Digipak textual analysis

DIGIPAK TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

A2 MEDIA STUDIESLAUREN BARRETT

DIGIPAK 1 – COLDPLAY (VIVA LA VIDA OR DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS [2008])

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

This album was released by British band Coldplay in 2008.

The genre is alternative rock/baroque pop.

It was their fourth studio album.

The title was named after the Spanish phrase for ‘Live the Life’.


GRAPHIC DESIGN: It took months to be completed after

being initially developed from a set of large-scale sketches and paintings.

The image then developed when lyrics and song titles were boldly painted across old maps, books, copies of old paintings etc.

The final artwork was actually photographed with the typography added on by computer.

The main artwork was inspired by the painting Liberty Leading the People.


GRAPHIC DESIGN: The lyric booklet inside the Digipak includes

nine paintings made by the band to give the album a personal touch. GG

Each painting includes part of the lyrics for the different songs on the album.

Each painting uses bold, bright colours to contrast from the album artwork and have rather abstract designs based on the meanings behind the songs.

The paintings were often used as part of the set design for the bands Viva La Vida world tour to create a sense of ‘brand identity.’


SINGLES:

The singles from the album all feature artwork loosely based on the same style of artwork used for the album itself. This creates a sense of identity as they all clearly link in with the album, whilst the individual use of colour on every single make them stand out from the original album. This is a technique I will use as I will try to create my Digipak based around the other singles released from the singer’s album.


LAYOUT: The Digipak itself is made up of a basic book-fold, with

an opening pouch on both the front and on the back. It is essentially made up of two portions/sections.

The front pouch opens at the side and contains the lyric booklet.

The back pouch also opens at the side and contains the CD itself. The CD is in a separate card sleeve.

The front of the Digipak has the album artwork printed onto it, whilst the back has the track listing.


LAYOUT: The functionality of the Digipak’s layout is quite useful

as the pouch-style pockets for the lyric booklet and the CD prevent the need for the plastic teeth which are seen in the more traditional jewel cases for CDs.

These plastic teeth would often tear and damage the lyric booklet, whilst the teeth for the CD were often prone to breakages, meaning that the CD was not stored securely.

I think the book-style fold looks really effective as it makes the audience feel like they are opening up a story book.


INSIDE: On the left inside cover is a photograph. The photograph features a multiple

imagery piece of the band, consisting four individual shots of each member.

The images are edited to have a sepia photo filter as this adds a sense of nostalgia to the album design, and it compliments the colours in the main album artwork.

The photographs allow the target audience to be able to identify the band, but would perhaps be even more effective if there were captions underneath to give them all a name.


INSIDE: Inside on the right, the image is all black with

the name of the band and the album title written in gold lettering.

The font is the same all-capitals Serif font used to create the band’s logo during the era of this particular album.

The font is clear and easily readable, whilst gives the design a mature feel to it as the music is mostly targeted at older adults aged 21 – 40.

Between the band’s name and the album title are two dots which are also replicated in all the other text on the album.

This gives the Digipak individuality and an identity as a brand.


BACK On the very back of the Digipak, the entire design is all black again

like the previous section, with the same gold Serif font. This creates continuity and makes the album itself look more

professional. The text is aligned in the middle to create a ‘balance’ as there is no

other content on this section, and it fills the black space nicely. The text reads the titles of the ten songs, each song separated by the

same two dots seen on the previous section. Underneath the track listing is the standard copyright information all

albums have to include.


LYRIC BOOKLET Every page in the lyric booklet features a painting by the band, which I have

already mentioned (slide 4). However, the first page opposite the inside cover also includes the ‘thank you

notes’ and the credits, which is normally presented on the very last page of the lyric booklet.

The text is the very same gold font used on the rest of the album. A nice touch is that instead of consistently giving thanks to everyone, they keep it

short and simple, and then list three charity websites who they would personally like to give recognition to.

The very back of the lyric booklet features another photograph of the band together this time in the recording studio – a very personal touch which allows the audience to feel privileged that they become ‘a part’ of the recording process.

The image is in the same sepia effect as the other image used within the Digipak.


CD The design of the CD is also a vital

part of the Digipak as a whole. The CD for Viva La Vida is completely

black like the two sections within the Digipak casing.

