Q1

Digipak

Example digipak

Image split across three cd pockets

Digipak

Conventions & ChallengesWhen 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.

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.

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.

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.