The document discusses conventions for different parts of a digipak album packaging, including the front cover, back cover, spine, inside covers, and behind disc covers. The front cover conventionally features the artist name and album title, as well as the artist image. The back cover conventionally includes the song list, track numbers, barcode, record label info, and copyright details. The spine conventionally displays the artist name, album title, record label logo, and serial number. While inside covers have flexibility, conventions include relating to the overall design and featuring lyrics. Behind disc covers are unconventionally designed with lyrics rather than images to add uniqueness.
2. FRONT COVER
The front cover of an album is used to
promote and artist to an audience, freely
expressing their style and genre which will
encourage and audience to pick up to
album. I have featured both the name of
the album and artist on the front cover of
my digipak, something which is
conventional as it allows the audience to
know who the artist is and what album they
are buying. This was a particularly important
with my artist as this would be his debut
album meaning people may not know who
he is and not featuring his name would
have meant the audience wouldn’t know
who he is. My front cover also features an
image of the artist, something that again is
important for the reasons stated above.
Another convention I followed was to have
a consistent font throughout the text on my
front cover. This creates a cohesion on the
piece which is important to make the piece
appealing to an audience.
3. BACK COVER
On a digipak, the back cover is where all the
important information is held such as song lists, the
artists record company and the barcode. For this
reason it was important for me to stick to the
conventions featured on back cover. Featuring the
track list and album name on the back cover are
both conventional and I have displayed them
conventionally, going vertically down in the order
they appear on the album as well as having the
track number at the side. I have also placed the
barcode and record labels logo on the back
cover, something which is important for the back
cover. I have also included the information on the
executive producers on the album as well as all the
copyright information that is important for the back
of the album. I have also kept the font consistent
throughout the back cover with all the song
information being in one font and the track
numbers/bonus disc being in a different font in
order to distinct them from the track list. The
information at the bottom is also in a different font
in order to make it look more official which is
conventional of back covers. Finally the album
name is in the same font as the front cover and
also separates itself from the rest of the text due to
being yellow.
4. SPINE
The spine on a digipak is important as in
many music shops this is what would be
displayed to the audience meaning this is
how they’d get their first impressions of the
album. I have included the artist and album
name on the spine which is conventional as
it tells the audience which album they are
looking at which may cause them to look at
the album. They text is easy to read as it
needs to be so that the audience can
quickly read it as he is flicking through
albums. Also featured on the spine is the
record labels logo and a serial number
which I noticed appear on many albums,
something I didn’t know and found out in
my research. I have also used the same font
featured on my front and back cover which
is conventional as it helps keep the album
cohesive. I have also positioned the
information on the spine conventionally as it
makes it easier for the audience to know
where to look for the information they want
to know.
5. INSIDE COVERS
With the inside covers there wasn’t any specific
conventions I needed to follow and for this
reason I was able to play around with the
design as much as I wanted to. However, there
is still a couple of conventions that I followed on
my inside covers with the main one being them
relating to the rest of my product. My inside
cover features pictures of both my artist and
locations I have featured in my music video.
The first cover features an image of the
location where my artist preforms the song and
the second cover features an image of my
artist walking down the same street I used in my
music video. It is conventional of inside covers
to feature the artist and I chose to feature mine
on one of my images. However, you cannot
see the face of my artist which is
unconventional. I decided to break this
convention as I felt it worked well with the
theme of my album. I also found that multiple
inside covers features lyrics from songs featured
on the album. I liked this idea and decided to
incorporate it into my product.
6. BEHIND DISCS
For my covers that would go behind
the disc I wanted to do something
that was rather unique and came up
with the idea to have blank
background with lyrics from the songs
featured on it and I believe this idea
works well with the theme of my
album. Due to this these covers are
unconventional with what you could
normally find. Usually the back cover
would feature a pattern or an image
of the artist with no text on it. I
decided against this for the reasons I
have stated above. I believe doing
this has added a unique spin to my
covers which will make it appeal to
my audience and also allow them to
bond with the artist as his lyrics are
featured throughout the digipak.