Digipack Research

What is a digipak?
A digipak is a type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more disks.

Background information:
IMPAC Group, Inc. originally owned the Digipak trademark. That company was acquired by MeadWestvaco in the year 2000 and folded into its AGI Media division. Following on from this, the Digipak name and designs were licensed to manufacturers all around the world. MeadWestvaco sold AGI Media to Atlas Holdings in 2010. Then, in 2012, Atlas purchased Shorewood Packaging from International Paper and merged the two companies to create AGI-Shorewood. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s and is considered a premium package for the product. Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles, which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth". Another one goes one step further by totally eliminating the plastic tray and replacing it with a paper tray made from sugarcane and egg carton. Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock.

Digipak layout

Research on Digipaks


Foo Fighters, Wasting Light

Firstly, the case itself. With regards to colours only red, blue, pink, yellow and green are used on a black background. The images are edited together and formulated into one image, helping it stand out on the black surroundings to catch the attention of consumers. The title is situated above the image, formatted in a simple, with clean, non serif text. The song list is placed on the back of the digipak, with some letters highlighted yellow for aesthetic reasons. The background is simple and bold, using the same tone pink and red as on the front for continuity. The copyright information and barcode which are major conventions of digipaks are also put on the back. The spin of the digipak just has the name of the artist and album, using red and white, again for continuity.

The CD holders themselves are one image cut across both. The image began as a photo, and as a resulted of editing it now uses the same colours, red, pink and yellow, along with a more pixelated filter layered onto the image. It has almost grainy effect which connotes rock music.

The CD itself using just black white and yellow, with the outline of an image of a guitar, along with the artists name and album name, with copyright info at the bottom. It has a paint splattered effect for aesthetic appreciation and small details around the edges.

I have also looked at other examples of digipaks who are 'related artists' to ODESZA. Here are a few examples:

Flume

Jack U

Jack U

ODESZA

ODESZA -In Return

The front cover of ODESZA's In return album is very much comparator generated imagery. They have taken an image of a young child, silhouetted to the brighter colours behind them, and layered this on top of a birds eye view of a city. A silhouetted of a girl is placed behind the groups logo which is situated just above the centre of the image. Moving up diagonally left, the colours get darker, moving from yellow to a grey / navy, simulating a sunset, and in the top right, a cloud of black smoke with the artists name and album name printed over it in white. There are also small details such as the speckles amongst the yellows and reds which is an effect of light glistening on a camera lens.

The vinyl option of their album. The same front cover is used. On the disc itself, they have taken the image from the front cover, and got an even diameter around the logo. The simplicity is used to good effect for aesthetic reasons. The Image on the right is the same album as but the extended version. The image itself is the same however they have used blacks, greys and whites instead. What was white is now gold, denoting a premium package.

The CD itself uses two variations of black, including a metallic black and a satin black. The metallic being used for the logo an satin for the background. The design is very geometric which is a good representation for there style of music, with it being computer generated its very specific, using numbers  and timing being crucial. They have very much stripped it back and used smile techniques on the CD, rather than editing it a lot like Foo Fighters did. This however is a change in genre therefore a difference is expected.

Overall I feel the design is very relevant and is a good representation of their genre of music. The editing on the image is quite complex and works well as oppose to leaving it a simplistic design. This is a good denotation of computer generated music, exemplifying that nothing is left 'stock', the design has been twisted and changed to create new original content, something evident throughout everything they seem to produce.

Flume - Skin

Flume use a very simple, aesthetic pleasing design of a flower, onto a pink background which formulates a postal effect in my opinion. They used blue pink and white with a gradual transition in the background. The CD itself as you can see follows the same design, adding to continuity. With regards to text, it uses a non- serif font, along with "•" on either side, which helps to differentiate itself. "Less is more" is definitely appropriate in this instance, the bold colours help the digpak to stand out amongst others on the shelves of HMV and other music retailers.

The back of their album, Skin shows the song list. All letters capitalised and lined up centrally. The convention of the bar code and copyright information also present. This is a style I would love to reproduce. It's aesthetically pleasing and appropriate to the music.

Here are a number of examples of the vinyl options. These aren't part of the digpak but they do however show the designs used for the group. They follow a similar design with these, again keeping it simple and bold and no doubt was a factor in helping Skin become Album of the year at the ARIA music awards of 2016.

In conclusion the digipak available for Flume, Skin is done to a very high quality. Using a single image, and simple, bold colours helps with continuity, and represents there music well metaphorically.


Jack Ü - Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü

The Front cover design is very original. A 'stick and cut' effect is present, using photos of the two artists and producers, Skrillex also known as Sonny John Moore, and Diplo, also known as Thomas Wesley Pent. The now made iconic Ü is centrally framed using a non-serif, hand written font. Parental advisory and their individual logos are seen in the corners as well.

They also have a vinyl option, which uses the same colours, yellow and black. Again the same is done for the CD. The overall design is quite busy and cluttered and hand made, which connotes there music. The duo have very much led from the front with what they produce and their digipak is no different.