Analysis of Digipaks

Youmeatsix – Sinners Never Sleep

This was a digipak that I already owned and thought it was a very good one to analyse. Firstly the casing is all black and white which I really like as I think it works well with their style of music and looks very cool. The inside 3 panels are set out with of of fingerprints and things you would have when trying to figure out an investigation. It also has the signatures of the band members to make it seem more personal as well as a picture of the band to reinforce the fact it is their album. Moreover, the package is either designed in a way to suggest that the band are suspects or in some kind of crime. At the top of the middle panel it reads ‘sorry you're grounded’ which has been handwritten, this could be to appeal to the teenage market who listen to their music. Inside the middle panels are small cards of all of the members having a mug shot taken to further highlight the crime theme the digipak is trying to convey. There is also the CD which is quite plain but has ‘bite my tongue’ which is a popular song off the album. Moreover, there is a small booklet of all the songs and the lyrics to those songs and a thank you note on the back of that which is something commonly found in CD cases. On the back 3 panels is the front cover of the album, the songs on the album and a picture to just fill a panel. Again, I really like the structure and layout of everything and it shows that simplistic layouts can be effective,

Overall I really like the digipak and think it is very effective for the type of music and general style of the band as they are quite punk rock. Furthermore, I think the black and white colour scheme and layout is quite cool and will appeal the the target audience of the band.

Mental Discipline – Fallen StarsI found this digipak and thought that it was quite interesting as it has a galactic/space theme to it. The colours used work really well wit the theme as it is very red, black silver and then the front cover is more yellow/orange. As the title of the album is ‘fallen stars’ the space theme purposely fits very well. The cover is of two falling starts to further emphasise the idea and the colours are very galactic and look really good on the front cover. The inside panels have a CD which again fits with the concept of the packaging, it looks like a radar that would be used in a space ship and the almost solid black makes it stand out more against the background. The panels to the side are a red and black galaxy-like image which looks really cool as the red Is very bright and vibrant and adds a nice depth of colour that would other wise not be there. The white writing stands out well and is easy to read which is important. Moreover, the text font used is really effective as it is the type of font you would see in a space film etc. The overall theme also fits very well with the techno style of music that this album has.

As a whole I think it is a very well designed digipak and whilst it is simple the space theme is very cool and looks really good as everything on the case it themes so it looks like a well put together case.

Chip Taylor – New Songs of Freedom

The overall theme of the digipak looks very cool, I think the colours and use of shapes is very effective and slightly different. Whilst I think the packaging does look like it reflects the country style of the album, I do think it looks slightly too modern to really capture what the style of the music is like. However, I do still really like it. The CD is very bright with a white background and red writing and a blue megaphone. The colour scheme is red, white brown and blue which is why I like the actually CD design and it stands out a big more with the white background. The front and back cover with the hand and the megaphone look very artsy and could possibly have a more subtextual meaning to speak out carry the message of ‘freedom’. The back has the songs of the album which is a common convention of album packaging. The writing on the inside panels is in different colours and some is facing a different way which fits the slightly disjoined fell the digipak has. The repeated use of arrows s very effective as it is drawing peoples attention to what they are pointing to as a big red or white arrow will intrigue whoever is looking at it.

I think this is a very well designed digipak and will use it as a good influence for use of shapes and drawing attention to the things I want people to look at on the casing.