Along the top in the same gold font is the band’s name and the album title, replicating the same layout within the Digipak packaging, and then the track listing in a smaller font underneath.

Curved around the bottom edge is the same copyright regulations and the record label’s logo.

DIGIPAK 2 – THE SCRIPT (#3 DOUBLE CD DELUXE EDITION [2012])

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: This album was released by Irish

band The Script in 2012. The genre is alternative rock/soft

rock/pop rock. It was their third studio album. The number three relates to the

third album, as well as the number of members in the band.


GRAPHIC DESIGN: All of the graphic design for this album was produced by

Gary Kelly and Steve Averill at ampvisual.com The company completed some graphic design work for a

lot of U2’s production, who happen to be inspirations for The Script, which is why they decided to contact the company.

The company has worked with the band for more than 5 years, creating album and single artwork, website designs and merchandise, which is a successful idea as it means everything has a set look and brand identity.

http://www.ampvisual.com/portfolio-item/the-script/


SINGLES:

The singles from the album all feature artwork loosely based on the same style of artwork used for the album itself. This creates a sense of identity as they all clearly link in with the album, whilst the individual use of colour on every single make them stand out from the original album. This is a technique I will use as I will try to create my Digipak based around the other singles released from the singer’s album. Although the images are completely different, they all link in directly with the themes of the song itself, to make the song more identifiable.

Album

Four Singles


LAYOUT: The Digipak itself is made up of a basic book-fold, with an

opening pouch on both the front and on the back. It has three main portions/sections.

The front pouch opens at the top and contains the first CD, which contains the standard songs for the album.

The back pouch also opens at the top and contains the 2nd bonus CD with the additional songs on it.

The front of the Digipak has the album artwork printed onto it, whilst the back has the track listing.

LAYOUT: In the middle of the Digipak, the lyric booklet is glued in

place, which is quite useful in terms of functionality as it means it cannot fall out, get lost or damaged.

The pouches for the CDs are useful also as it prevents the need for the rather brittle plastic teeth which are commonly seen in the more traditional jewel cases.

I think the book-style fold looks really effective as it makes the audience feel like they are opening up a story book and they can therefore feel like they connect with the band in a special, exclusive way.


INSIDE: The entire inside portion of the Digipak is made up of one

long panorama-style photograph. This looks effective as there is continuity in the image across

all three of the inside ‘portions’, with the band actually appearing on the far right section.

This also links in with the idea of opening a ‘storybook’ as everything flows, it makes more ‘sense’ like this as nothing looks out-of-place or disjointed.

The image itself shows the band leaning on a rather modern/decorate building. Each of the three members can be seen clearly allowing the audience to identify them easily, and it has also been shot in the same de-saturated colours as the front album artwork to show a sense of professionalism and continuity.

The pose of the band reflects quite a calm, casual feeling, which also reflects on the style of the album itself, whilst the all-black clothing and dark features reflect on the genre of the music they represent.

Having the band posed on the far right of the image/Digipak looks effective, as the striped pattern in the wall creates a path for the audience’s eyes, which leads them across to the band.


INSIDE: The lyric booklet is also secured onto the middle

inside of the Digipak to prevent it from falling out or getting lost.

It also creates a central element for the audiences to look at and creates a sense of balance within the design.

The front of the lyric booklet is printed with the same image which is printed across the entire inside of the Digipak to allow it to completely blend in, whilst in the middle the name of the album ’#3’ is printed in bold, black font to make it stand out.


BACK On the very back of the Digipak, the entire design is created

with the same sepia/de-saturated colour scheme as on the front cover and inside the Digipak. All of the bold features such as text boxes are also in jet black to stand out from the pale colour scheme and creates continuity from the front cover.

This creates continuity and makes the album itself look more professional.

The main image on the back cover reflects the same style as the main album artwork on the front by using the same overlay/multiple imagery technique with images of all three members of the band, but in a slightly different arrangement.

The track-listing is presented in a small black box on the top right corner of the back cover, with all of the text written in contrasting white.

The font is a basic all-capitals Sans Serif font to make it clearer to read for audiences.

What looks effective is that any ‘e’s written in the text are presented backwards to represent a number ‘3’ to link in with the title of the album. E.g. ‘SIX D3GR33S OF S3PARATION’.

