When looking at what I thought was my final edit of the front cover of my CD Digipak I realised that something was missing and it did not look realistic enough. So I went to my CD shelf again and looked at some more examples of existing album covers, etc. and realised I had not put a parental advisory sticker or an advertisement sticker on it yet! The parental advisory sticker is important for our particular genre of music as it can be used as a selling point to fans who buy into the mysterious/rebellious nature of the band.
Before and After;
Now I am much happier with how realistic my CD Digipak looks!
Before we begin to come up with song titles to put onto our own CD Digipaks, it is essential for us to carry out some research into existing song titles and album names, etc.
Here are the song titles on the back of previous Kings Of Leon albums;
There are some obvious trends occuring in the song titles. For example, most of them are just one or two words. This is probably because of how the band are branded as a mysterious group of men that don't give away too much about who they are in their personal life. In this way they are conforming to that band branding by not giving too much away in their song titles.
However, it is also important to look at other song titles from different musicians and it is interesting to compare and contrast song titles from this genre (alternative rock - Kings of Leon) and other genres such as this Ke$ha album which is part of the Pop genre;
It is also interesting to note the difference between not only the song titles but the album artwork itself. The Kings Of Leon album covers do not contain obvious photos of themselves ad if there is a photo of them it is slightly obscured in some way whether that's because of shadows or animal overlays, etc. (again adding to the mysterious quality of their band branding). Whereas Ke$ha's album cover is obviously about promoting her as the star and selling her as this "Animal" with the glitter and animal prints on the cover.
This research will be very helpful for us when coming up with song titles for our CD Digipaks.
Whilst browsing the internet looking for charts of the top album covers of all time I came across this website that has a feature called >> 'Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers' <<
I chose my favourite from this list and analysed it as part of my research into CD digipaks and album covers. This will help me when I come to designing my own digipak, as the list consists of album covers from musicians of the same genre as our chosen song by Kings Of Leon (Charmer).
Here is my favourite album cover on the list and my analysis of it;
U2 - War
The reason why I chose this album cover as my favourite out of the list of Rolling Stone's Top 100 Album Covers, was because it was one of the only ones that caught my eye immediately because of the striking image of the young boy in black and white. Something about the simplicity of the photograph combined with a subtle depth of meaning drew my eyes straight to it and made me want to know more about the story of this young boy; especially because of the title of the album.
Also, the bold red text in stark contrast with the black and white photograph definately makes the album cover stand out and attracts peoples attention. It is clear why they have not included an image of the musicians themselves on the album cover when most bands of this genre would want to display themselves on the album cover because of how desperate fans are to gain insight into the lives of the bands. However, they use this image on the album cover to subtly hint at the fact that U2 are constantly doing work for charity, so in this way the band are still revealing their purpose and intention through their artwork.
Here is an example digipak from a media printing website (this website would be very helpful if we were to actually print our digipak);
This digipak caught my eye as I was trawling through the many images of digipaks online again because of the fact that it is an interesting photograph in black and white, coupled with red and white text. This technique seems to work well in album artwork as it is quite a striking way of using colour (or the lack of it) to enhance an image. This picture of the digipak is also helpful to me as part of my research because it shows me how the digipak is supposed to look and what kind of thing we are aiming for in our own digipaks. I think the fact that I am a photography student definately draws me to album covers just like this one that are interesting photographically, so I will probably do something similar with a simple photograph on my own digipak.
Finally, here is one of my favourite album covers of all time for the album 'Only Revolutions' by an alternative rock band called Biffy Clyro;
Once again the use of clever and unique photography on the front cover and on the CD itself drew my eye to the cover. It is interesting to note as well that the song titles are not only on the back cover of the CD Digipak but also on the CD itself. This is something I have to consider when designing my own CD Digipak for our song.
All of this research into CD Digipaks will be invaluable to me when I begin to design my own CD Digipak because I now know the trends in the designs that are used to sell bands as part of different genres.
As part of our coursework project we have to produce digipaks to go alongside our promotional music video and they must be produced as individual digipaks rather than as a group. It will be interesting to see how different each of our digipaks are even though we are creating them for the same band brand/song/etc. However, before we do this part of our coursework, it is very important for us to carry out a significant amount of research into what digipaks actually are, the features of a digipak, the dimensions, etc. Here is all the information on digipaks that I managed to find...
Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Media, a MeadWestvaco, Inc.
Dimensions - (based on standard 4pp Digipack) 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5mm
Digipaks typically consist of a book-style paperboard or card outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.
As a consumer, I personally have not seen or bought very many digipaks that contain CDs. However, I have seen and bought so many more DVD digipaks, especially stand up comedy DVDs or TV series on DVD such as this Mighty Boosh digipak that I bought which also came with a booklet and a card game;
Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums. Because such packaging is less resistant to abrasion than jewel cases, it tends to show signs of wear relatively quickly.
Although less vulnerable to cracking than a jewel case, the disc tray inside the package (particularly the "teeth" of the hub which secure the disc in place) remains rather brittle and is prone to cracking if the package is crushed. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s.
Although the Digipak may have taken off in the early 2000s, there does not seem to be many being sold at present because they only seem to be produced for special editions of albums as said above.
Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles,[6] which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth". Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock.
The fact that the manufacturers have tried to reduce the environmental impact by using recycled components suggests that the consumers (people that buy the Digipaks) are very much into preserving their environment, which tells the musicians something about their fanbase.
Here is one example of a typical digipak;
Here is a video I found of all the different types of Digipak that can be made;
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