A analysis on exsisting digipacks and magazine posters from the band Pendulum for my A2 Media Studies coursework.

1. Digipak Analysis: Pendulum
By Steve Gillies

2. Digipack Analysis: Immersion
The digipack for the album “Immersion” has a big
underwater theme, although the colour scheme is still
quite dark. The underwater theme represents the
name of the album (Immersion) as the two people on
the CD cover are immersed in a different, underwater
world.
The darkness at the bottom of the ocean could also
represent the unknown, and not being able to see
what lies ahead, however to be fully immersed in
life, you need to go deeper into the unknown and try
new things, this could tie with Pendulum’s
experimental attitude to the album, with reviews
saying that tracks such as “The Island” and “Self Vs.
Self” break away from the bands traditional genre.

3. Digipack analysis: Witchcraft
The digipack for the single “Witchcraft” is based heavily around
the image of a large fluorescent eye. Eyes are often featured in
Pendulum’s music videos and CD covers for unknown reasons.
In this case it may have been used as the first line of lyrics of
the single are “It’s in your eyes, a colour fade out”. Or it could
be used as a symbol, the idea that eyes are “the doorways to
the soul” and that Pendulum use this song almost as a
portal, to transport the listen to a different place or a different
way of thinking, which reinforces Pendulum’s mantel as
“outcasts” and not fitting in with labels.
The unnatural colours around and of the eye itself ties in with
the single’s title “Witchcraft” with an eye of a mysterious
person/creature creating a feeling of the paranormal and
something going against nature, which could also be used to
re-present the music genres Pendulum explore in the single
and in their other work, as Pendulum’s music does go against
“natural” ideas of music, with a lot of it being computerised
synths and it being recorded in a very digitalised
process, there is a sense of mystery and unpredictability in the
band and the music, and I feel that those ideas have been
captured in this digipack design. At first glance there isn’t a lot
going on here, but the use of colour and symbolism create a
greater sense of meaning without overloading the viewer with
messages.

4. Digipak Analysis: In Silico
Pendulum’s second album, titled “In Silico” meaning “created
by or performed on a computer” is the first time the band logo is
seen on a digipack from them, the round maze like disc, this
time in different colours with a fetus in the centre. Behind
appears to be a circuit board, which is blue in colour on a black
background. It follows the usual Pendulum themes in the fact
the background colours are often very dark/black, with the
colours in the foreground being much more bright and colourful.
The fetus in the centre of the logo, when coupled to the album
title could be an intertextual reference to Nirvana’s album “In
Utero” which literally translates as “in the womb” so this album
could paint an idea of being “born digitally” in a computerised
world, as well as highlighting the contrast in styles and
differences of the two bands, which again portrays Pendulum
as breaking away from accepted forms and conventions and
as a band that “stands on it’s own” in terms of genre, which
appeals to existing fans who like the idea of not fitting in and
being themselves rather than feeling trapped into conforming
with the rest of society.

5. Digipack Analysis: Hold Your Colour
This is the digipack for Pendulum’s debut album entitled
“Hold Your Colour” it features a picture of an eye on a
green background, with some other colours such as white,
blue and purple also visible. The title “Hold Your Colour”
suggests ideas of personal identity and taking pride in
yourself, the fact that it is only an eye portrayed on the
cover suggests that’s all that the person has left,
everything else has been taken away. The band are telling
people with this design to hold onto their values, as their
own identity is something that can never be taken from
them.
It establishes the bands image as being defiant and
breaking away from being “held down” and restricted by
labels, by being themselves no matter what they can have
a greater sense of freedom. This appeals to fans, who
might also struggle to find a place in a world that constantly
tries to put things into categories, what Pendulum are
saying is that the world is a lot more complicated than that
and that people should just accept that and not try and find
similarities between different things.

6. Digipack analysis: Live at Brixton
The final digipack I’m going to analyse is from Pendulum’s special edition
“live at Brixton Academy” album. Released in between albums “In Silico”
and “Immersion” this release is Pendulum’s only release that comes with a
CD and a DVD, so is going to be the main yardstick by which we compare
our coursework to. The front cover is on a black background, which gives it
a familiar feel to Pendulum fans, who will most likely associate the band
with the dark colours they wear. It has the bands logo on it in white, and
then the band name and album title in red lettering. The colours contrast
each other well and stand out from their background, this could once again
be a way that Pendulum are using to say that standing out from the crowd
and the conventions of society are good, and that personal identity is the
one thing that matters most.
This album design is very minimalistic
in comparison to other Pendulum
releases, mainly because it is only re-
representing existing Pendulum songs
and ideas, it suggests that the band are
comfortable with where they are at the
current time, which will reassure fans
due to the stability the band offers as a
constant in their lives.

7. Magazine Advert analysis
As we are also required to create a magazine advert for
our digipack, I have also decided to analyse some
existing magazine adverts that Pendulum have used, the
common themes from them are that the band name is
stylised in the same front on every advert. This gives
consistency to text and means that the fans can feel
secure about what a Pendulum advert looks like, they can
see the font at the top of the page and immediately know
it’s advertising their band. The adverts also heavily
feature versions of the band logo, as seen in two far left
adverts.
Also, a lot of the colour theme ideas that have been used
on digipacks have been carried through here, with the
dark/black background being contrasted by light/colourful
colours in the foreground again by making the adverts
similar to the product itself gives the band a sense of
synergy in the way that everything under the “Pendulum
brand” follows the same forms and conventions, even if
the Pendulum Brand itself does not fit in with other forms
and the ideas of genre.

8. Conclusion
To summarise, the majority of Pendulum digipacks consist of dark
background colours, with contrasting/colourful foregrounds, the
incorporate the bands logo into a lot of their designs, as well as the
use of images of human eyes. On an ideological scale, the main
messages Pendulum try to portray in their digipacks are that of
strong personal identity, breaking the mould and going against what
society expects you to do as well as standing by your morals no
matter what. This was expected due to Pendulum not really fitting
into any music category or genre and very much ignoring the
constraints that the music industry often imprints onto various genres
and types on music.