Researching Marketing Tools - Digipaks!

 A Digipak is a patented style of optical disc packaging. They usually consist of a gate fold (book style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Digipak style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

Two notable albums with Digipak's are Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West.

What would I expect to find on a Digipak

Here are a few things that generally will feature on a Digipak.

• Bold Images on the front and back panels, these are the two main promoters and will draw people in.
• Front will usually tend to have the artists name in bold, with another bold image accompanying it, to attract people to it.
• Inside the Digipak will feature the disc itself and perhaps artwork different to the art on the front and back of the Digipak. Also things that could be featured are lyrics, artist information and personal messages. 

Analysis of Digipak

This is the Digipak for Stadium Arcadium.

What I found

• Their is a lot of bright colours, used to be aesthetically pleasing.
• The colours of blue, red and purple all mix into one another, suggesting the songs mixing into each other and flowing one after another.
• The image on front cover could be meaning to show a bands progression or distancing themselves from other bands of the same genre or their own discography.
• The appearance of the band on the back could be for the benefit of their new fans, so they can now put a face to who plays the instruments.
• The images go with a space theme, suggesting literal spacing with the band, or could be linked again to distance, suggesting the band is far different from earlier releases.