Questionnaire and Results - Digipak

In order to gain information and audience feedback on how I should go about designing my own digipak, I have constructed a questionnaire in order to investigate. I asked twenty people these questions:

My results are shown below.

Firstly all but one person preferred a CD Digipak compared to the original jewel case. This proves that the digipak really is a more popular choice in the 21st century and the reasons for its popularity include it being more dependable, professional and including more variety for the buyer.

Gender and Preferred Album CoverThe results show that Lily Allen's "Alright Still" proved to be the most popular album cover among females and overall. However males preferred Blink 182's album cover, calling it artistic and fun looking. "Alright Still" proved to be popular due to it's female gaze and eye catching images as well as its overall "fun" tone.

Type of Imagery

These results show that Pop Art and photography proved to be the most popular imagery preferred on an album cover. I want to incorporate Pop Art/Cartoon imagery onto my digipak anyway to create synergy between the digipak and music video.

Other results included bold font and handwritten fonts as well as dark colours proving to be popular among the twenty candidates.

Further Research On Album Covers

An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially-released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers or the front-facing panel of a CD package and increasingly, the primary image accompanying a digital download of the album or its individual tracks.

The cover of an album serves 3 purposes:

1. To advertise the contents of the music product.
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the artist.
3. In reproductions of the artwork, it serves as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product.

Early History

Around the year 1910, 78 rpm records replaced phonograph cylinder as the medium for recorded sound. They were usually issued in 10" and 12" diameter sizes and sold separately, in brown or cardboard sleeves that were sometimes plain and sometimes printed to show the producer or the retailer's name. German record company Odeon pioneered the first "album" in 1909 when it released the "Nutcracker Suite" by Tchaikovsky on 4 doubled-sided discs in a specially designed package.

In the 1920's, bound collections of empty sleeves with a plain cardboard or leather cover were sold as "record albums". The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed upright on a shelf like a book, protecting the fragile record.

In the 1930's, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums. In 1938 Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as its first art director, who is credited with inventing the concept of album covers and cover art, replacing plain covers used before.


Format
Since the 1990s, the CD has become the most common form of physically distributed music products. Packaging formats vary from, including the common plastic jewel case and the popular cardboard and plastic combination known as the Digipak.



Design
The cover became an important part of the culture of music. As a marketing tool and an expression or artistic intent, gatefold covers, and inserts often with lyric sheets, made the album cover a desirable "artifact" in its own right. Examples include The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Brigade" and Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon". The importance of the cover design was so important that some artists specialised or gained fame through their work, notably the design team Hipgnosis. The talents of many photographers and illustrators from inside and outside the music industry have been used to produce a vast array of memorable album covers. These include Andy Warhol for The Rolling Stones, Jamie Reid for The Sex Pistols and Rex Ray for David Bowie.

Packaging
The album cover is a component of the overall packaging of an album. Besides identifying specific records, they serve the purpose of advertising the mucsical contents on the LP, through the use of graphic design, photography and illustration. It normally has the artist's name, sometimes in logo form; and the album title.
Occasionally, though more common on historical vinyl records, the cover may include a reference number; a branding (the label), and possibly a track listing.

Album Cover Analysis

To gather further ideas into how the group and myself would design our own album cover and as part of the ancillary task, I have researched into Pop Rock album covers that convey the types of images and connotations I would like to use for my own cover. These 3 album covers in my opinion are good examples and motivation for the creation of my own. They are the debut album's of Lily Allen's "Alright Still", Miley Cyrus' "Breakout" and Katy Perry's "One of the Boys".

The Digipak

A digipak is the alternative to standard jewel case packaging. Made mostly from thick card, it is virtually shatterproof and allows great graphic display. Originally used for the album packaging of leading muscians, the digipak and digipak family are now priced reasonably enough to be used for any CD or DVD project/ It is an extremely versatile packaging and can be made to accomodate a booklet. In addition, the panels can be increased from 4 to 6, 8 or more.

They make a big statement, they represent the ultimare custom packaging for your CD replication project. A digipak is also a more environmentally friendly option when compared with traditional plastic jewel cass of DVD cases. Dimensions based on a standard 4pp digipak are 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5mm.

Album Cover Iconography

I have looked into a number of images which I hope to convey in my own album cover for the genre/pop rock. This included colours, symbolism, images and font.

Famous Album Covers

The album cover for The Velvet Underground & Nico is recognizable for featuring an Andy Warhol print of a banana on the cover. Early copies of the album invited the buyer to "peel slowly and see"; peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-coloured banana underneath. A special machine was needed to manufacture these covers, but record label MGM paid for the costs, figuring that any ties to Warhol would boost sales of the album. The reissued vinyl editions of the album don't feature the peel-off sticker and so the original copies of the album with the peel-sticker feature are extremely rare collector's items. It is also notable that the original release featured Warhol's signature.

Nirvana's Nevermind album cover shows a baby swimming towards a US dollar bill on a fish hook. According to lead singer Kurt Cobain, he conceived the idea while watching a programme on water births with drummer Dave Grohl. It was mentioned to art director Robert Fisher who found stock footage of underwater births, but were deemed too graphic for the record company. Also, the stock house that controlled the photo of a swimming baby wanted $7,500 a year for its use. Instead Fisher sent a photographer to a pool for babies to take pictures. Many shot's were taken and the band settled on the image of a three-month-old boy. The image is one of the most iconic in rock history and caused controversy where supermarkets refused to sell it. Cobain compromised by allowing a sticker to cover the baby's genitals.

The Grammy Award-winning album packaging for The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band features a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover. The Beatle's themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, are dressed in custom-made military style outfits. According to designer Peter Blake the original concept was to create a scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park, but gradually evolved into it's final form as shown. In keeping with the park concept, the foreground of the scene is of a floral display incorparating the word "Beatles" spelt out in flowers. There are also several affectations from the Beatles' homes such as small statues belonging to John Lennon. The collage itself depicted more than 70 famous people, including Edgar Allen Poe, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Bob Dylan.