Digipak Research

A Digipak is a type of print media that houses a CD. They are often made of cardboard as opposed to plastic CD cases and focus more on presentation, often being much more visually appealing than their average CD case counterparts. They always have a back, front, two side flaps and a CD side. 

This Jay-Z and Linking Park crossover album took a graffiti art approach to their digipak. By using the colour brown you can relate the digipak to areas like skate parks - the kind of location where the target audience for these two artists can be found. The graffiti represents the idea of creativity but also rebellion against society, as graffiti is often seen as vandalism. The side with the song names on seems to be written on ripped paper, making the digipak look more homemade. Finally, the contrast between the deep blue of the disc and the brown background shows which is the more important item in this product and allows the audience's eye to be drawn directly to it.

This Digipak for Laurie Cameron's The Girl Who Cried For The Boy Who Cried Wolf is both very simple and very effective. A black background is used, contrasted by a white and blue wolf; allowing the central image to stand out. The wolf is related to the name of the album and acts as a mascot for the product. It has an effect applied to it that makes it look as though it is melting, which makes the imagery more original and eye catching. The rest of the product relates to the wolf and utilises the black and white colour scheme to accentuate the binary opposition. 

The final digipak I want to look at is All Time Low's Don't Panic. All of the images here are in a cartoonish and drawn style. It is also all related to disasters; like an octopus attack, zombie apocalypse or alien invasion. These ideas tie into the album name 'Don't Panic', with the artists posing for a selfie amidst an alien invasion and just sitting watching the zombie apocalypse. The digipak is very colourful and is original; it would definitely draw an audience's eye and also allows for them to look at it for prolonged periods of time because each panel is different and tells a different story.