Digipak Research

Digipak Research

What is a Digipak?

Digipaks typically consist of a gatehold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. It means the CD comes in a cardboard flip-out case rather than a standard plastic hinged case.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

What is included in a Digipak?

Photographs/ pictures-usually at least one will be of the artist(s) and another might be of a scene that reflects the mood/ genre of the record.
Track List including song writing credits.
One box with a Disk impression (perhaps a circle over an innocuous background that shows where the disk will go or alternatively design on the actual disk).
A Band/Artist information section (names, instruments, additional musicians, Copyright and year of release etc).
Barcode and QR and a Logo for the record company.
Possibly reference to other albums by the same artist(s).
Sometimes Digipaks include: Membership postcard/ flier and or a Free image/poster.

Analysis of Digipaks

Avenged Sevenfold: "Diamonds in the Rough"

The first thing that is incredibly noticeable about this digipak is that of the use of the imagery on the album cover. The images of the five skeletons are supposed to represent each of the five band members, each with their respected instruments and the fact that they are in the foreground and more or less in the middle of the image so therefore are the first thing that jumps out to you. The imagery behind them of the burning buildings can represent the fast and heavy music that the band plays. The fact that the band's name and name of their album is shown in bright colours and is shown on the middle also helps the bands as it makes the album look much more eyecatching.

Judas Priest: "British Steel" 

Here is the digipak of Judas Priest's album "British Steel". The first thing that I notice is on the front cover we see the image of a razor blade with Judas Priest and British Steel written on it which easily gives us the idea of Steel which the blade would be made out of and the idea of British would come from the fact that they are a heavy metal English band. The fact that the background of the image is just black makes the image look even sharper. On the inside of the digipak we can see the three disks each following the same silver colour of the blade followed with the black background. Then is the two images on the left and right which shows a destroyed city which looked like was burned thanks to the buildings being black and with a red sky. The images on this digipak help to promote the mood of the album and the genre of music (heavy metal). The colours also help to promote this idea because colours like silver or white on top of the black often helps to promote the idea of heavy metal, another album cover that proves this idea is that of Avenged Sevenfold's "Hail to the King".