Preliminary Tasks - CD Digipak

What is a CD Digipak?
Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background. Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.
Digipacks have pros and cons:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.
  
• Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.
  
• The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.
  
• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.
  
• Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

As part of the A2 Media Studies specification, you are required to produce two 'preliminary tasks' pieces; in my case these consist of a whole CD case (Digipack), producing both back and front covers and also the booklet describing the band found on the inside of the case itself. Along with that I will produce an A4 sized poster, advertising the band themselves along with the new CD. Firstly I am going to produce the CD case; for I can then use this on the poster as an advert as a large advert, adding diversity to my individual poster (for this is not done as a group). Here are some examples of CD covers from bands within the same genre of music our task is based around;

This is an album cover by the band 'A Day To Remember', a globally recognized band throughout the 'Rock' Industry. I really like this cover due to its simplicity in the sense that the foreground image is the same colour scheme as the text, which relates nicely to the colour of the background. However the cracks accross the Digipack give it a warmer look, taking away the monotonous feel to a simple Digipack and giving it a more realistic feel - something I hope to achieve in my Digipack.

This is a Digipack by Nirvana, now I'm sure you will have heard of them! This Digipack is phenominal in my opinion, the image tells alot about the album before hearing it, a deep feel is abundant. The text is fantastic, with the band name in it's usual font, (known globally, attracting viewer attention) then the album name in a contrasting font, however keeping in relation to the relaxing waves portrayed by the image. I believe the photo relates to chasing dreams, even from a young age, which is something Nirvana have persistantly achieved since they started back in 1987. The colour of the image is brilliant, with a vertical fade in the background image in the blue, and the text staying simple and punchy.

This is a the CD Digipack for Emarosa, although not known as globally as Nirvana, Emarosa are a specifically targetting band, with the singer doing variations to express the singularity of the band, branching out to other target audiences (with bands such as isles and glaciers etc) The image is a confusing one, leaving the viewer to interpret it how they wish - much like the Nirvana image, although due to the lack of realism, this Digipack could relate to any number of thoughts. I really like the colour scheme across the image.