The digipack for Rihanna's 2010 album LOUD uses symbolic colors and imagery to represent themes of love, sex, and relationships. Red is prominently featured, symbolizing love and sex. The front cover presents Rihanna's face, while the inside cover depicts her in a white dress surrounded by red roses, symbolizing romance. In contrast, the back cover shows Rihanna in minimal clothing, meant to appear seductive and represent sex. Together, the three images suggest different stages of a relationship, though leaving the narrative intentionally vague.

1. The digipack of Rihanna’s LOUD album,
released in November 2010.
There is an iconic colour repeated
throughout this digipack, which is red,
seen in her hair, lips and roses used as
props. This colour reflects both love and
sex.
There are three main images; on the front cover,
inside and back cover are fairly contrasting in what
they represent. The inside cover
(image 1) has the red roses in
particular are an iconic representation
of love and romance while Rihanna is
wearing white items of clothing which reflect a
wedding dress which therefore represents romance
and long term love.
Where as the minimal clothing worn in the back cover (image 2) of shorts and a bra is seductive
representative of sex and thus characterises Rihanna is a provocative manner. Her body language
in this image is flirtatious yet reserved suggesting a representation of submission; a stereotypical
depiction of women in the media. The use of an American flag in the background of this image is
patriotic of America, and therefore would pull in an American audience, of which most of her fan
base in mostly made up of, and a large section of where this album would have been marketed at.
The make up worn by Rihanna on the front cover, including the scarlet red lip stick suggest,
passion and lust while the long fake eyelashes are flirtatious. Rihanna’s red hair is a unique and
alternative fashion statement, which becomes a binary opposite of the previous stereotypical
representations of her.
The back cover uses a long shot in order to see the as much of the artist as possible and well as
the hotel room setting. Placing Rihanna is a setting that people are used to seeing her in as this is
a place where musicians have to spend much of their time while being seen by thousands of
people at once. A long shot is again used for the inside cover image, this allows the image to be
placed into the context of love and marriage, where as the setting congrats the back cover as it is
shot outdoors, amongst nature where as image 2 see’s Rihanna on a stage.
These images both differ from the front cover, showing a close up image of the artist. Allowing the
audience to identify Rihanna.The indirect mode of address on the front cover further reflects the
submissive representation on the back cover, as explored previously.
The narrative of this digipack is romantic love and sex, and therefore the different stages of
relationships. However the order and other details are hidden; causing a narrative enigma.
This digipack is very modern of western ideas of popularity, love, women and music.
RIHANNA - LOUD digipack analysis
Image 1
Image 2