Analysis of Digipaks

Katy Perry:

             The digipak above is for Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’ album. The target audience for this is predominantly teenage girls, as she is a pop artist and the pink, sweet style theme will appeal to them. Also in her being positioned in a provocative manner and being attractive, young girls will want to be like her. Furthermore the attractive, sexualised images would also attract males as well, but the main target audience is young females. The dominant image on the front cover is one of her lying in a cotton candy cloud naked. The cotton candy creates a sense of innocence and dream-like atmosphere, which links to the title ‘teenage dream’, however there are sexual connotations as she is naked and laying a in provocative manner, which again links to the title as essentially she is showing herself as a teenage boys dream. She has a direct mode of address, looking directly at their audience and the long shot displays all of her body, representing her as a sex symbol within all this child/teenage mise-en-scene, so although the setting is innocent she is being seductive and being this ‘ Teenage Dream’. The font that is used on the title is like candy canes, again connoting to this innocent and childlike nature. The font her name is in is slightly different, as its bubble writing in red so again links to the idea of sweets. The whole digipak continues this sweet theme with her being overly sexualised in the other images on the inside. There is a close up shot of her again on the candy clouds with a direct mode of address in order to attract her audience, as well as a mid shot of her in a corset from a slightly high angle making her seem weak and vulnerable, yet she is portrayed sexually through the costume and the mise-en-scene. The cotton candy style theme links in well with the genre as Katy Perry is a pop artist, so something sweet connotes to pop and being fun and upbeat.


You Me At Six

                    The You Me At Six digipak shows elements of the rock genre convention quite clearly, however does contrast some stereotypes. The title of the artist is in the plain font which they always use in order to represent their band. The title of the album, ‘Hold the dream’, is unconventional as it is in a fancy fluent font which is uncommon as it connotes to a quite girly or classical genre rather than a gritty rock style. However this will work for their intended target audience, as they will aim at young females from around 14-20, therefore this font will appeal to them. This is apparent on the back cover as they use the same font which feminises the album, again appealing to their femal audience. The image on the front cover isn’t of the artist but this is quite common within the rock genre. The image is of a colourful explosion, which connotes to destruction, linking in well to rock music however it is in bright colours which oppose the norms as rock tends to use quite muted dull colours. This again suggests they are directing it towards a younger female audience as they will be drawn to the bright colours. Rock is often associated with drugs and rebellion and although this album has the black and dark colours; it also has bright colours with flowers which contrast to the normal attitudes and values of rock music. Even the title ‘Hold The Dream’ is quite different and again girly, so it works well for their target audience.