The document discusses conventions in digipak design that were followed and challenged for a new artist. It compares the design choices to Rihanna's digipak. While some conventions were followed, such as including the recording label information on the CDs, other choices challenged conventions. The front cover showed more of the artist rather than an extreme close-up to better convey their personality. The CD pockets, which are rarely used, displayed different aspects of the artist's personality across panels to appeal to a wider audience. Overall, the digipak design balanced following professional standards with innovations to introduce the new artist.

1. Q1
Digipak

2. Example digipak
Image split across three
cd pockets

3. Digipak

4. Conventions & Challenges
When creating the digipak I compared it to another female artist of
the same genre as my artist - Rihanna. The example digipak
composed of two CD’s with illustrations, a front cover with a large
scale image of the artist, and three CD pockets an image split
across them. Drawing inspiration from this, my digipak, to a great
extent, did not challenge this convention; however the fact that it
includes versions in differing languages shows a challenge to the
convention of an artist sticking to one language.

5. CD
As you can see from Rihanna’s digipak, the CD’s design consists of : (1) an illustration that connotes
specific meaning; often reflected in the main product & ancillary texts or as a reflection of the artist. (2) The
recording label’s information i.e. the small print.
Similarly, the CD’s in my digipak followed this convention as can be seen from: (1) the illustration of flags
reflect specific meaning for the artist, they represent the influence her background has had on her and her
dedication to uphold multiple representations of herself rather than to limit herself to one specific audience.
(2) Evidence of smallprint i.e. the recording label, can be seen on the bottom of the CD’s. It was important to
stick to this convention because the professionalism of the artist is very important; and seeing as the
professionalism of the digipak reflects this; then the smallprint is an essential component that cannot be
ignored.
Along with following some conventions, we also developed others. On Rihanna’s CD the name of the
product is very small as the main focus of establishing the product seems to be the front cover. However, I
decided that each product is as important as the other. Therefore, the artist’s name and the name of the
product are in relatively large font. This shows that we have valued the importance of an illustration on the
same level as emphasizing the importance of the artist in its construction.

6. Front Cover
The front cover has several purposes including emphasizing the theme of the artist’s product,
reflecting the personality of the artist themselves. When deciding what to do with our product
we agreed that we would aim to emphasize the artist’s personality as a priority. When comparing
our front cover to Rihanna’s it is notable that Rihanna’s image is an extreme close up whereas
ours is a medium close up; this convention can be seen with other artists of the same genre such
as Nicki Minaj (ref to picture top right above). Established artists can afford to do this because
audiences are already familiar with them, therefore the image begins to outshadow the product
itself.
It was important to show ‘more’ of our artist in the front cover because what she is wearing, her
body language, and even the background, is incredibly important in reflecting her personality.
Front Cover’s also tend to share connotations with the rest of the digipak, for example, in
Rihanna’s digipak there is a central theme of roses; therefore her rose-coloured makeup and hair
enforce this imagery. In our front cover, we wanted to emphasize the ‘urban’ beginnings of our
artist, with her hometown blurred in the background. In addition to this, her costume is typical of
what we consider an urban youth in today’s day and age (as we found in our audience research).
Summarily, by going against the convention of an extreme close up in the front cover, we were
able to expose more of our artist to her audience to allow for a more genuine, intimate
understand of who she is and what she stands for. This is significant for the success of any up and
coming artist.

7. CD Pockets
Research done into digipaks informed me that digipaks do not tend to have panels in the form
of ‘pockets’, subsequently, it can be said now that we did break convention by doing so. In
addition, it is also rare to have one single image laid out across several panels. We took
inspiration from Rihanna’s digipak and decided that we would also break from convention by
laying an image out across three panels. The panels also act as an opportunity to emphasize
further any themes of the digipak. For example, in Rihanna’s digipak she continues to enforce
the portrayal of innocence as she is laid out vulnerably among roses. We, in comparison,
decided that it was important to show that our artist was multi-faceted and that not only were
there multiple aspects to the album; but also multiple aspects to her personality. This is
important in establishing a new artist because you want to appeal to as vast an audience as
possible. Therefore the CD pockets were used to show the innocent, feminine side to our artist;
showing that she wasn’t just trying to appeal to urban audiences. The idea of the innocence of
our artist isn’t just something that randomly appears in the CD pockets, infact it is a theme that
appears throughout. Evidence of this is actually shown in the body language of the artist,
specifically by the artist looking away from the camera. This in turn emphasizes the
vulnerability, and indeed innocence, of the artist. It is a technique used by Rihanna throughout
her digipak because it invites audiences to learn more about the artist by not giving it all away.