What is a DIGIPAK?
Essentially digipaks are printed card packaging that is often used for CDs or DVDs. The digipak, made from cardboard stock, contains an internal plastic holder capable of holding one or more discs. Discs are held in place via plastic trays (Flexi trays), which are glued into the digipak. When compared with CD Jewel Cases, the first reasonably priced method of storing compact discs, Digipak’s outer cardboard frame provides much more stability. For many, a common complaint about the CD Jewel Cases was their fragile nature – even the most careful of CD owners became used to seeing cracks on their CD cases. But, with the cardboard used in Digipak CDs (which can be environmentally friendly cardboard), these cracks are a thing of the past.
History of Digipaks
In 1974, a Dutch electronics company by the name of Philips began developing a digital optical audio disk with an error correction code. Some 50 years later, these disks are a core part of 21st-century life. Trademarked and patented by IMPAC group inc. who originally owned the Digipak trademark before being bought by MeadWestvaco (MWV) in 2000. Digipaks became popular with artists and record labels in the early 2000s however they were used back in the 1980s.
Purpose
Digipaks has a multitude of purposes, on the surface level it shows the aesthetic and image of an artist. However, digipaks are a solid promotional tool for albums and also for consumers to preserve and store material. The purpose of a digipak is as follows; 1. Promotion for the album.
2. To put in the tracklist of an album.
3. Show the artist's branding.
4. To expand the artist's craft and artistry, along with the message they want to convey.
5. Store other promotional materials like booklets for lyrics, photocards, and stickers (very common for KPOP albums)
Codes & Conventions
The information a Digipak must contain, whether on the front or back cover or within the inside of the Digipak are:
The bands/Artists' names, which is a key function of the Digipak so the audience can easily identify the artist/band.
The album title is always located on the front of the Digipak but can be present along the spine of the album cover also.
Visual imagery or a clear theme throughout the Digipak, this point is solely based on the genre and the artist themselves.
Soundtrack list (all the songs present on the CD) this feature is always to be present on the back cover of the Digipak.
Some background information on the artist/ band will be located somewhere inside the Digipak.
Front panel: consist of the main image which will either be an image of the artist/band, or it will be some kind of photography that is iconic or symbolic to the artist or the band or the whole album itself. The name of the artist and album will be present (normally in big fonts or bright colors to stand out to the audience).
Spine: Consists of the album name/ artist and occasionally the record label; this text size won’t be overly big.
Back panel: Usually contains all the titles of the songs in the album (tracklist), it is important that the text color contrasts with the background in order for the text to be readable.
Folded-in panel: Tends to revolve around the artist/ band again, but if the Digipak has six individual pages that fold panel will continue on from the front and back panels.
Inside panels: These will consist of the artist/band in different poses or situations if none of the previously stated are used, the prints inside will be symbolic and iconic and tie in with the theme and style of the album. In some cases, the artist may present information relating to the song e.g. lyrics, producers, or quotes written by the artist.
Styles and themes of Digipak
This is rather generic as it depends on the individual artist/ band and the genre into which the album is categorized. Once the genre is discovered, it influences color schemes and styles available to use, for example, a rap artist would usually have non-serif fonts, and a multi-colored scheme and would sometimes show "ghetto" artistry (eg. graffiti art). Depending on the artists/ bands, sometimes they get a say in what they like and dislike, as they will want their Digipak to represent them and the music they are trying to sell. Considering the whole aim of Digipak is to promote and sell the album, it has to appeal to the desired target audience or it would be unsuccessful in sales also.
DIGIPACK RESEARCH ON CHOSEN ARTIST
I chose Taylor Swift as the focus of my digipak research for a few reasons... First, she is one of the world's current most prominent musicians in terms of commercial success and artist popularity. Second, she has many recent album releases, resulting in a lot of content that I can read and study. Lastly, I really liked her music even when she was still doing country music, and focusing my research on an artist that I like makes my research work a lot more fun.
Over the years Taylor Swift has released 10 studio albums, 2 re-recorded albums, 3 live albums, a total of 15 albums. She is massively successful with all her sales, her tenth studio album midnights sold. almost 1.6 million during its debut week. Midnights is the first album to sell over 1 million physical albums since 2015.
The eleven-time GRAMMY winner broke streaming, physical and vinyl album sales milestones around the world as the critically acclaimed Midnights became the fastest-selling album of her career and Swift became the first artist in history to capture the entire Top 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Taylor Swift has 36.6 billion combined streams of her music and 22.4 million album-equivalent units to-date in 2022. - Universal Music Group
Source: Universal Music Group
Taylor Swift: Accolades & History Made in 2022
--- Midnights debuted with a career-high 1+ billion first-week global streams
-- Became the only artist to have five albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week in U.S. Nielsen history
– Leading artist in the U.S. for on-demand and streaming equivalent albums
–Midnights achieved 3 Million+ album consumption in its first week
– Midnights earned over 1 million US pure album sales in one week, the first album to achieve this since her own ‘reputation’ (2017)
--- In the U.S. Midnights was the highest-selling physical release of 2022, selling +1.3 million copies. Additionally Swift sold another 1.1 million physical records in the U.S. across her catalog in 2022.
