Digi research and analysis in readiness for own

Digipak research and analyse in readiness for our own

Our genre for our band and Digipak is Alternative rock; bands also in this genre are Muse and Biffy Clyro. They have used digipaks for some of their albums such as ‘Muse - The Resistance’ and ‘Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions’.  Digipaks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipaks can flip open like a book, or they can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the centre piece. Typically, the portion of the digipaks that holds the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background. Digipaks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipaks" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging. However through research we have found that the term ‘Digipak’ is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd, an Atlas Holding company, but it has subsequently been adopted by the media industry in much the same way as hoover is used as vacuum cleaner nowadays.

Muse – The resistance

This is the image used on the Digipak Resistance by Muse. The image is very bright and colourful using a mixture of colours from green to red. This would draw attention from the customers and will make people look at them and maybe buy it, similar to Biffy Clyro and established artists they didn’t use band members on the front cover of their Digipak as they’re already well know. There are only three words on the Digipak, these being: Muse, the and Resistance. The band name Muse is slightly bigger than the resistance and is placed in the top left hand side of the cover whilst The Resistance contrasts this being put in the bottom right corner. The band name is in a more significant place and people will see their name first, it promotes their band further. It represents an rock or alternative rock genre as it’s weird/quirky and the fact there is a man in the centre of it all shows he is the resistance to something unknown – and maybe listening to the album will tell you what he’s resisting. On the title Muse there is a line above and below it, this is a trademark of Muse as they always have the two lines.

The front of the Digipak:

Biffy Clyro – Puzzle

Starting with the front cover of this Digipak, there is no writing on the front cover and is instead on the back. This is odd as the names of the band and album is usually used to attract buyers to the album as this allows them to be recognised easily. It is possible that Biffy Clyro is already an established artist and aimed to concentrate more on the message of the image on the front cover. They also don’t include a picture of the band on the front or back, this is unusual also but again for a popular band they can afford to. The pictures included are ambiguous and begin the motif the album with puzzle pieces and this may be because they wanted to send the message of the album before the audience sees the band members. Continuing onto the inner pages of the four panelled Digipak, again the band members aren’t the key focal point although they are included in some artistic imagery with them silhouetted. The layout is simple again like the first two panels with lyrics of one song of them album to the left and to the left there is a photo, although the two aren’t directly linked they are both passionate and make the audience really think of the message being sent to them. To not take away anything from imagery on the inner pages on the lyrics they have used simplistic white bold lettering. The colour scheme is dark and dull, keeping with the genre of alternative rock; this makes the few artistic bright colours in the Digipak stand out, making their intended message stand out also.

Examples of a couples of panels of the Digipak

 

Our Digipak will contain all the ordinary features however we are changing some things to be unique and suit our style. We have discussed removing the plastic C.D case and replacing it with a card slit to place the C.D in instead.  As our type of band are politically and economically minded and driven and would want to be environmentally friendly. We have also discussed the amount of songs that we want on the Digipak, Digipaks are often used for special albums with extra content; to keep to this theme we are planning to have 11 songs – we think this is more value for money. The photos used on our Digipak – which make up the large majority of our Digipak – are based around our music video which would be based around a common theme of the album. However to reduce the similarity to our music video we are using pretty generic images relating to theme. Such as band equipment and full band photos.  One recurring tale which we used is the image of a ghostly figure, shaven, topless wearing rags; which represents the past behaviours of the protagonist in the album. One of our aims of our band, video and Digipak was to create the feel of a story being told, of some importance such as for our video the control music corporations have over small indie acts.

Posted By MaD