The document analyzes and compares the packaging designs of 5 indie rock albums. It finds that most digipaks have between 6-10 pages, with barcodes typically on the bottom left corner and websites listed above the barcode or in acknowledgements. Track listings usually appear on the left side with song numbers. Acknowledgements are usually in the back. Front and back covers commonly use black and white themes, while track listings use white text on black. All album spines include the artist, title, and catalog code. Comparing design elements provides insights into effectively designing a digipak.

1. Molly Perryman

2. Reverend & The Makers
‘The State Of Things’
Reverend & The Makers are an indie pop band based in Sheffield, UK and are signed to Wall Of Sound.
‘The State Of Things’ is the band’s debut album.
The front cover to the album is very simple – the title of the album in a capital font in black on a white
background.
The track listing on the back is in the same font as the front cover but in a much smaller size and in white
writing on a black background.
The back cover of the digipak shows people in a laundrette
with things that relate to songs on the album eg. newspaper with a headline that states ‘murder at number
34’ which is a line from one of the songs.

3. Reverend & The Makers
‘The State Of Things’
Digipak
The inside of the digipak is different to the front
cover, track listings and back cover of the digipak as
it contains lyrics in different styles.
The first two pages of the digipak show lyrics on dull
colours eg grey, white and black. The pages in the
middle of the digipak show the lyrics in a very
colourful way eg. pink, back ground and lyrics in
red, white and blue to make up the Union Jack
which represents the patriotic approach to the
album as the album is based on the possible events
you’d relate to the lower class environment of
Britain.
The acknowledgements are written out on the last
two page spread which include the name of the
tracks and who was involved, who the band are,
who was involved in production of the album and
their website address.
This digipak is made up of 8 pages (print on both
sides). There are 12 sides of lyrics as there are 12
songs, 2 sides of acknowledgements and the front
and back cover of the digipak.

4. Feeder ‘The Singles’
Feeder are an alt rock band based in Newport, Wales and their album titled ‘The Singles’ is a
compilation album which features 18 of their UK top 40 hit singles.
The front cover of the digipak shows the front man Grant Nicholas jumping in the air with his guitar.
In white capitol letters on the black and white picture it has ‘Feeder The Singles’ written a quarter
way up the cover from the bottom. The band name is much thicker than the title of the album.
The track listing on the back in written in capitol letters with numbers before the song titles.
The band name and album also appear on the back on the top left hand corner.
It is a very similar layout to that of Reverend & The Makers ‘The State Of Things’ track listing.
The back cover of the digipak shows the bassist Taka Hirose playing his bass guitar.
This is also in black and white.

5. Feeder
‘The Singles’
Digipak
All of the images in this CD are in black and white.
The first two inside pages of the digipak show
various images of the band eg. Posing in a photo
shoot style or playing live on a stage.
This is the same for the middle two pages.
The last two pages show the drummer on the left
hand side playing live whilst on the right there is a
list of acknowledgements with the band name and
album title shown above.
This page also has their website link.
The digipak is made up of 6 pages (12 sides) of
images in black and white apart from the last page
of acknowledgements.

6. Gorillaz ‘Demon Days’
Gorillaz are an alternative rock band from Essex,UK that are unique as they are a virtual band
because they are represented as animated characters.
‘Demon Days’ is the second studio album by Gorillaz which feature 15 songs.
The front cover of the digipak show the band in their own square on a white background to
make up a bigger square of all four of them.
The band name is written in white capitols at the top of the squares whilst the album title is
shown beneath the squares in white capitol letters.
The track listing is different to the previous two albums researched as the black capitol writing of
the song titles are on a white background.
The number of the track is written in letters before the name of the song.
There are also images of the band on the track listing cover which doesn’t seem to be common
on indie rock albums.

7. Gorillaz ‘Demon Days’
Digipak
This digipak is different to all the others I’ve
analysed as it is one long line of images.
It is of a poster layout instead of a booklet and
each square has an image to represent each
song on the album.
There is no lyrics in the images but the title of the
song is shown in different ways.
The acknowledgements are shown on the back
of the digipak in white writing on a black
background.
The back also has copyrights and a link to their
official website.
I like this digipak as it is visually artistic and is
unusual for an alt rock band to have as the
images are very urbanised.

8. Biffy Clyro ‘Puzzle’
Biffy Clyro are a alt rock band from Scotland and ‘Puzzle’ is there
fourth studio album.
The album cover from Puzzle shows a man with puzzle pieces all
over his body. He is sat down on a wooden stall holding his head in
his hands. One puzzle piece is missing from his body and is on the
floor. There is an open doorway with two people in black dragging out
another man in black.
The track listing is white writing on a black background with the
number of track in red numbers before the song titles.
The back cover of the digipak also has the track listing in white
writing but on a zoomed in part of the image of the fron cover.

9. Biffy Clyro ‘Puzzle’ Digipak
The first two inside pages of the digipak show the
acknowledgements on the left hand side and the
right it shows a picture of a man with a snake
around his neck with bats flying above his head.
There is writing with more acknowledgements.
The middle two pages of the digipak is a picture of
the band with lyrics to one of their songs on the left
hand page.
The last two pages of the digipak have lyrics to
more of their songs. The image underneath the
lyrics on the left hand side is of the band and on
the right hand side is a zoomed in image of the
puzzle piece on the floor from the front cover.
This digipak is a booklet of 10 pages (20 sides of
images and lyrics and the acknowledgements)
The main theme of the digipak reflects the dark,
mysterious tones of the album. The images are
heartfelt and have a strong link to emotions related
loss of a loved one as this album is based on the
passing of the front man Simon Neil’s mother.
The band’s website isn’t included in this digipak.