– Midnights launched at #1 with a career-high 1.578 Million units sold in the first week
-- First Artist in History to Capture the Entire Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart, and the entire top ten on the Digital sales chart. She also claimed the same feat in Canada.
-- Set a new record for vinyl sales week with 575K copies sold in the U.S., Also the biggest selling vinyl in the U.K., Canada, and Australia in the modern vinyl era
-- First artist in history to capture entire top 5 on Billboard Global 200
-- First artist to simultaneously debut #1 on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 on four occasions
-- Broke the record for most consecutive #1 studio album debuts on billboard 200 (11)
-- Captured the biggest streaming week for an album by a female artist (549 million)
– Midnights broke the record for the biggest album debut in Spotify history with 185m+ streams
-- Biggest first-week global streams for an album on Spotify (785m)
-- Captured top 5 biggest song debuts in global Spotify chart history
-- Biggest first-day and first-week global streams for an album on Amazon
-- Biggest first-day global streams for a pop album on Apple Music
-- Biggest first-day global streams for an album in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music
–Midnights Debuted at #1 in 19 countries including U.S., Australia, U.K., France, Germany & Italy
-- In Australia, Swift became the first artist in history with a #1 Single, #1 Album & #1 Airplay debut, and topped both sales charts for five consecutive weeks.
-- In Canada, tracks from Midnights occupied the entire Canadian Hot 100 chart
-- In Brazil, Midnights had the biggest first-day streams for an album on Spotify
-- In the Philippines, Midnights captured the top 6 biggest debuts in Spotify history
-- In China, the album was the fastest-selling album by a Western artist.
-- More than 22.6 million Album Equivalent Units in 2022*
-- 36.6 billion total combined streams across all platforms*
-- Broke the record for most Top 10 Hits by a Female Artist (40)
Analysis of Midnights Digipak
*I will only do an analysis on the Moonstone Blue Version of her digipak. However, I wanted to add that for this tenth studio album Taylor Swift released four versions for both CD and vinyl.
Taylor Swift's Midnights album cover features her in a close-up shot while holding a lighter. The emphasis on her face may possibly symbolize that the album is all about her and her experiences, this is highly probable as a lot of her fans knew for a fact that Taylor usually writes all songs in her albums. On her eyes is a glittery eyeshadow midnight blue shade. This is a direct reference to the album title "Midnights". I am uncertain of what filter they used for the cover, however, it very much reminds me of the photo editing filters from "Retrica". There seems to be a minimal focal blur on the lighter, this is to highlight the importance of this object on the overall message of the songs in this album. Upon doing some research on the symbolism of a lighter, it is suggested that it means Fire, warmth, and protection; possibly the ability to rise above past experiences or mistakes.
A tattoo website wrote that people interpret lighters as:
Lighters are frequently chosen by individuals looking to commemorate an important event or milestone in their lives, such as overcoming addiction or surviving a personal tragedy.
Overall, Taylor's digipak cover is minimalist and not overwhelming to look at. The color scheme of different shades of blue, and some white reinforces a thought that the songs in this album could possibly be more somber, unlike her past albums such as Reputation and Lover which has more upbeat songs. Taylor and her team have made an unusual decision of putting the tracklist on the front cover instead of its inside left or back cover. I think this was a smart move cause otherwise, the front cover will look very empty with the whole negative space available. The font used in the album is a minimalist Sans Serif font. To compensate for the simplicity of the font style, they chose to do a Blue purple gradient for the font color.
The inside left of the digipak is a booklet, it has a message for Taylor's fandom "Swifties". It also has all the lyrics of each song in the tracklist. It also has information about the producers and co-writers of each song. To make the booklet more enjoyable to read through, they add pictures of Taylor along with the lyrics of each song.
The disc cover is a light shade of blue which matches the overall color scheme of the front cover which is great because it doesn't distract people who would look at the digipak. The inner circle of the disc cover features a white back group with a sans-serif font of the album name. It also tries to make the disc cover mimic what a clock face would look like. Behind the disc is a picture of Taylor playing the keyboard. The lighting is warm and compliments the wood wall and neutral colors of the picture. It also evokes a feeling of anticipation which is backed by the way Taylor posed for the photo. It seems that she is looking at something or perhaps someone.
The back cover features a picture of Taylor and its editing is low-key lighting which makes the audience primarily focus on Taylor and not the background. Noticeably seen are numbers around, and according to my research, the four different versions make a clock face. You can also purchase the clock hands on her website https://www.taylorswift.com/
The clock hands are sold separately on her website, the four versions of her album and the clock design are a great marketing strategy. This makes die-hard fans want all versions of her album even if it's not practical to do so. The clock face design is available for both vinyls and CDs, from late 2019 (the start of the covid-19 pandemic) there is an increase in the demand for vinyls. It is safe to assume that it is possible that they made both available in these two forms to appeal to fans or consumers who prefer vinyls over CDs.
