DIGIPAKANALYSIS

‘Teenage Dream

by Katy Perry

The playlist at the back of the digipak is in bright red contrasting with the light muted colours in the back. This is to draw attention to the playlist and make it stand out.

On the inside cover the main image is of the artist, Katy Perry. This clarifies to the audience that they have bought her digipak.

The CD’s are reflecting the theme of the whole digipak. The theme is on sweets, such as, candy floss, lollipops, donuts, etc. This is why both CD’s have a donut and lollipop on them.

The main cover has Katy Perry as the main image, which has been taken from the music video of her song in the album. This conveys to the audience that the digipak relates to the album. This is intertexuality.

The main image is seen as being sensual and this attract men to the digipak through male gaze and the music attracts women.

‘Loud’ by RihannaThe theme of red flowers has also being used on the digipak due to it being significant in the ‘Only girl in the world’ music video. Just like the colour red, the red roses are making Rihanna a more recognisable artist. It shows that both the hit single is linked and brands Rihanna.

The featured track, ‘ Only girl in the world’ is shown to influence the digipak due to the similarities of the two. Both digipak and music video feature close-up shots of the artist and are both consistent with the colour red. This synergy associates the colour red to Rihanna and makes her more recognisable as an artist. In addition, the shade of red used stands out and grabs the audience’s attention.

In the extreme close-up shot, used on the digipak, Rihanna has her eyes closed. This suggests she is vulnerable due to her unreadable facial expression.

The image inside the digipak shows Rihanna lying across a bed of roses, which is publicised to be more appealing than the front cover. However, it makes less of a statement, as it is less clear than the cover image. Across three panels of the digipak, the image can be seen in full capacity and is presented to be a more exclusive image of the artist for those who bought the digipak.

The red theme is shown again with an extreme close up of the artist’s face, showing her vibrant red hair and make up that is deliberately illuminating the red on her lips and cheeks.

Rihanna is known for her sex appeal, which displayed in some of the artist’s music videos for her singles. She displays her sex appeal in the ‘Loud’ digipak covers by being shown in the roses. This gives her a more delicate sex appeal due to her having less skin showing.

‘Overcome’

On the front cover, the title is bold and black, making it stand out and eye catching for people to notice. This emphasises the artist.

The main image on the front cover is an image of her, showing she is they main attraction for the digipak and making the digipak recognisable to her. She is dress in a seductive manner, wearing what looks like an unnatural and uncomfortable dress. This shows hoe pop genre uses clothing and accessories to make the artists more appealing to audiences to maximise sales.

The dress Alexandra is wearing is silver and shiny, trying to portray her as attractive. This is conforming to the codes and conventions of artists under the pop genre.

Throughout the digipak, the same theme has been used. Alexandra continues to be the main attraction. Having all texts around her and her in the spotlight shows that she is the main feature of the digipak. In addition, the same colours and style is used throughout creating continuity.

Each panel of the digipak shows the artist alone. This emphasises Alexandra and makes her the main selling point of the digipak. The images are clearly from an official photo shoot that has been done for the digipak.

by Alexandra Burke

‘Born to Die’ by Lana Del Rey

The front cover, of Lana Del Rey’s digipak, displays a simple medium close up of the artist’s face and outfit. This focused the on her beauty and voyeuristic features. This is common to be seen within the indie genre. The simplicity of the cover, aims the focus at the artist’s vintage style. This shown through her clothes, hair and makeup. Continuity is seen throughout the artist’s promotional media texts, with her iconic wavy hair, nude lipstick and pout. These features make her recognizable to her audience and is the norm with the genre.

There is continuity with the colour scheme throughout the digipak, creating a style and making it recognizable, to audiences. The font used for the artist and album’s names is simple, which adds to the vintage style. Same font is used for the track listing and various other features. This is continuity and shows visual style.

The back cover does not follow the colour scheme to the rest of the digipak. This is because bright bold colours are used to display the tracks on the album. The red and white colour scheme on the track listing panel, could suggest powerful emotions as is it much more bright than the rest of the panels. This connotation could link back to the actual album, meaning that the album songs are emotional.

The inside of the digipak keeps the same theme as the rest of the digipak, except the track listing. Using the same styled images and colours creates continuity. Again, using simplistic colours and backgrounds to draw attention to the main image, which is in this case, the artist. The audience pays attention to the facial expression on Lana’s face, which is shown to be quite serious. This could represent how she takes her music quite serious and how the album could be powerful and meaningful. The close up shows Goodwin’s voyeuristic theory where the audience can have an insight into the artist’s life.

The digipak contains lyrics to each track. This is a convention of digipaks as it allows audiences to join in with the song and sing along to the lyrics. The font used is the same style as type writer. This is shows that the digipak is vintage and retro style. This follows the style of the rest of the digipak. The worn out background of the lyric book also adds to the vintage look.

‘Trilogy’The digipak has a simple colour scheme that it follows throughout. The black and white colours could be a representation of the style of music the artist makes. The black background signifies how his music is dark. This is the style of the digipak, which is linking with the actual music.

On the digipak front cover, you are able to see the artist as the main image. He has no facial expressions, which shoes that he is . This contributes to the dark style of the digipak and displays continuity.

The audience is notified that the album is unsuitable for children without parent’s permission. This is because the album contains some rude and inappropriate lyrics. This is shown by the parental advisory sign at the bottom on the digipak cover.

The main feature conventions of a digipak is shown on The Weeknd’s Trilogy digipak. The panels include a barcode, logo, rights, record label and credits. These are the conventions I would also have to include when making my digipak.

The Weeknd