Digipak & Poster Analysis

Justin Bieber – DigipakFront Cover The front cover features a

medium close-up of the main artist to enhance and promote his identity and make him a recognisable artist. He is looking over his shoulder in a pondering fashion appeasing to be looking behind him that can be seen to reference his past life and career and how he has now changed and advanced as a performer.

The background to the front cover isn’t really anything. It is not clear what is behind him, if anything and the blurred, lack of focus on this areas suggests that the artist is the main concept of the album.

The main, bold, single word title of the album ‘Believe’ is essentially the main focus and reason for the album and tells the potential listeners the general moral and meaning for the songs included. The word believe also has connotations such as ‘trust’, ‘faith’ and ‘confidence’ that reflect the artists past in terms of events in his life and decisions made and how he is now moving on. This supports the reason for the making of album, suggesting it is a turning point in his life and career, hence why he is looking back behind him.

The other technical aspects of the front cover have been combined to create the ‘pop genre’ feel to the album. This has been created through the use of the black and gold glow, fashionable and mainstream style of clothing and hairstyle, all that are current sightings of pop artists. Therese therefore make it obvious to buyers that he is a pop artist. In regards to the target audience, I would say that this album cover and photo in particular has been used to attract the younger, female section of the target audience, who are most likely the main buyers of the album and songs.

The simple use of a street, not containing any real detail with the most significant objects being his guitar, guitar case and him show his transition from his transition from an average busking teenager, to a professional artist.

Again the main image and focus is on the artist that re-instates his importance and his creation of the album. Again wearing mainstream, fashionable, pop-icon clothing to create his recognisable image and look like a pop-star for those who are unfamiliar with his work.The repetition of the album name appears here again beneath the artist, as he appears to be busking, with his guitar case open for money. This supports the view of his hard working and difficult past both as an individual and a performer and how he has believed to get where he is now.

List of songs, some of which have already been released before the album, but are then included in the album to increase purchases.

Consistent colour scheme with the black border and the gold glow.

A quote to the fans and supporters of the artist that has made his previous songs successful that has lead to the creation of the album and his future success. This helps the artist connect with the fans and can be used to almost ‘persuade’ them to buy them album if they ‘believe’ in him and want him to make more music.

CD

The title of the album is again the main focus point for the CD cover as its essentially the meaning for the album.

The repeatable style, fonts and themes are continued throughout to create a recognisable album for current and future buyers. The CD cover is fairly basic, but then it is only used in a CD player and is not really designed for aesthetic pleasure.

Consistent reference to the music producers, album producers, record labels and the artist’s websites.

The artists name, being repeated all over the digipak for instant recognition from fans and buyers.

Poster

The title/name of the album is word in the biggest and boldest font. This tells the people what to look out for when in a shop or when looking to download the album.

Instantly recognisable artist name and portrait to create an image that everybody should know. The picture used for the poster is simply a medium close-up of the artist, showing that the album is all about him, its his music, and if you like him as a singer-songwriter then you will like the album.

Consistent colour scheme and theme to the digipak and promoting posters again so it is easily recognised by potential buyers. The artist, at this time of release has become associated with a black and gold theme so any pictures or posters with this theme and similar portrait are going to be promoting the album even without needing to say ‘new album’. The producers are creating a repetitive image for the public to be subjected to persuade them to buy them album.

List of songs and other artists featuring in the album to inform potential buyers and appeal to a wider target audience who may not be so into Justin Bieber but into the other featuring musicians such as Ludacris, Drake and Nicki Minaj.

Promoting technological and social media use to download the posters and other features from the album.

Immediately informs viewers what the poster is promoting, without them having to have any prior knowledge about the artist or current music meaning then can quickly inform people who catch a glimpse of the poster to maximise the chances of people purchasing the album.

Jessie J - Digipak The plain, white background maintains the focus of the viewer on the close up image of the solo artist. There is no need for any background content, image or pattern as this makes the artist bold and the image of Jessie J fills 90% of the front cover and she is the reason for the album. Adding a pattern or image in the background suggests that there is a second or hidden meaning to the songs in the album, but with this white background, it is simply just promoting it as a normal song filled album. The background colour is bright, studio-white that is used to contrasts the colour of the makeup and clothing (black) the artist is wearing to make these dark colours stronger and her features more bold, thus promoting her current identity and style.The main text on this cover is simply just the name of the artist. This is bold

and in patterned, almost a shiny, reflective gold colour. This colour is stereotypically female as its associated with glamour, fashion and jewellery and the font used, is relatively female orientated too as it a swirly, curly font, one that you wouldn't expect to see on a male album cover. It is also right in the centre of the cover and sits on top of the artist to make it obvious that this is their name for any new or potential buyers of the album.

