DIGIPAK ANALYSIS:JONAS BROTHERSLINES VINES AND TRYING TIMES

BACKGROUND

Lines Vines and Trying Times was the 4th studio album by the Jonas Brothers. It was also the third and last album released by Hollywood Records. The album was released on june 16 in the US. It sold over 247,000 copies in the first week of being released! The genre is mostly pop/rock and was produced by John Fields. The album was debuted 1st on Billboard 200 On an interview with Rolling Stone, Nick Jonas announced that they came up

with the lyrics to the songs of the album on set of their TV show, Jonas, because they were writing down some poetry.

Jonas Brothers stated that the album name had meaning:Lines are something that someone feeds you.Vines are the obstacles that block the path you’re aiming towards.Trying Times is the boys’ attempt to bring light onto the world.

The boys promoted the album in many ways, including performing the songs live at the 2009 Much Music Video Awards, and also on TV programmes such as the Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel, etc…

DIGIPAK ANALYSISThe genre of this album is Pop/rock and from the Digipak this can definitely be seen. The album is quite simple and natural which reflects most pop/rock genres. The natual colours of black, white and brown/golden can represent the idea of hope and obstales.

The font is quite fancy and elegant. The colour of the font changes acording to The background.The elegance of the font could be to portray the Album as quite mature and meaningful; Perhaps the Jonas Brothers want the fans to take The album seriously and could also represent their Aging and making their music more mature as they grow up.

There are contrasting black and white colours in the front and back covers of the digipakWhich emphasises the meaning of the title of the album.The name is all about trying to bring joy an happiness into the world (trying times) and facing The obstacles that might block your path (vines). The colours therefore help convey this.

The image of the front cover is of the brothers staring directly into the Camera, staring intensely. This would attract the target audience of teenageGirls as it could be seen as eye candy that is the focal point of the album.

FRONT COVER ANALYSIS The front cover gives the Jonas Brothers

recognition in two ways. They have their band name on the cover but also an image of themselves. This will make them much more recognisable towards the audience and they will become more memorable. The image will also help with the target audience as teenage girls will be more tempted to buy an album with three handsome boys on the cover rather than without.

The genre is pop/rock and the image helps convey this by dressing the boys in simple clothing, with nothing too extravagant. The costumes can be seen as simple, yet effective because the colours not only help with the genre but are connotations of the album name. they represent the hope that people have despite all of the upcoming obstacles they will inevitably face.

The Jonas Brothers have quite stern and intense faces which can be seen as a denotation. The reason for this is because the actual meaning of this is them trying to influence the audience by obtaining their attention through their expressions. It represents the seriousness of the album and how it might be personal.

The overall composition of the front cover of the album is very effective. It is not at all over the top like some pop albums but also not too dark like most rock albums. Instead there is a mix in-between which shows aspects of both.

BACK COVER ANALYSIS The contrasting of black and white colours continues onto the

back of the album. The black colour here is more rocky whereas the white is bright and represents the pop aspects of the album.

The simplicity also continues onto the back cover. The background is quite plain with just the Jonas Brothers logo faded into the background. This could have been done to show representation of the band. On top of the background there is just white writing of the song names featured on the disk.

The order is quite random and isn’t in alphabetical order but is in categorical order. However for the last song there is a gap in between the one on top because it is a bonus track and makes the album seem more appealing.

White, black and golden are the only colours shown on the album, showing that there is a theme and keeping it consistent helps with the composition as it looks more appealing to the eye.

The back cover also contains information in a golden colour about the producers and record label. This is to promote not only the band, but also them because other artists might be interested. It is also written as a credit to show thanks for producing and helping with the creation of the album.

The barcode is placed in the middle of bottom. There is a link above the barcode of the Hollywood records

website. This Is where fans can go to get additional information about the band itself and the record label.

SPINE ANALYSIS

The spine of the album is very basic, with just the name of the band and the album name. When placing the album on a shelf in a store, it makes it much more easier to locate because the font colour is bright and visible and stands out from the background. It follows the natural conventions of a generic album cover but the theme of the album is continuous on the spine, meaning that the colours, font type and style are the same. This makes it more diverse and unique to the other albums.

DISK ANALYSIS•The disk is what contains the 13 album tracks.

•It is a dark blue with the name and logo of the band, along with The name of the album. This makes it more recognisable ifnot kept in the digipak.

•The target audience for this album is mostlyteenage girls and so the elegant font and pretty layoutwould appeal to them and make it more special towards them.

•Like with the rest of the digipak, the disk fits in with the pop/rock genre of the album because of the dark and bright contrasting colours, representingPop and rock.

•The simplicity is also a convention of pop/rock because the audience can relate to it more,It is not too extreme, which can mean that the audience won’t expect over the top, extremely loudSongs playing in the album.

INSIDE CASE (DISK IMPRESSIONS)Underneath where the disk is supposed to go, there is a lot of advertising of the band. This includes images of their other albums so that audiences can go out and purchase them.

They also have an advertisement for their TV show, Jonas. So this part of the digipak is all about promoting the band and making them more well known. It gives the target audience an opportunity to find out more about the band if they want too.

The picture of the three shadows on a road represent the journeythe brothers are on. It can symbolise their progress and how farthey have come from their first album to this one.

Other than the colours of the other albums and TV program symbol, it follows the theme of the rest of the digipak, making it attractive and eye-catching. Having too many coulors would be confusing and unrecognisable.

The logo is shown here also. This is so that the fans are constantly aware of who they are and it will make the symbol stick in their heads.

INSIDE BOOKLET ANALYSIS Inside the booklet, there are mainly

images of the band who have evidently taken part in a photo shoot. This would immediately grab the attention of the target audience as it can be seen as eye candy and fans would be keen to buy more Jonas Brother products if they think they will have other images of them.

The images of the band also follow conventions of generic teenage boy bands. They take pictures that would appeal to teenage girls and this would also gain them more fans who would be interested in both their music and their style.

The images give them an edge and make them more memorable. They all have curly hair and wear similar clothes which are extremely fashionable but simple.

Something which is completely unique to the Jonas Brothers that they include in their booklet is the lyrics to each song (as shown in the image to the left of the song ‘Much Better’). They include a few sentences describing why they wrote this song and its meaning, and then go into the lyrics. This makes it individual to them and would be a unique selling point to them.

REFLECTION:

From analysing the digipak of the album Lines Vines and Trying Times by Jonas Brothers, I have gained knowledge about the importance of representation in a generic digipak. Everything is done for a reason and has to appeal to the target audience. I now have a better understanding of the different coulors I am going to use in my own digipak and understand that simplicity is key. In this album I think it was the simple structure and layout that made it even more effective and went extremely well with the genre of pop/rock. The album includes a variety of conventions of both the pop and rock album through the use of colours, costumes and font and I aim to do the same when I create my own.