Digipak Research of my Genre

A digipak is the front and back of an album over. On the front of the cover there is the parental advisory logo (if applicable), name of the band, and the name of the album. On the back of the cover the legal information would be visible (studio, producers etc), the numbered track list, and the barcode. The name of the band is always in a much bigger font than the name of the album, as this is what is being sold. The album is a by-product of the band. 

There are two main forms of album artwork, these are either a photoshoot or concept art. 

I am going to be doing research into a pop rock genre band's digipak and album artwork. I am going to be looking at the colour scheme in which these bands use, the font, track list names, and if they have either done a photoshoot as the album artwork or a concept of art which may include graphics, drawings, or images.  

The band I am going to be researching is 5 Seconds of Summer. This is a pop rock band from Australia which was formed in late 2011. This group consists of a lead singer, guitarist, bass guitarist and drummer. The album cover and artwork which I will be researching is for the album called '5 Seconds of Summer' which was released in 2014. The front of this album cover consists of the band members themselves with artwork and drawings as the background and a big red cross going through them, with the album name in the centre of the cover. This shows that they have used a photoshoot rather than a concept of art.

The use of this band using hand drawn drawings as the background of this cover create a personalised touch to the digipak which fans will appreciate, they have created a fun image which will appeal to the bands target audience. The use of the band members being on the front of the cover instantly makes them recognisable as fans will instantly see this cover, know its them and buy it as they are already 'familiar faces'. The way the title of not only the album name but the band themselves too is written in a white font which has been placed over a black background creates a contrast between the front and the back of the label and also makes them stand out and makes it visible and clear to the viewer who this band is and what their album name is.

The back of this album cover consists of the barcode, legal information, and track names. The layout of the back cover has been done in a certain way which is mainly targeted at their target audience. A chaotic yet playful feel has been created due to the scattering of the track names and the font of these track names. The font varies and possesses conventional themes to the pop rock genre. The use of the background being plain white ensures that with the different shapes and fonts and colours going on it does not make it too chaotic and calms it down.

By completing research on this pop rock band and their digipak artwork it has allowed us to look at different examples and what we could do with our artwork and how we could lay out our digipak for our pop rock band. It has further provided us with a good example of different track names and how they work with the band and fit in. From this research I decided for the Digipak which I will create for our group I will use the photoshoot type of artwork.