analysing dance digipaks

1. By Laila Jaleel
Analysis of digipak’s

2. What is a digipak?
 A digipak is an album or single cover which
consists of cd’s containing the song/songs, a flip
case for the CD’s with an image on the front and
they will usually have a list of the name/s of the
songs of the album/single. The image on the front
of the digipak will usually be an image in which
relates to the artist or songs in order to represent
them in a way that they want to be represented.
Some digipaks may also contain special editions
of the CD however this can depend on the artist.

3. Analysing a digipak
 For this task I will be analysing a few digipak’s
myself. I have decided to analyse ‘Hed Kandi –
Serve Chilled: Electronic Summer’, ‘Ella Eyre –
Feline/Comeback’ and… because the genre of
these digipak’s is dance. It is important to
recogise what is needed for a dance genre
digipak because soon I will be making one myself
for our artist, who also comes under the genre of
dance. When analysing these digipak’s it is
important that I look at the image, colours, title,
text etc and analyse why they have been used.

4. Hed Kandi – Serve Chilled:
Electronic Summer
Lilac has been used for the
colour of the title because it is a
more outstanding and fun colour
compared to dull colours like
black. It is very clear just from
the front of the cover that the
songs of the CD will be come
under the dance genre and will
The image shown on the front of this digipak may
have been used because one of the codes and
conventions for a dance music video/ dance
genre is to see young people dancing having fun
etc. So using an image of a young girl who is
attractive, wearing jewellery, has nice hair,
appears to be glamorous etc. fits in with the
image that is portrayed through dance music.
Also, Hed Kandi is well known for making music
which is played a lot in Ibiza so the fact that this
record label is well known for that shows that this
type of music will be dance. Part of the title of this
album is ‘electronic summer’ which is also another
indicator that the songs come under dance genre.
It is important to do things like this because the
audience needs to know exactly what the genre is
just by looking at the front of the digipak. The
contrast of the cover is very bright which has
positive connotations as it gives of a summery
vibe, which is also conveyed through dance music
videos etc. The cartoon image of the girl shows

5. These are the CD’s inside of the digipak. It is
clear that there is a consistent theme of
colours running through the digipak. (This
happens to be the case for most digipaks). It
is important that the theme and colours are
consistent because it will allow the audience
to become familiar with one certain theme
and then therefore recognise the artist
because of it. I can tell from this digipak that
the audience being targeted would be young
(18-26), like to go out and party and also may
be targeted mainly at girls rather than boys
due to the colour theme. The reason I say this
is because, typically, lilac would be
The back of the digipak includes a list of songs
for each CD. This is an important thing to include
because the audience may want to know what
the name of a song is if they like it. We can see
that ‘Hed Kandi’ has been written quite a few
times along the sides of the digipak and on the
back which shows that they really want to be
recognised for their work. It is quite a clever idea
because seeing this kind of repetition will,
hopefully, make the audience remember who
Hed Kandi is quite well.

6. Lastly, this image shows a part of the inside of the digipak. Hed Kandi have
decided to write a little bit about the CD’s to explain the meaning and purpose of
them. The writing mainly talks about how the CDs are meant for summer and to
chill out.
CD 1
The first paragraph is
about CD 1 and it explains
a bit about the type of
music that will be heard on
this CD. The words
‘festival gates’ are
mentioned which, again,
clearly shows that their
target audience is people
who like to go out to
festivals to party and have
fun and listen to all kinds
of house/dance music. A
few of the artist are also
mentioned, like Julio
Bashmore, so that the
audience may be able to
recognise them and
become familiar.
CD 2
The next paragraph explains
that this CD has more varied
kinds of dance music such
as jazz, indie rock and
electronic summer vibes. It
goes on to explain that ‘by
now, the sun is setting
beautifully over the horizon’.
This could mean that this
CD consists of more chilled
out songs than the other.
Why?
The reason that they have
decided to write a bit about
the CD’s is to let the
audience know what the
CDs will be like before
they listen to them. This
allow the reader to make a
decision on whether or not
they will like the CD.

7. Ella Eyre - Feline
This is the image for Ella Eyre’s album digipak, ‘Feline’. This picture
is very dominating which has been portrayed in various ways. In this
image we see the artist, Ella Eyre, kneeling on a king sized bed and
along next to her on the floor is a lion. The fact that she is along side
a lion itself shows that she wants to be seen as powerful but the fact
that she is positioned at a higher level than the lion shows she
wants to be seen as the most powerful. Her hair is very curly and
big just like a lions mane, so it is clear that she has embraced this
and used it to her advantage to be portrayed like a lion. When we
think of lions we think of fierceness, power and dominance. Above
her we see that the name of the album is called ‘Feline’ so not only
does she want to be portrayed as a powerful person, but a powerful
woman. The main colour shown in these images is red. The colour
red is associated with danger, energy, power, passion, love and
determination which is how she is being portrayed.This image is the cover for Ella Eyre’s ‘Comeback’ single digipak. We can
see that she has stuck to a theme throughout her digipaks such as the
mood and colour theme. On both of the digipaks we can see that her name
is in capital letters at the top of the cover, with the lion cartoon in the middle
of ‘Ella’ and ‘Eyre’. The bold text comes across as more outstanding as the
back ground colours are rather dim (for both digipaks). The lion cartoon
may have been used as it is something that is unique to Ella Eyre therefore
when an audience sees this cartoon they may remember her because of it.
This kind of image may be seen as cool and trendy by an audience,
women in particular, therefore the audience may aspire to look and be like
Ella Eyre. There aren’t many codes and conventions to portray the dance
genre but instead, in this case, the focus has been on portraying what kind
of image the artist wants to be seen as which is just as important. From
analysing these digpaks I have realised that it is important to keep a

8. Calvin Harris
 These digipak covers are for one of Calvin Harris’s album.
Calvin Harris is well known for being a DJ so, already,
many people will be able to tell that that this album will
contain dance music. However the people who do not
know who he is should still be able to tell just by looking at
the cover. We see a cartoon image of Calvin Harris with
funky sunglasses on. This could be associated with
summer and summer is something that can help portray a
fun, dance image. Also ‘Calvin Harris’ is written along the
sides of the cover in digital writing. As is it written in digital,
some may associated that with technology and technology
to dance music because dance music is created by
technology. On the first digipak we can see that it says
‘ACCEPTABLE IN THE 80s’ and the 80s is when dance
music started to become very popular. This kind of hint will
allow the audience to have an idea of what the album will
consist of. The second digipak has ‘I CREATED DISCO’
written along the bottom so, once again, a hint has been
used to tell the audience that the music will be dance (as
disco’s are associated with dance music). Also bright
colours have been used such as orange and yellow.
These have positive connotations which fit with the happy

9. Feedback
 Analysing these digipaks has been useful
because it has shown me what kind of things I
should be thinking about when coming on to
making my own digipak. When my group does
come on to making our own, we will make sure
that our artist will be portrayed in the way that we
want her to be (fun, youthful, carefree), that there
will be a consistent theme running throughout the
digipak, that bright colours will be used and that
the font of the title will fit with the theme too.