Ancillary Research 1: What is a Digipak?

What is a Digipak?

A digipak- styled package is often used by music artists when they release a CD album or special edition CD albums. The front and back design is typically made of cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more disks. Digipaks are popularly used because they are cost efficient because of their minimalistic style and being more eco-friendly.

How does a Digipak benefit the artist/artists?

A digipak is used by an artist to encase their music and would be mostly inspired by the style of music that the artist creates or a colour theme associated with the artist (ie The Weeknd). The designs and colours embodying the digipak are also a way to promote the artists brand and image to the public. Recently a lot of artists' work are based off of or influenced by events happening around them to bring to light the causes and to show their support. These ideas can be shown through dedicating their digipak design or the front image to the cause. The digipak interweaves the brand name, image and music videos made for songs on the album together.

What does it look like?

The most generic digipak design has a front cover, back cover, inside front and either one or two internal CD trays/ disk holders. The front cover tends to have an image that represents the artists genre of music or style and the back cover usually has a list of the music the public will find on the CD album. The digipak normally opens outwards and tends to have artistic designs or colours on all sides.

Here are some Digipaks from a range of different genres:

Justin Bieber (Pop)-

Rihanna (Contemporary R&B/Pop)-

Ellie Goulding (Indie Pop)-

Blink 182 (Rock)-