CD Digipack

Research: The History of The Album Cover

The first disc records, ones that we would recognize as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.

In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensible to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.

Beginning in the 1930s the record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.

Alex Steinweiss the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design. By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.

The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.

Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.

As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.

Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.

In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.

In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.  

iTunes show all album covers that you own to find music quicker.

iTunes also have a way of showing all albums in a way that displays a lot more at once.

CLICK HERE to watch a video which provides an interesting take on the implications of album artwork in relation to marketing.

Digipack Analysis'

      

Digipack analysis of Nicole Shersinger's 'Killer Love'

By doing these 4 digipack analysis', I have been able to find out what types of things I should be looking out for when creating my own. I now know that I should try to include a dominant image that will draw people into the digipack from a distance and try to use colours that can compliment each other well and help make the image I want to stand out, stand out more than anything else on the cover. I should also try to use the same Font throughout, I can change the colour of the font but keeping it the same will add a lot of continuity and will give it a very professional look. The majority of the information should feature on the back of the cover where less people will look first and I should only feature the artist name, album name and image on the front if possible. Also, I will try and keep the same colour scheme throughout so that the digipack flows and doesn't look messy with a range of bright colours and then darker shades that will not look good together.

 Research: Common Conventions of CD Digipack

Front Cover:

On the front of a digipack, you may find a few different features. These can include things like album name, artist name and an image which will predominantly take center stage of the cover. These three things are the most common features and will most likely appear on all/the majority of digipacks you will see. Most digipacks will try and use as little features as possible on the front cover so that they can put their artist's image in the spotlight and make them stand out, due to the fact that this is what you will be looking at if you are in a shop buying the digipack. They will make them stand out by using bright colours which are complimented by a darker background, lifting the artist image of off the digipack a lot more.

If we look at Michael Jackson's 'This Is It', we are able to see that it features the album name, artist name and an image that covers most of the cover. Though there is some more text at the top of the front cover, it still includes the three main features of a digipack cover. The image is very noticeable due to Michael Jackson being so famous and recognized for his dance moves and is made to stand out even more by the bright colouring used within his body.

Back Cover

A back cover of a digipack will have a lot more information than the front as it isn't the first thing you will see when shopping for one. However, it is definitely something that will still be looked at the moment after you have looked at the front. On the back you will find information such as the albums song list, record label, record logo, barcode, QR code, and perhaps some added information about the album. You may also find an image similar to the one on the front but this may not be the case as it isn't trying to catch your eye as much as the front cover was. In the added information, you will most likely find some copyright statements and licensing agreements. This will be in smaller writing however as it is not what they want you to turn your attention to when looking at the covers. Contact information may also feature on the back as well, for example websites, social media and phone numbers will be included in contact information to find out more about either the album or perhaps the artist.

Again, if we go back to Michael Jackson's digipack for 'This Is Us' we are able to see that he supports the song list, record labels and logos and a little more added information. There is again another picture of Michael with the bright colours filling his body.

Planning: CD Digipack Ideas

Design Idea 1:

With this idea, i am using a bottle of alcohol which looks like it has smoke coming from it as the main centre piece of the digipack and will try to keep it as minimalistic as possible. This is common throughout some other indie pop/rock covers which i have seen whilst developing my ideas. It features the 100 emoji as it is a common emoji which is recognised a lot by teens and young adults when using social media and will add some interest to the inside of the pack, to make it not too boring.

Design Idea 2:

This design is based around a theme of skulls and flowers. I personally believe that this is a good design as it relates well the genre of indie pop/rock. The flowers that are coming out of the skull and that feature around the rest of the pack will add some colour to the digipack. The skull will be a pale white colour as well and the background will be a mild grey tone to help the skull and flowers stand out as the main piece of the digipack. As you can see there are many features of a conventional digipack that you would expect to find like artist name, album name, barcode, record logo and information and website and social media details. I have also featured the album name below where the CD would feature in the form of a common emoji which is recognised by a lot of people within my target audience.

