Research and Planning for digipak

As well as our product of a music video, we must also produce the album packaging. In this case we have been asked to prepare a digipack as opposed to a standard jewel case which is used more often. We aim to produce a four paneled digipack, requiring us to design and produce images for the front cover itself, the inside right, left and back covers. as our genre is Indie, we decided to look at several examples of indie album art as well as some other genres. Below are some examples I have found.

Arctic Monkeys - "Who the f**k are Arctic Monkeys?'

• The digipak is very simplistic with minimal design, seeing the album art made up of two photographs, one on the front and one on the back panel. This simplistic artwork is completely compliant with the indie genre as it is more about the music on the album than the face of the album or artwork.
  The photograph on the front of the digipak is again, simplistic and seemingly rough as though literally taken by the band themselves. This is very typical of indie band album art.


• The photograph is essentially of a mirror that is cracked and scratched. This perhaps alludes to the nature of Arctic Monkeys music, being very homegrown and not entirely perfect. This is also reinforced by the surroundings of the image.


• The album title is written, or scrawled, on the mirror. This sees the band showing irony to the buyer as, as the album title is "who the f**k are arctic monkeys?" and is written on a mirror, an object that reinforces identity.
  
• By using a mirror to contrast the idea of not knowing who they are Arctic Monkeys are also presenting themselves as a new band on the music scene and are almost mocking the way people may receive them.
  
• The inside left and right of the digipak are both plain white, again showing the simplicity of the band and their music, showing they do not need to rely on artistic design to promote themselves.


• The track listing is repeated twice throughout the digipak, once on the back cover where it is conventionally placed, and once on the inside left. By repeating the track list twice the buyer will become familiar with the content, some of which they may have heard before.


• The physical CD itself is the only thing in the inside panels that is decorated, and again it is with a simple photograph of a man with his arms folded. His position or body language could also be related to the title of the album as it is a question and it appears he is waiting for the answer, there being a certain irony that the answer lies on the CD on which he is featured.


• The CD also sees the mention of Arctic Monkeys record label "Domino" conforming to the conventions of information featured on albums and promoting the label to which they are signed.


• On the back cover is another photograph, below which is the track list again. This photograph is of the band in the studio, actively showing the band during the albums production. This is emphasised by the fact that the viewer sees the front man Alex Turner in the forefront of the shot adjusting the equipment.


• The fact that this photograph is featured on the back of the digipak and is of the band producing the album almost acts as a visual answer to the album's title and the question featured on the front cover. This order of the images combined with the fact that the two oppose or answer each other is very appropriate as the buyer usually looks at the front cover and flips to the back to see the track list, enforcing the idea of question and answer presented through the photographs.