A2 Media Studies: CD Digipack

Research : Album Cover Design

The first disc records, ones that we would recognise as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.

In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensable to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.

Beginning in the 1930s the record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.

Alex Steinweiss the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design. (Of course signing Frank Sinatra may have helped a little too).By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.

The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.

Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.

As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.

Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.

In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.

In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.

Research : Album Covers Codes and Conventions

The Album cover I have chosen is Dookie by Green Day. I chose this album cover as it does follow the conventions of an album cover, however it might not follow the conventions of the genre of the artists.

To begin with, the album cover has both the artists name and the album name which follows two of the conventions. This has also been supported by an image on the album, the image used isn't one of the artists but is an image which contains a message about American society. However, the font and colour of the text doesn't suggest explicitly that the band were a punk rock band. In other albums the font can suggest to the person looking at the album cover what sort of genre it is. Similarly, the image doesn't give the the consumer an idea either. It is common on album covers to see images of the artist which gives the consumer and idea, or sometimes images can do this themselves. An example of this would be Iron Maiden, who don't use their own appearance but the image used clearly shows to the consumer that they are a heavy metal band.

The album, does however, give the consumer a good idea about what they are going to hear in terms of the lyrics in the song and the messages that the songs will portray.

Here is one of the songs from the album:

Research : Album Covers Codes and Conventions

The task we were given was to analyse 5 CD's from a different genre's and with different ideas and were told to analyse the features of the cases. The 5 aspects we were analysing was the front cover, back cover, inside front, inside back and also the spine of the case. As part of our coursework we are producing a CD digipack which will have a similar layout to the ones we were analysing. This will give us guidelines on what codes and conventions are featured when creating a CD digipack. By completing this task it gave us a useful insight into potential ideas that could be featured in our own product. I found this task very helpful as to has given me guidance on what needs to be included in order to make the product more professional looking and making it look a product that the genre would purchase.

The results that were recorded were very intriguing, when looking at a CD case there a e certain aspects that you assume are going to be there, for example when looking at the front cover you would expect to see the artists name or a picture of the artist. However, not all album covers follow these conventions, some don't follow any at all.

Surprisingly, only 4/5 album covers that we analysed featured the artists name on the front cover of the album. This is the feature that you would most expect to see on the album cover as it provides arguably the most important detail. However, the album cover does feature an image of the artist which covers the whole of the front cover. It could be that the artist is a well known figure and is easily identified by just the artists face. This album, however does feature the artist and album name on the inside back cover which is visible when looking at the front cover. This is an idea that I considered using in my design, however I don't think it would be suitable and would prefer to have the artists name and album featuring on the front cover.

Existing Products Within The Market

In order to increase my knowledge of what makes a good CD Digipack I analysed existing products in the market. The first album front and back cover I chose to analyse is Kanye West's graduation album. This album is of the genre hip-hop and is Kanye West's third studio album. This product was very useful to analyse at it was very focused on the idea of being very image based and having this idea of a vivid imagination. It was useful to see what an album cover without any photography would look like and gave me an idea of whether this would be suitable for my cover. Through analysing this cover it has shown me that this wouldn't be the best idea for the cover of my genre and the artist.