10. Kaiser Chiefs ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’
Kaiser Chiefs are an indie rock band from Leeds, UK. Their album ‘Your Truly, Angry Mob’ is the
band’s second studio album.
The front cover is very simple as it is a mid shot of the whole band stood next to each other which is
placed at the bottom of the cover whilst the band name and album title is featured at the top of the
cover.
The font used for the album titled is different to the band title as the album title looks medieval but the
band name is in capitol letters in a more simple font but both in a very dark brown colour on the pale
yellow/cream background.
The track listing on the back is different to the others I’ve analysed because the song titles are on the
right hand side instead of the left like the other albums.
The writing is quite small in size and has no coloured fill in the lettering so it is harder to read than the
others.
There are copyrights and company logos on the track listing cover too.

11. Kaiser Chiefs
‘Your Truly, Angry Mob’
Digipak
The first two pages of this digipak shows an image of the
bassist going to touch a cactus on the left hand side and
lyrics on the right hand side that carry onto all the right
hand pages apart from the middle and last two.
All the left hand side pages apart from the middle and last
two show a picture of a member of the band doing a
random thing eg. looking through binoculars or eating out
of a can of baked beans.
The middle pages show a dark garden with random items
such as a fake dog and a head of a mannequin.
The name of the band features in lights between the
objects. The picture is very dark which contrasts to the
entire artwork of the album because it is very light
coloured.
The back cover of the digipak is also dark like the middle
pages and is of a closer up image of the band name in
lights.
The last two pages of the digipak have acknowledgements
on the left hand side and a sketch of the album cover on
the right hand side.
This digipak made up of 8 pages (16sides) of images and

12. Album Spines
All of these spines have the name of the band is the chosen font used to represent the artist on
their album art work.
They all have the album title on the spine along with a catalog number assigned by the record
label so the CD can be tracked.
3/5 CD’s I analysed have one or all of the associated record labels who made the album.
One CD has the bands logo on the spine (Biffy Clyro’s).
All bar one of these indie/alt rock cd spines are black with white writing on.

13. Album
The State Of Things
The Singles
Demon Days
Puzzle
Yours Truly, The
Angry Mob
Theme/Colour
s
Black and white –
Black on white front, vice
versa back.
Black and white all the
way through.
Black and white with
colourful animated
characters. Digipak very
colourful and exciting.
Orange, brown. Black,
white and red.
Pale yellow/cream,
brown and black.
White.
Track listing
In the middle, slightly to the
left. Capitol letters in white.
Numbers.
Left hand side.
Numbers. Titles above
songs. Capitol letters.
Left hand side. Lettered
numbers. Capitol letters.
Black text on white.
Left hand side. Red
numbers. White writing
on dark b.ground. Titles.
Right hand side.
Numbers. Hard to read.
Small. Black no fill.
Barcodes
Bottom right hand side of the
track listing cover,
Bottom left hand side of
the track listing cover.
Bottom left hand side of
track listing cover.
Underneath recording
associates (near bottom
left hand corner)
Bottom right hand
corner.
Website
Above the barcode.
Last page of digipak in red.
On last page of digipak.
Above barcode and back
cover of digipak.
Below bar code in red
writing.
Above bar code.
Second to last page.
Acknowledge
ments
On last two page spread of
digipak.
On last page of digipak.
Back page of digipak.
First two pages of
digipak.
Second to last page of
digipak.
Number of
digipak pages
8
6
1 long page folded into
18 squares.
10
8
Lyrics
For every song but not the
full set of lyrics.
None.
None – titles of songs.
All songs and words but
not full structure.
All songs and words but
not full structure.
Images
Back cover of digipak and
lyrics are made into images.
Every page but the last.
On every square but the
back cover. Track listing
cover.
Every page that has
lyrics on/front/back
cover of digipak.
Front/back digipak
cover. Middle/every left
hand side but last page.
Overall design
The front cover and track
listing cover are very basic
and easy to read. Inside the
digipak it gets more colourful
and exciting.
Simple like the
previous. Black and
white all the way
through. Images all the
way through. Not very
exciting.
Different.. Colourful and
creative that is relevant.
Digipak images represent
each song and each
image is unique.
Front and back cover
simple but interesting.
Deep tones of orange is
different. Images reflect
the songs and feel of
the album. Images are
very artistic and can be
viewed differently by
different people.
Simple, a picture and
titles. Random images
make the whole theme
seem irrelevant to the
music which is what
they are trying to
represent which is
demonstrated by middle
pages in digipak.
WWW/EBI
The simplicity is easy to read
but it’s not easy to tell that is
of an indie band. More
relevance,
It is easy to read and
unlike the previous we
can see it is indie as
the images show that.
Outside covers are
simple to see. The back
has more relevance to
genre. Overall good.
Makes you think about
the images which is
different but reflects
deep meaning of album.
A stronger theme was
held because it’s hard
to grasp their ideas
without looking through
entire digipak.

14. Digipak Summary
I have learnt that most digipaks have between 6-10 pages, 2 of the 5 analysed have 8 pages
which have a bit of images as well as lyrics.
3/5 CDs had their barcode on the bottom left hand corner and 3/5 cds had their website
address above the barcode as well as having it on their acknowledgements page inside the
digipak.
The majority of the track listings were on the left hand side in capitol letters with numbers
before the song titles. 2/5 had the artist name and album title at the top of the track listings.
Most of the digipaks had acknowledgements at the back of the digipak except for one who had
acknowledgments on the first two inside pages of the digipak.
Most of the CDs had a black and white theme on the front and back cover.
Most of the track listings were white text on a black background.
All of the spines had catalog codes and the name of the artist and title of the album.
On the track listing cover there were copyrights/rights information in smaller text.
From this information I can design a digipak that will be suitable for my target audience.