Design Idea 3:

With this idea, i have focused on showing how isolated the male character is. You are able to see that he is all alone on a beach and is only surrounded by the sea and some seagulls in the sky. I would use layer masks to make sure you can only see the intended picture through the album name (100). You can see that common features like song list, artist name, record labels and logos, barcodes and website details can be found throughout as well as i think these are the most important pieces that should be featured within the digipack.

Planning : Digipack Ideas Audience Feedback

           

This is my audience feedback which I got from someone from my target audience. He reviewed all of my sketched ideas and decided that number 2 was his favourite and proceeded on to explaining why he liked it better than all the rest. The design is most appealing to him as it suits the genre the most and looks like it is quite complex and more interesting than the others as it features brighter colours that will stand out well.

In my opinion, this is the best design for me to follow through with as well as it is quite challenging. I like the fact that i can now stretch my self to find out new skills and techniques in photoshop to create something that will be visually exciting and appealing to look at. Also, I believe that it suits the genre well due to the flowers and skull which are often seen on other indie covers.

Looking at this album cover by 'The Hours', you are able to see that they have used a skull and bright colours much like how I would like to use them as well. This has the skull as the main image in the centre much like how I want to use a skull in the middle as well. My cover will differ however as I would like to have a darker/grey background which will help my main centre piece stand out with the bright colours on top as well.

You can see how the flowers are used in Lianne La Havas' album cover to draw focus into the the person in the middle of the album cover. The bight colours draw the consumer into the album anyway and look good on a background that doesn't clash with any of the colours of the flowers as well. I will make sure that i use colours that don't  do this as well to ensure they stand out and look as good as possible on my cover.

Constructing My CDD:

After looking over my planning for the CDD, I decided to take a different approach and thought it would be best to link it more towards my music video, as a skull and flowers had little relevance to what was going on in the video. Due to this decision I focused on using some of the beach scenes within my video and linked it together with them. I was able to use some good shots of the beach within my CDD to give the audience something to engage with when looking at the digipack whilst also including a range of important and relevant features within the cover.

As you can see from the screenshot above I started off my CDD by selecting 

the images that I wanted to use and applying them to the template of the CDD we would be using. I had to make sure that the top two images were upside down however to make sure when they folded up, they would be readable still.

After fitting the images to the correct scale, I added a 'Posterize' effect to the images to make them look slightly more animated and more colourful. By doing this, it smoothed some areas of the images out so I could add text that is clear on a plain background and easy for the audience to read. I used the paint brush tool and colour picker to make some areas look a bit brighter and with less dark colours win them so it brightens the mood within the CDD.

I started adding text onto the front cover of the CDD and selected a font called 'Bradley Hand' which I then proceeded to use throughout the rest of the CDD and my music magazine advert. I used it for the artist name and song name to start with.

Now that I was happy with my front cover, I progressed to the back cover where I included the song list, barcode, record label logo and record label information. All of which are common conventions that you would expect to find on the back of a CDD. This clearly shows that I have followed common conventions of a CDD.

In the spine of the CDD I have also added the song name and artist name as this is again a common convention within CDD's so it would be vital to include it if I wanted mine to be anything like a professional one. This also gives enables you to find the CDD easily if it is stacked up with other CDD's so it would help the audience a lot in that case.

After finishing the back cover I moved onto the inside CD section. Here I added the song name by using the '100' emoji as I had use it in the title so it would make sense to use it here again to add continuity and not confuse the audience. I also added 2 circles to the inside cover to indicate that this is where the CD itself would go. 

On the final part of the CDD I chose to do a 'special thanks' page where the band could give praise to anyone who had helped them get to where they are now. You would find this in a lot of CDD's as people tend to use it to say thank you or dedicate the album to someone specifically. I also added the website for the band in the bottom corner to ensure that there was some contact information on their for the band. 

Final CDD:

Here is my final CDD for my chosen band, The Hunna.