Underneath the track listing is the standard copyright information all albums have to include, along with the record label’s logo and the website for the band and the barcode.

The section to the left of the very back cover is left completely blank with just a large picture of the band posing in a similar manner to some of the images within the lyric booklet.


LYRIC BOOKLET The number 3 theme is evident consistently through the design of the lyric

booklet inside the Digipak; I suppose the band wanted the idea behind the album’s name to be consistently on the mind’s of the audience.

Most of the pages are made up of a picture which spreads across every double-page, and then some of the lyrics to the songs.

The lyrics on the pages are represented in three thin black boxes in various arrangements with the text in the same white font seen on the back cover. The title of the song itself is made bigger and bolder so that audiences can make a distinction between songs. However, the text does not include the ‘3’ representation for the letter ‘e’ as this would perhaps make the reading unclear as there is a lot more text in comparison to the back cover.

In every picture also, all three members of the band are present in comparison to perhaps showing individual members on each page to make the idea behind the album title more prominent again.

All of the main pictures within the lyric booklet are shot in the same sepia/de-saturated colour scheme to show continuity in the design.

The band members are often looking in different directions, with at least one looking directly at the camera to make a connection with the audience.


LYRIC BOOKLET The very middle double-page features a full-colour image to make it stand out from the other images. It features the same images duplicated three times over, to again emphasise on the album’s theme

(there are also three lights present in each picture [perhaps a coincidence?]) In each of these repeated images, the band change formation/pose slightly, with the lead singer,

Danny, holding up his three middle fingers to reflect on the ‘3’ symbol. The next page after this also doesn’t include any lyrics, in a way to sort of break-up the content in the

booklet from becoming overwhelming for the audience. It features a large image of the band together, with each member ‘framed’ by a different basic shape

in the same grungy style which is used in the main fonts. This allows audiences to get a clearly identity out of the musicians as this is the closest shot of them band from the entire Digipak.


LYRIC BOOKLET The layout then continues in the original manner after this page, but with a

single colour image, which I don’t particularly understand as it breaks the ‘rule’ the booklet seemed to have followed so far, making it look slightly less professional.

The page after includes the credits of each song, including who wrote the lyrics, producer, extra musicians used in the recording etc. Instead of having white text on black, they have reversed the colour scheme to make this information in particular stand out from the lyrics. As there is a lot of text on this one page, they have kept the background plain with the image just on the opposite page to make it easier for audiences to read. Rather than a posed image of all three members together, it consists of three separate images of each member put together, with them posing in a slightly less professional way compared to them others to make the tone slightly more casual and relaxed.


LYRIC BOOKLET The very last page includes a final image of the band walking towards a

building, which has had ‘#3’ superimposed onto the side of it to reflect on the idea of them walking towards the final outcome of the album, showing the ‘journey’ they had to take, which I feel is quite a nice, personal touch.

The page opposite features the individual ‘thank you’s’ from the band which again is a nice personal touch for audiences to read as they may feel they can connect with the musicians more.

There are then additional credits to those who may not have been directly responsible for the songs, but more so the album as a whole, such as the graphic designers, photographers, stylists etc.

Again, this font goes back to the original white font on black text. What I don’t like with the lyric booklet is that the lyrics stop at just the

songs on the first CD, when there are also additional songs on the second CD which don’t get mentioned at all. I would have expected a slightly extended lyric booklet for the deluxe edition CD to include these songs also.


CD The design of the CD is also a vital part of the Digipak as a

whole. The CDs for #3 reflect upon the scientific beliefs the band have. To show this, the CDs themselves are printed with black, and

then a silvery/holographic font Is used for all of the text. On the outside of the CD, the track listing is printed all along the

curve with the album title at the very top. The lyrics for the album’s lead single, ‘Hall Of Fame’ are then

spiralled from the outside to the very centre in the same font style. On the right side of the CD, the album’s title again ‘#3’ is blacked out of the lyrics to make it really stand out. I like this technique as I have not seen it on any other CD before, and in itself it almost looks like a piece of art, and a lot of time has clearly gone into designing it.

