Now, most of you are probably more than familiar with the traditional CD case/jewel case for singles or albums. A digipak differs in that it incorporates a gatefold format to it in order to contain, along with the original CD, a combination of any of the following:
Straight away, the original cover has a hard-hitting image, of a heavily graphic and stylised landscape, supposedly of Los Angeles (as can be told by the unique iconography of the state, such as the Hollywood sign and the buildings). By emphasising the red colours, both in the title and in blood splatters and highlighted regions across the rest of the the cover, it gives a striking nature of almost violence and horror, and of course, adds to the Hell connotations (generally the colour of red is associated with Hell). The juxtaposition of the landscape of Los Angeles with these horror images ignites the title well - the metaphorical 'New Maps of Hell' are Los Angeles, in this case. In this regard, it also reaches out well to their target audience, as it gives something for them to relate to in such real-world iconography. It also gives the listeners and fans a locale for the music itself - it is possible that, when the fans listen to the music, it is possible that they will imagine the locations shown on the cover in their minds eye and therefore associate the music with it. What is also evident is the retrospective feel to the digipak, with lots of nods to Bad Religion's past albums - indeed, the cover and the landscape shots are a quasi-parody of their first ever album, How Can Hell Be Any Worse?, of which the cover is pictured below.
Below is a shot of the deluxe edition (digipak) cover version, showing the differences between this cover and the standard edition cover.
Now, what is interesting about this is that, despite the removal of all traces of black colour from this cover, the cover design itself is identical. This is perhaps a ploy to the fans, as this deluxe edition was released a year after the original release, so it assumes that the fans and audience know about the album already, and know it's themes and musical style, so it almost acts instead as a 'thank you' nod to the fans who bought the record first time around or previous records, instead of being something brand new from the start.
Below is a shot of the entire digipak, unfolded completely with all the bonus material shown.
As you can see from the shots, they pack in a huge amount of material into the traditional gatefold, digipak format, with a continuous series of landscape shots matching the title, 'New Maps of Hell'. There are also subtle usage of crosses in the images, which relates back to the band's logo, the 'Crossbuster', which can be seen on the discs, as well as some of the bonus posters.The theme of the pack is certainly rather retrospective, with heavy usage of their long-standing logo (the Crossbuster), and with the posters containing old material of theirs (including an old album cover, and a stylised shot of them performing live from their earlier days).
What we can ascertain from this digipak analysis are the following:
More to come...
- an extra bonus CD containing bonus live or rare tracks
- a DVD with such features as 'Making Of' featurettes or live footage/music videos
- one or more fold-out promotional posters
The above list is not all-encompassing, of course - artists can choose to add in any extra material that they wish and that can be fitted into the sleeve.
Let's start by analysing a digipak I personally own, and it's one of my personal favourites; Bad Religion's 'New Maps of Hell'. The record is close to our genre of music, being as it is a punk rock album, and it uses strong imagery to great effect. This album was released initially in 2007 as a standard single-CD record, and the cover for it is shown below.
Straight away, the original cover has a hard-hitting image, of a heavily graphic and stylised landscape, supposedly of Los Angeles (as can be told by the unique iconography of the state, such as the Hollywood sign and the buildings). By emphasising the red colours, both in the title and in blood splatters and highlighted regions across the rest of the the cover, it gives a striking nature of almost violence and horror, and of course, adds to the Hell connotations (generally the colour of red is associated with Hell). The juxtaposition of the landscape of Los Angeles with these horror images ignites the title well - the metaphorical 'New Maps of Hell' are Los Angeles, in this case. In this regard, it also reaches out well to their target audience, as it gives something for them to relate to in such real-world iconography. It also gives the listeners and fans a locale for the music itself - it is possible that, when the fans listen to the music, it is possible that they will imagine the locations shown on the cover in their minds eye and therefore associate the music with it. What is also evident is the retrospective feel to the digipak, with lots of nods to Bad Religion's past albums - indeed, the cover and the landscape shots are a quasi-parody of their first ever album, How Can Hell Be Any Worse?, of which the cover is pictured below.
Below is a shot of the deluxe edition (digipak) cover version, showing the differences between this cover and the standard edition cover.
Now, what is interesting about this is that, despite the removal of all traces of black colour from this cover, the cover design itself is identical. This is perhaps a ploy to the fans, as this deluxe edition was released a year after the original release, so it assumes that the fans and audience know about the album already, and know it's themes and musical style, so it almost acts instead as a 'thank you' nod to the fans who bought the record first time around or previous records, instead of being something brand new from the start.
Below is a shot of the entire digipak, unfolded completely with all the bonus material shown.
As you can see from the shots, they pack in a huge amount of material into the traditional gatefold, digipak format, with a continuous series of landscape shots matching the title, 'New Maps of Hell'. There are also subtle usage of crosses in the images, which relates back to the band's logo, the 'Crossbuster', which can be seen on the discs, as well as some of the bonus posters.The theme of the pack is certainly rather retrospective, with heavy usage of their long-standing logo (the Crossbuster), and with the posters containing old material of theirs (including an old album cover, and a stylised shot of them performing live from their earlier days).What we can ascertain from this digipak analysis are the following:
- The gatefold sleeves often follow the same common theme as the cover, similar to the inlay card or booklets in normal CD albums, but they can also be used to expand further or add additional extra imagery or iconography and such.
- They are often focused exclusively for the fans that the band already has, almost as a reward to the fans for their loyalty; therefore, they are not designed to any specific target audience except for the band's own fans.
- The artwork often differs subtly from the regular album artwork, but not by much - just enough to differentiate it from the regular album, but not enough to make people mistake it for another album altogether.
More to come...
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