The main, and only image is simply a facial close-up of the artist. The image is large, taking up around 90% of the front cover and the way the artist looks directly into the camera, as if looking at the buyer portrays a sense of power and confidence as it is completely front facing and close-up. This could suggest that the songs in the album are related to this concept in terms of meaning and this is perhaps the message the artist wants to convey about themselves as a performer and person to their target audience. The artist’s cl0thing, from what we can see of it looks fashionable and current in style but I think the key focus is on the makeup and accessories that she is wearing. Her black lipstick with the additional gold pattern suggest that perhaps this artist is a bit quirky in terms of personality and song writing and her eyes look ‘overly shadowed’, above the normal wear for a female as well as the matching black nails. These dark colours could be suggesting that her type of music is maybe a bit rocky, rebellious and may even contain swearing and be quite loud and powerful.

The black and white colours for the text and the background are again used to follow the colour scheme of the digipak and album. There are no extra images or patterns so it keeps it bold and contrasting – another theme in terms of style and presentation wit the album. The words for the song titles are all printed in capital letters to follow the strong, bold theme and meaning to the album.

Like all other conventional CD covers and digipak there is always a barcode and a small print paragraph detailing the production teams and companies involved with the album and any other rights assigned to the album and the artist only.There are also logos for production companies, record labels and sometimes even social media links, and some of these can be seen here.

There isn't much to say about the back cover of the CD apart from the obvious continuation of the colour scheme and style being black, white and bold. This back cover is simply just detailing the songs included in the album perhaps to tell the target audience that she is different from other artists who isn't about, glamour, colour, and abstract but more about being bold, strong and simple, telling them to expect what they see really.

CDThe CD itself is almost seen to break the continuous theme assigned with the album as it doesn't feature any black or gold, and the album title text is a mixture of upper and lower case letters. The font is still the same regarding the artist’s name and the title of the album but after such repeated themes, fonts and colours on the album cover and poster, it is almost expected to a similar degree for the CD.The CD does however include the first ‘extra’ as a heart is seen on the left centre of the CD. This may be featured to add a more feminine touch to the album and not be so strong and bold and powerful but a simple heart, maybe even a message to the audience and the buyer for their support for the artist.

The biggest print and main focus on the CD is the name of the artist in the same font as seen on the album cover and poster. This shows that the artist is the main reason and creator behind the album so all credit and support should be shown towards them. It also created an unforgettable name, ‘Jessie J’ is more of a stage name and its uniqueness is repeated so that potential buyers don't forget the name for future albums.

It also featured the record company logos and the small print paragraph around the circumference of the CD for aesthetical structure.

PosterThe poster is simple in terms of replicating the album cover with the exact same image of the artist, the colour scheme used and the text fonts and sizes used too. This makes the artist, one instantly recognisable with a large close up of her face and two, creates a repeatable and expected theme for this album so if the audience see one or the other, they know they are linked , a promotional strategy.Again, the black and white are extremely contrasting, and even more so on a large scale poster creating that bold, strong, confident and professional identity for the artist to appeal to the existing audience and even try and attract new audiences. The gold is used more in this poster as there is more text and information to be included but again is contrasted against a black background and printed in capitals for that bold theme.

Another key convention for the supporting poster of an album is to feature the names of perhaps one or two of the best/most popular songs and of course the name of the album. In this case ‘price tag’, being a huge success when first released is mentioned song on the poster and is included for easy recognition for the target audience if they are familiar with artist. It can also be used to persuade them to buy the album as this popular, ‘number 1’ song is included.The first two lines of text to be

read on this poster are simply the statement of the ‘debut album’ and its name’. These are of course in capital letters and contrasting colours to make them obvious and easily readable so anybody quickly passing or glimpsing at this poster can take in the vital information quickly without having to search for it.The poster also included a web address ‘www.jessiejofficial.com’ to show

viewers where to go for extra information and also included the logos for the record companies not only for audiences of this artist but people who like other artist assigned to these labels and therefore may also have an interest in this artist too.

Pop Posters

Here are a few examples of posters promoting pop albums. They all follow an identical format; featuring the main artist(s) as the main image, the name of the album, the release date, list of songs included in the album and who else is featured in the songs and production. This is the style that all album posters follow, and more recently it is common to see then connection with social media sites also advertised on the posters such as iTunes, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.