Viva La Viva, and features a contrasting approach between the inside and outside of the product. The outside, like the Mumford & Sons cover, features a minimalist approach, using a grey background and yellow text, which compliments each other well. The front cover uses just text in the centre, which is a slightly unusual approach, but effective nonetheless. This theme is continued on the rear of the digipak, which simply features a yellow track list and barcode, and the minimalist style is one that we will seek to use in our product.

 

The inside of the cover is, however, very different, and a sharp contrast to the outside. The inside features a bright, colourful background, and an intertextual reference is used to link to old art pieces by famous artists. The other cover features performance shots of the band, which is very common for digipaks, and again, is something that we will look to incorporate in our product.

 

The Oasis digipak breaks convention for a Indie-rock digipak, by featuring a picture of an accustic guitar. This digipak gives a slightly older feel, and is representative of a 1980's and 1990's product, with the variety of colours used. The rear of the Digipak shows the track listings, whilst the inside features the CD, with the same style of background continued.

 

I feel that when creating our digipak, inspiration should not be taken from this product, and instead from the previous two that we have looked at, which more closely represent the conventions of a modern digipak.