Digipack research

Digipak Research

For 'alternative' album covers, the cover reflects the emotions and image of the artist significantly. These types of album covers are usually quite eye catching with their bold colours and what they are depicting, which is usually quite striking. The representation of the artist is often exaggerated to display the emotions and tone of the album or the movement the album is part of. Below are some examples of 'alternative' album covers I have analysed to research the conventions of this genre's digipaks.

We see a medium close up of the artist, Kate Bush, in monochromatic, warm colours, with the album title 'The Dreaming' written clearly in typed lettering at the top of the album with a white background to make it stand out. Here, the artist is presented as playful and humourus, which mimicks the 'experimentalist' release label for the album. Some of the album's tracks take inspirations from old crime films and folk tales, for example 'There Goes A Tenner' and 'Night of The Swallow'. This is reflected in the artist's expression on the cover, with the man she is kissing covered in chains and the glimpse of a key on her tongue. This gives a hint of mystery to the album cover which may encourage new fans to purchase it in order to get to know the artist better.

'Live Through This' by the band 'Hole' shows a medium close up of fashion model Leilani Bishop dressed in pageant attire with flowers and a tiara and mascara running down her eyes in tears of joy. In this album the artist is not actually represented, however the overall themes of the album are, which include beauty standards and violence against women. The actual name of the album, derived from a line from 'Gone With The Wind' (1939), shows the literary influences to the album's song titles. Despite the beauty imagery of the album cover, the colours seem quite over-saturated and dark, perhaps to highlight the reality of the photo and feminine beauty. Also, the artist and album names are placed in the top right corner to put emphasis on the model. They are written in a light pink, slightly doll-like font reminiscent of Barbie dolls, possibly as a reference to the song 'Doll Parts', which is on this album. Overall, the representation of the model on the cover contrasts to the tone of the music. This is an effective way of marketing the album to fans of 'Hole', but possibly not as much to a person who is not aware of the band's genre.

The album cover contrasts with the tone of the album, which is passionate and angry. This is reflected through the red colouring, showing the artist's confidence and making the cover stand out. We see a close up of Fiona Apple's smiling face as she looks up, which presents the artist as looking to the future of her career and being proud of her sophomore album. The artist name is small but clear in the top right corner of the red margins of the cover and the title of the album is printed across Fiona's face. The album, titled 'When The Pawn...' is a 90 word poem which is fully displayed on the cover for the viewer to read. Although the actual name of the album is shortened, the consumer can read the full poem which serves as an initial narrative to the album. This paints the star as confident and sure of her image. The poem is also written in handwriting to reflect the story of the album or almost to show a sense of uniqueness for the consumer.

'Jagged Little Pill' by Alanis Morissette is probably the biggest style inspiration for me and Olivia's potential Digipak design. The overlay of the red portrait of Alanis over the blue portrait creates a disconnection from reality and two different representations of the artist. The blue portrait looks tired and melancholy compared to the red which feels a lot calmer, especially with the red lipstick. The use of colour theory here to show how the artist feels without any direct attention to emotions is an effective way to market your artist's album. This will be something to consider for me and Olivia when we come to designing our Digipak.

More albums outside of our chosen genre

In order to gain some more perspective on the conventions of a wider range of albums, we looked at some albums outside of our chosen genre. These were albums we liked as they have certain aspects that we feel inspired by for our own Digipak. These conventions have helped us gain a better idea of what we would want our own album cover to look like, as well as the representation of the artist. By looking outside of just our genre, we have understood how other artists like to present themselves and how strongly this correlates with the sound/theme of their music.