This document analyzes and summarizes three different album digipaks: 1) Youmeatsix – Sinners Never Sleep has a black and white design that fits the band's style of music. Fingerprints and mugshots on the inside suggest a crime theme. 2) Mental Discipline – Fallen Stars has a galactic space theme with red, black, and silver colors that fit the album title. Images of falling stars and a radar CD design capture the concept. 3) Chip Taylor – New Songs of Freedom has a country style but modern design with a bright CD and cover images representing freedom. Arrows are used effectively to draw attention.

1. Analysis of
Digipaks

3. Youmeatsix – Sinners Never
SleepThis was a digipak that I already owned and thought it was a very good one
to analyse. Firstly the casing is all black and white which I really like as I
think it works well with their style of music and looks very cool. The inside 3
panels are set out with of of fingerprints and things you would have when
trying to figure out an investigation. It also has the signatures of the band
members to make it seem more personal as well as a picture of the band to
reinforce the fact it is their album. Moreover, the package is either designed
in a way to suggest that the band are suspects or in some kind of crime. At
the top of the middle panel it reads ‘sorry you're grounded’ which has been
handwritten, this could be to appeal to the teenage market who listen to their
music. Inside the middle panels are small cards of all of the members having
a mug shot taken to further highlight the crime theme the digipak is trying to
convey. There is also the CD which is quite plain but has ‘bite my tongue’
which is a popular song off the album. Moreover, there is a small booklet of
all the songs and the lyrics to those songs and a thank you note on the back
of that which is something commonly found in CD cases. On the back 3
panels is the front cover of the album, the songs on the album and a picture
to just fill a panel. Again, I really like the structure and layout of everything
and it shows that simplistic layouts can be effective,
Overall I really like the digipak and think it is very effective for the type of
music and general style of the band as they are quite punk rock.
Furthermore, I think the black and white colour scheme and layout is quite
cool and will appeal the the target audience of the band.

5. Mental Discipline – Fallen Stars
I found this digipak and thought that it was quite interesting as it has a
galactic/space theme to it. The colours used work really well wit the
theme as it is very red, black silver and then the front cover is more
yellow/orange. As the title of the album is ‘fallen stars’ the space theme
purposely fits very well. The cover is of two falling starts to further
emphasise the idea and the colours are very galactic and look really
good on the front cover. The inside panels have a CD which again fits
with the concept of the packaging, it looks like a radar that would be used
in a space ship and the almost solid black makes it stand out more
against the background. The panels to the side are a red and black
galaxy-like image which looks really cool as the red Is very bright and
vibrant and adds a nice depth of colour that would other wise not be
there. The white writing stands out well and is easy to read which is
important. Moreover, the text font used is really effective as it is the type
of font you would see in a space film etc. The overall theme also fits very
well with the techno style of music that this album has.
As a whole I think it is a very well designed digipak and whilst it is simple
the space theme is very cool and looks really good as everything on the
case it themes so it looks like a well put together case.

7. Chip Taylor – New Songs of Freedom
The overall theme of the digipak looks very cool, I think the colours and
use of shapes is very effective and slightly different. Whilst I think the
packaging does look like it reflects the country style of the album, I do think
it looks slightly too modern to really capture what the style of the music is
like. However, I do still really like it. The CD is very bright with a white
background and red writing and a blue megaphone. The colour scheme is
red, white brown and blue which is why I like the actually CD design and it
stands out a big more with the white background. The front and back cover
with the hand and the megaphone look very artsy and could possibly have
a more subtextual meaning to speak out carry the message of ‘freedom’.
The back has the songs of the album which is a common convention of
album packaging. The writing on the inside panels is in different colours
and some is facing a different way which fits the slightly disjoined fell the
digipak has. The repeated use of arrows s very effective as it is drawing
peoples attention to what they are pointing to as a big red or white arrow
will intrigue whoever is looking at it.
I think this is a very well designed digipak and will use it as a good
influence for use of shapes and drawing attention to the things I want
people to look at on the casing.