When you buy the clock hand merch, they give out stickers to cover the bar code on the back cover. This is more for aesthetic purposes and I personally like how that little creative decision makes the overall look of the clock face clean and pleasing. Aside from the clock hands and stickers, they also include four holders for each CD or vinyl so you can mount the clock on the wall. I also appreciate the small details they put in the clock hands and holders. For the clock hands, "Taylor Swift" is written in a gold-colored font. The four CD holders make up the sentence "Meet me at Midnight" which is a line she sings on one (potentially more than one) of her songs in the tracklist. I am certain though that this line is said in her song "Lavender Haze".
Below I have attached an unboxing video of all the versions of the Midnights album.
Richard Dyer's STAR Theory
“A star is an image not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials”
Richard Dyer’s Star Theory is the idea that stars and celebrities are constructed by institutions in order to make money; stars are built to target a specific demographic and usually have a unique selling point (USP) in order for them to make more money and stand out from other stars.
According to Dyer, stars share common values; this includes being constructed out of a range of materials and believes the persona of a star is a fictional identity which means they’re not restricted to musicianship. Many stars promote fashion trends and other popular phases to consumers through their high-profile status.
Dyer’s Theory can be broken down into 3 sections:
Audience and Institutions- Stars are made in order to satisfy and fulfill the audience and institutions; this means they are often modified regarding their style and image to suit the audience. In addition, increasing the brand identity benefits institution as they become popular and increase sales within all media platforms they are part of.
Constructions- This is similar to audience and institutions in that the star is built for an audience and doesn’t show a true representation of who the person truly is. Within the construction, stars are specifically built in order to obtain a signature trademark or USP that makes them different and stand out from other popular stars on the market.
Hegemony (Cultural Beliefs)- This is the star’s cultural beliefs and the idea that the audience can relate to the star in some way via a belief or feature that they share or admire with the star. Fans often idolize stars' behavior and if they relate to a feature or opinion of the star they may attempt to replicate the star's actions. This can be positive in that fans look upon stars as worthwhile role models but equally can be negative especially when some stars abuse hard drugs and alcohol which can lead to fans who idolize their stars replicating their actions.
Dyer- “Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meaning”. This represents artists as products that are only constructed in order to sell. However, in the view of the record-buying public, they prefer to buy and listen to stars that have their own lasting identity in order for them to have longevity within the business rather than a transparent and manufactured star that is explicitly designed to appeal to a certain demographic and get money out of the public’s banks. Dyer- “Stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimize or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in society”. What is a star vehicle? A star vehicle is a type of media that enhances someone’s career in their specific career industry e.g music. They are produced mainly to enhance a young or inexperienced person in that career role and develop their long-term contracts with the studio. Star Vehicle- An attempt at creating a bankable star through self-promotion. What significance does the music video play in the construction of a star? An artist’s music video plays a big part in their personal construction as stars are perceived as ‘idols’ to their demographics so they idolize their actions, hair, fashion, dancing, and attitude. What is star power and what is iconography? Star power is the influence and the power an artist/star has within the industry and society and how this impacts their target demographic. In order to guarantee longevity a star has to establish star power. Iconography is similar to a USP but is where an artist has established attributes that are always kept the same and become key aspects of the artist’s appearance and synergy. Ideologies can change as pop stars can be seen as actors in that they are images that have to be constantly changed in order to match current ideologies. For example, it’s important for stars to receive publicity good and bad as it allows them to remain in the spotlight and enhance their star quality. Through conveying beliefs, ideas, and opinions outside their music the stars are able to create their star persona which they can also do by connecting with their fans through social media networks. Dyer believes that within the music industry, there are manufactured and organic stars; however, it’s important not to have a preconception about a star and judge them based on their manufactured image rather than knowing their story. Within Dyer’s Theory, he has devised two key paradoxes: ----- Paradox 1- “A star is both ordinary and extraordinary” A star must be represented simultaneously (like the public) but also possess something irregular that other people don’t have; this makes them appealing cause they are special, different, and extraordinary. In the public’s eyes, this makes them the idealized version of humanity- Idols.
----- Paradox 2- “A star is both present and absent “ The audience often struggles with the idea of having two paradoxes in that the star is simultaneously present in their lives e.g social groups, style, and identity; however, they should also be absent in that they think it’s out of reach and either not actually there or not achievable. This links with the postmodern theory called hyper-reality Dyer believes we strive to complete the star image through consuming their products and in order to be completed they have to engage with the star’s meta-narrative and seek ultimate satisfaction (e.g seeing them live).
OWN ALBUMS (Additional Research)
I own multiple KPOP albums so I wanted to film some of them and show a little bit of comparison of different albums and what it usually comes with.
Below are unedited videos I took of my albums