Digpak

·         What is a digipak?

Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI-Shorewood, an Atlas Holdings LLC company.

·         What strategies are often used by the record company to encourage the audience to purchase the digipak (remember, the album of songs can easily be downloaded from i-tunes, so why buy a digipak - in what ways is it different to a regular CD album?)

Digipaks are used to emulate the star image correctly by showing many imagers of them rather than just one. It shows dedication to the artist music as it’s a physical copy of their work rather than a digital one. It creates awareness around the artist as it is seen in stores and often has images that link to their recent music video’s to attract audiences and create continuity about their work as it is all linked and clear what they are trying to represent themselves as to their target audience. Also the cases tend to be more attractive and show more of the star, again enticing people to buy a digipak. It also creates hype around the star as digipak are easy to advertise and purchase in stores, making it easily available to their audience

·         What are the key elements that make a good digipak? Refer to images, text, and style.

Digipaks tend to be the typical gatefold style, allowing the company to put multiple images and information about the artist on there. A digipak really has to represent an artist so they tend to vary in style, however they have certain elements the same in order to sell the artist. We tend to see many tight framed close up shots of the artist in order to show them and make the audience feel close of them. There is always a clear mise-en-scene show that often links to recent music videos and the star images they are trying to create. This is evident in the Katy Perry – teenage dream digipak I analysed, as she was going for a sexualised candy themed digipak, which links to her ‘California Girls’ video, as it is set in this candy-like world with loads of images to sweets, therefore it shows how they often tie in with a certain popular music video of the artists to generate hype and also create links as they would recognise it as hers from the mise-en-scene. The font also helps link to the star image, as it reflects the artist’s style and image, so for example if they are going for an innocent, feminine star image, we tend to see smooth, elegant writing to reflect that idea and connote to it. We always see an album title and name of the artist or band to make it clear to the audience who they are buying into, and there always tends to be a track list and some small print on the back of the cover, however again a digipak mainly consists of images of the artist. Long/mid shots are often used to show setting as well as the artist as it can sometimes help to create star image, however they tend to use close up shots to sell the artist.

·         What information is included on the back of a digipak?

It’s often all the small print information, like record labels and copyright information.

·         What information should be included in a poster to promote an album/digipak?

The advert should have some connotations to the digipak; therefore it normally works well if they are in the location or with similar costumes. It is also quite common to include one of the same images of the digipak or a small image of the actual digipak its self in order to make it recognisable to the audience. There also tends to be critics ratings on there in order to entice people to buy it as they think it is really good because of what critics say. They always have the artist name and title and the release date, so it informs the audience when it is out and what the name is so they can easily find it in stores.