Digipak Research

Blur album artwork by Julian Opie

Bombay Bicycle Club Album

Many bands have used famous artist to create their digipak such as Blur who had one of their most famous album cover created by well known artist Julian Opie. I personally think that the blur album cover is one of the most influential and iconic digipaks to ever been created. This is because although it appears to be simple at face value, it does have a great attention to detail aswell. This album cover shows the whole band as equals which in contrast to other digipaks there is always a main person for the audiences focus. The colours used on this album cover are very effective aswell. They are very plain, primary colours but they contrast well with the darker colours of the characters. This cover is also very eyecatching because of the colours. However, Blur weren't the first band to do this it started with Queen in the 80's. This is the first digipak I looked at from the indie genre. This is Bombay Bicycle Clubs third studio album to be released and wasn't the most popular. However, I found this one to be the most appealing because it is simple and doesn't include an image of the band themselves. I think that the best feature of this digipak is the c.d. because it is a direct pattern copy from the 'brain' on the front cover but it covers the whole of the c.d. which makes it stand out a lot. This digipak like many others from the indie genre this album is based on art work. This artwork was made by someone who works for the record label that Bombay Bicycle Club are signed too. This makes it more noticeable because it is an unrecognized artist which could be more intriguing. The fonting is very simple and consist of white capital letters ontop of a dark blue background. The use of these contrasting colours makes the text stand out well from the rest. However, the best feature of the digipak is the pattern 'brain' section. This consists of warm colours in a consistent pattern. All of these things together look nice but its questionable what it's supposed to be representing. However, if you are a fan of Bombay Bicycle Club you would appreciate the simplicity of this digipak. This could become an issue for me when making my digipak because indie digipaks do not tend to create a representation of a star.







Two Door Cinema Club-Tourist History: 
This is the first studio album released by two Door Cinema Club called tourist History. the digipak was created by an artist hired by Kisune Music which is TDCC's second record label. This digipak is much alike the Bombay Bicycle Club cover but it uses a different range of colours. However, this album cover uses the same effect by putting pure white text on top of a dark background (and then the opposite on the back of the album). I think that this digipak represents indie pop music quite well. The artwork is quite abstract and it is questionable what the meaning of it is but the whole digipak consists of the same artwork (shown on the actual cd) so it does work well. However, the back of the digipak is different to the front because it is a really light colour with dark writing which makes the front and back contrast; athough the colours used are still  consistant.

From analysing these digipak I have noticed that indie, especially indie pop bands, don't tend to use a picture of themselves/the band for the front cover. This is no surprise as they always go for the more simple things so the focus will always remain on the music. This is a huge contrast to the digipaks which I analysed at the beginning of the blog which was focused on rnb girls digipaks which showed the complete opposite. For the digipak that I will be creating to go with my music video I think that I would use a picture of the band instead of getting some form of artwork. Even though I would like to be able to create an individual artwork piece I don't think that this would be possible given the time frame that I am in. However, I won't be using a glamourous shot of the band it will be simple with some editing to compliment it. To the left of this paragraph is a picture of the band San Cisco who I have looked at quite abit through my research and planning. This photograph is more of the type of picture I am wanting to use on my digipak instead of artwork.