Digipak - Research

So what is the importance of the Digipak?
The cover of the Digipak is the first thing the customers are going to see when they walk into the music store and so it must be able to catch the eye of any potential buyers. The cover must represent the artist and also give the public an idea of the genre of music they'll find when they buy the music. The picture on the front of the album isn't just going to be on the CD, it will be seen in magazines, on t-shirts, on the internet and on television. This means that it's vital to get the cover right first time and make sure that it represents everything about the band and the music. The colour scheme and house style must be consistent through all four panels of the digipak. For our media products we''ll be looking to use dark colours because the majority of our music video is filmed at night time.


What design do we put on the cover?

Looking at existing products from our genre of music it seems that half have computer animated images/cartoons on the cover and half have photos. Something they all have in common is that they're all abstract and slightly edgy, this reflects the music genre. We are thinking of taking a screenshot out of our music video and editing it using photoshop. This way there will be clear coherence between all of our media products, this is essential.


Are the other three panels even important?
When I first heard about this part of the project this question came to mind, but now I've realised that this is a silly question. If the other three panels didn't matter then you would have a lot of disappointed customers when they buy and open the CD. The back cover and both inside panels must share the same house style and themes as the front cover so the audience have a way of identifying the album (eg. the fluorescent CD or the desaturated CD). The inside panels is where the audience are going to actually find the CD so they will pay attention to the designs as they pluck the CD from the "teeth" of the hub which secures the disc in place.