education trilogy

1. Digipaks

2. Kanye West - Graduation
Kanye West’s third and final album of the education ‘trilogy’ ‘Graduation’ digipak was designed by Japanese artist Takashi
Murakami. Murakami is known for his bold and colourful, popular culture inspired art work and has been dubbed ‘The
Warhol of Japan’. As well as this Murakami has worked with fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, supreme and Commes des
Garcons. This is important to remember as Kanye West is known for his fashion and art backgrounds. The digipak itself is a
very colourful and detailed image (common for Murakami’s style) and although fairly abstract, the image does have a story.
The image depicts a bear being shot out of a cannon, with a range of characters celebrating their graduation (hence the
album title). The colours used in the artwork suggests the day is setting, this could be analysed further to say that the time of
his bright and vibrant days of university is over and the sun setting suggests he is about to get a reality check of the real world
as he is propelled into it by himself. Due to all these scenes being in the music video for the albums single good morning, this
could be suggested as Kanye’s motif for the trilogy of the education trilogy, this could be done so that his audience have a

3. • As well as telling a story the front cover
of the digipak uses the bright colours to
appeal to his target audience. In the
image we see Kanye’s trademark
’mascot’: Dropout Bear being shot out
of a cannon, while classmates celebrate
graduation, this scene is shown in the
Good Morning music video. By basing
the digipak art cover on the music
video, this was used as a trailer like
video for the album as well as being
shown at the Brooklyn Museum along
with other pieces of Murakami’s work.
Front Cover

4. Back cover
• Continuing to tie the album artwork
and music video together, Kanye
shows the reverse of the front cover,
this could be suggested that there is
a relationship between the visuals
and lyrics of the music video, that is
also being shown in the cover art,
due to this image being in the music
video.