The same style applies for the second bonus CD, with the lyrics of the 2nd single, ‘If You Could See Me Now’ used instead, and it does not include the blacked out title either.

What I don’t like is that there isn’t a very clear distinction between the two CDs’ ‘Disc 2’ is printed in very small text at the top of the CD, but it isn’t clearly noticeable, which may mean that audiences get confused between the two.


DIGIPAK 3 – OLLY MURS (RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME DELUXE EDITION [2012])

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: This album was released by

Essex born singer, Olly Murs in 2012.

The genre is Pop. It was his third studio album. Of the album's title, he stated:

"Right Place Right Time as a title sums up my career to this point. I’ve worked hard in everything I’ve done, doing what’s felt right, and everything has fit into place.

GRAPHIC DESIGN: The graphic design included within the Digipak is a

collaboration between photographer, Bella Howard and Illustrator Peter Strain.

Bella photographed the singer against a background illustrated by Peter with the lyrics and titles of the album’s songs in a scribbly/hand-written type of font, which the illustrator makes prominent in the rest of his other designs for his other clients.

Most of the design features a pale blue or beige background, with all of the illustrations in either, white, black or red bold fonts, which can also be seen on a lot of the related merchandise to the singer’s era with this album to create a sense of identification and branding.

http://www.peterstrain.co.uk/


SINGLES:The singles from the album all feature artwork loosely based on the same style of artwork used for the album itself. This creates a sense of identity as they all clearly link in with the album. The same font style is used throughout each one which creates the link, whilst different images and different colours are used for each single to collectively create what would appear as a portfolio of artwork. This is quite nice for audiences, as as they collect each single when they are released, they are left with a set of ‘artwork’ to keep forever. This is a technique I will use as I will try to create my Digipak based around the other singles released from the singer’s album. Each individual image is also taken from the artwork used within the Digipak, which allows audiences to also make a distinct connection. As well as the individual singles, the album was also re-released this year to include a DVD, so the artwork was again changed slightly to show another distinction between different editions of the album.


LAYOUT: The Digipak itself is again made up of a basic book-fold, with an

opening pouch on both the front and on the back. It has three main portions/sections.

The front pouch opens at the inside edge (the right side of that section) and contains the first CD, which contains the standard songs for the album.

The back pouch opens at the inside edge (the left side of that section) and contains the 2nd bonus CD with the additional songs on it.

The front of the Digipak has the album artwork printed onto it, whilst the back has the track listing. The track listing is also illustrated around the main cover image, but is not as clear as the back cover.


LAYOUT: In the middle of the Digipak, there is another pouch

which opens at both sides to allow the lyric booklet to be stored in, and taken out from either end.

The pouches for the CDs are useful also as it prevents the need for the rather brittle plastic teeth which are commonly seen in the more traditional jewel cases, and having them open to the inside means that they are less likely to slip out and break.

I think the book-style fold looks really effective as it makes the audience feel like they are opening up a story book and they can therefore feel like they connect with the artist in a special, exclusive way.


INSIDE: The title of the album is split into two, ‘right place’ and ‘right time’ with the first

half written in bold red writing on the first CD pouch, and the second half in the same style on the second CD pouch.

Behind the red titles are the corresponding track titles for each CD in smaller, white text, but in the same font. This is useful as audiences automatically know which songs are on which CD without having to look at the back cover again.

This style of layout looks effective as it creates a ‘frame’ for the main image used on the lyric booklet pouch, which automatically creates a focal point for the audience.

The imaging throughout the Digipak shows the singer posing in rather ‘cheeky’ ways, as this resembles his trademark ‘title’ as the ‘cheeky chappie from Essex’.

The singer is also known as a bit of a heartthrob in the Pop music industry, so all the photographs used are to also highlight this statement for audiences/fans.

The image on the lyric booklet pouch shows the singer wearing the same clothes as on the main album artwork showing a sense of continuity. The same images can also be seen on other merchandise from this album’s era.

The main colour for the background across all three sections on the inside is a sandy beige colour, which compliments the main background colour for the outside…


BACK On the very back of the Digipak, the entire design reflects the design on the inside in a

very similar matter, except it uses the complimentary duck-egg blue colour as the main background colour scheme. This, with the brown on the inside, creates a very calm, neutral tone for the album.

