Digipak Analysis

Fahad Miah

Overview

• Lana Del Rey is an American Indie singer songwriter. In this presentation I will be analysing the digipak of her second studio album, Born to Die. Although she is an Indie music artist, this album has many characteristics from different musical genres such as alternative pop, indie pop and sadcore.

• I have decided to analyse this digipak in particular because it is of the same genre I will be creating my final products on Indie/Indie Folk. Analysing this digipak and putting it towards my research findings will help me understand the Indie genre conventions a lot better; so when it comes to creating the final products in the construction stages of the coursework, I will have an idea of the typical Indie genre conventions.

Front Cover

Button Up White Shirt: Innocence, Vintage, Connotates Purity

Light and Colours Contrast: Connotates Innocence

Midshot: Stands out, enages the audience

Sex Appeal:See Through Shirt, Red Lipstick, Holloywood Curls

Blank Facial Expression, Looking Down: Looks unhappy but comes off as being stroong and powerful

The front cover of Del Rey’s digipak is very contradictory of the album title “Born to Die” and the songs within it. The cover is very bright with a high contrast which gives the album image a fake effect. This can be interpreted as a mask to perhaps hide the true, dark meanings of the songs within this album. The juxtaposition in both the name and the ideologies of the album is used to almost intrigue the audience and create doubt on who Lana Del Rey’s character really is. The light shades of baby-blue used within the image connotes innocence, along with the high-necked button-up shirt she is wearing. However, the expression on her face tells a different story. She has quite a blank, emotionless expression on her face whilst she is looking down at the camera; this may suggest some form of power and dominance. Yet, she still looks American vintage and beautiful; this may suggest that from the outside she is fine, but on the inside she is unhappy, perhaps heartbroken. This may be something her audience can identify with and therefore feel connected to her and her music. The mid-shot in this image also connotes that she wants to build a relationship with the audience, and feel on the ‘same level’ as them.

Back CoverColour Scheme: White and Blue – Simplistic, compliments the front cover

Font: Bold – Used to make a statemnets

Barcode, Copyright Statement and Studio Logo

The back cover of the album is white which is typically associated with purity. The text is in blue and balck, which makes the back cover look fairly simple and standard. This simple representation links back to the Indie genre, as it differs from mainstream culture, pop-culture genres tend to have very glamorous and up-market effects on their digipaks. The colours connotate innconcence and simplicity which are aspects of indie genre.

Representation

• Lana Del Rey is represented as being a precise, clean-cut artist. Her high-neck, collared shirt on the front cover of the digipak connoted innocence and purity. However, she also screams out sex appeal; taken from the connotations of her big movie-star hair behind her shoulders emphasising her chest area, the red lipstick and the slightly transparent shirt she is wearing, which shows off her bra. These representations cleverly correspond to her innocent voice, but sinister lyrics.

Image to Text Ratio

• There are a lot more images on the digipak compared to text. This adds to the simplicity of the design, and reinforces the ease of the Indie genre. This uneven ratio also seems to used to perhaps add to the suspense the audience already have about this album, and the identity of the artist. It is almost like a mystery that only the audience can solve by actually listening to the music on the CD. I believe that this element of surprise is used to attract the audience.

Use of Language

• The only language on the digipak is the tracklist of Del Rey’s songs (on the back cover). The language used is themed around all things negative and gloomy e.g. “Dark Paradise” and “Summertime Sadness”, and notions to do with power e.g. “This is What Makes Us Girls” and “National Anthem”. This language reflects the strong design of the digipak, and the disjointed/ confused representations behind the design.

Conclusion• My analysis of this digipak has helped develop some ideas

and got me thinking about the production of my own digipak (which will be done as a group). Conducting this analysis has made me aware of the conventions used in digipaks when it comes to an Indie artist, although, in this genre there are really no boundaries or no ‘set conventions’, as essentially ‘anything goes’. I have learnt that the conventions-if any- are simplistic and have hidden meanings and values that exaggerate the uniqueness of the Indie genre and draw the target audience to the product. This really struck and inspired me, and I may use this technique when it comes to creating my own digipak of the Indie/Indie Folk genre.