It also creates continuity and makes the album itself look more professional. There is no image on the very back cover, it is entirely covered by the illustrations of

Peter Strain reflecting the titles of the songs. The song titles are written in a variety of different-sized quirky fonts and completely cover the very back page, whilst the songs are then written in a more structured, chronological, numbered order over the top in a bold red to stand out better and clearer for the audience, with the disc numbers also clearly labelled.

The quirky, illustrated fonts really suit the cheeky, young-boyish vibe emitted from the songs on the album, and highlights the fun characteristics of the singer himself.

Underneath the track listing is the standard copyright information all albums have to include, along with the record label’s logo and the website for the singer and the barcode.

The section to the left of the very back cover is left completely blank with just a large picture of the singer again, posing in a similar manner to some of the images within the lyric booklet and the front cover.


LYRIC BOOKLET The main colours on each page of the lyric booklet tend to

alternate between the pale blue and beige colours used on the inside and outside of the Digipak itself to create continuity and professionalism in the design.

The layout of the pages are kept rather consistent also, alternating between double pages with small camera-roll style images on the sides, or single lyric pages with one large image on the opposite side.

To keep the lyrics more simple and to therefore reduce the amount of text on each page, the chorus is simply written once, and then the lyrics then indicate how often the chorus lyrics are repeated in between the verses. This make reading the lyrics in general much clearer for the audience to read as there is less on the page,

The text for the lyrics are kept to a basic Sans Serif font (perhaps Arial) to make it clear to read, with the same illustrative font used for the title of each song to distinguish between parts of the text on the page.

On the double-page lyrics, the images from one separate photoshoot are presented in a vertical line alongside the edges of the page. These images include bold colours to stand out from the page and can also be seen adapted onto the front covers of some of the album’s single artwork.

Behind everything, the main background image is made up of the same illustrative style as seen on the front and back covers, showing all of the song titles again to keep the design consistent.


LYRIC BOOKLET The centre pages include no lyrics, and show a panorama-style photo of the singer in a field. The sky in

the picture has been cropped out to allow the same illustrations seen before to be put in it’s place. I like this technique of combining photography with illustration, but with this image in particular, the cropping isn’t very precise and looks unprofessional, but it does somewhat suit the fun, childish themes present within the design.

The last two pages include the song credits, and then the ‘thank you’ from the singer, which again adds a personal touch to the album.

However, there is so much text written, it has been placed into one big chunky paragraph instead of perhaps separating them into columns like on the #3 lyric booklet, which makes it harder to read and generally would be quite overwhelming to look at for the audience.

The back page of the booklet features the exact same text/illustration as that on the back cover of the Digipak.


CD The two designs for the CDs present in the

Digipak have been designed to specifically tie-in with the design of the Digipak.

The designs are kept simple to prevent overwhelming the audience, and there are clear distinctions between the two different CDs which is useful as it won’t confuse the audience.

The first CD is covered in the same pale blue colour seen on the front of the Digipak, with simply the album’s title, the singer’s name and the disc number in the big chunky illustrated font seen on the entire Digipak.

The second CD is kept to the exact same style, except the background colour is made the same beige colour seen on the inside of the Digipak.


CONCLUSIONIn conclusion, there are various things I can learn from my analysis of the three Digipaks, and there are definitely particular elements I want to take forward into my coursework.With Viva La Vida, I particularly liked the abstract design of the artwork, I felt like it really stood out from the others and would definitely be one of the more memorable designs. With my chosen music, the singer is quite open to abstract designs himself as I have seen on his artwork and the website, so this is definitely applicable to my coursework.With #3, I really like the layout of the Digipak itself as I think that the functionality works well. I like the 3 different components to the Digipak, with two pouches on either end for the CDs and then having the lyric booklet glued into the center to stop it from getting lost. If I wasn’t to do a 2CD special edition album for my coursework, I know that there are also other alternatives, such as offering collectible artwork cards or a DVD.Lastly, with Right Place, Right Time, I preferred the content and layout of the lyric booklet over the other two that I analysed. The lyrics weren’t over written making them lengthy, and the text was clear and easy to read on all pages. I also like that they remembered to include the lyrics for the additional songs in comparison to #3.

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Digipak textual analysis