Digipak Analysis - Miss Miller

Duffy Digipak

The purpose of a digipak is to attract the audience buy making the Album more effective, throughout the audiences eye. A digipak make the audience more able to relate and understand the artist and the album throughout he different element s used in the digipak including; CD, images, letter from the artist and sometimes bonus tracks. This makes the audience want to buy the digiak to find out more about the artist, their music and the album itself. 

For my research into digipaks I have decided to analyse Duffy's one for her Rockferry album released on march 3rd, 2008. This is because Duffy is a should artist and therefore I can take inspiration from her digpak and understand how she use conventions etc. Duffy's digipak is likely to follow soul codes and conventions meaning they will relate to my artist Amy Winehouse.

This digipak represents the Duffy as a conventional soul artist. She has plain clothing on, a black jacket and a white blouse with black collar and simple hair and make-up, including basic make up, no lipstick or extravagant eye makeup, her hair is half up with some backcombing and quite messy. This represents her as down to earth and ordinary. The everyday image the artist is using makes her relatable and realistic for the audience, she is shown as a normal person which matches the soul conventions as often the artist stick to a simplistic look, unlike pop artists, who might go a bit over to top and overly colourful. This relatable representation appeals to the audience because they can feel closer with the artist and are able to make a connection through her ordinary image, they can see that Duffy is down to earth and 'normal' meaning they will feel that they are on the same level as her. 

The whole digipak is in black and white white which infers that the album could be focused on songs of a deeper meaning. The excessive amounts of black show that the album is going to be very cheerful or happy, it is more likely to consist of powerful songs which represent hard times in the artist life or portray deep messages.  Another connotation used in this digipak is the images. There are two images which are both of Duffy and they both focus on her facia expression and body language. This show the same meaning as the black and white effect over the digipak because she is represented as oppressed and sad. This infer the song within the album are going to be of the emotions and that they are going to focus around Duffy's feelings in the images. 

The colours of the digipak are all black and white this shows the two possible messages of the albums. The black shows the darker more depressing side of the song and how they may be about something with deep meaning for the artist. Whilst the white shows some hope for the artist and that they will get over the dark times and move on. These contrasting colours make the audience intrigued to listen to the album and get and understanding of what Duffy was feeling when writing the songs and get  feeling for it themselves. they will want to understand how the artist wants them to feel and what messages she want to give to them. This appeals to the audience on a personal level because they can connect with the artist and find understanding of what they are feeling, they can understand what Duffy wants them to feel and how she wants them to connect with the music. 

The layout is again simplistic matching the artists image, with no extreme effects or over the top elements. In the digipak there are three images, two of which are very similar and two CD's (one probably and bonus disk). The layout is basic with some short texts overlapping the images, the typography is placed on the images of Duffy and but not on her face or her core area. This shows a soul convention because often soul genre products are made to be a simple as possible. They are not normally over the top or extraordinary they are basic and focus more on the artist. The two CD's are also basic with black prints, white text place on one side and the artists name places on the other. This is again simplistic and therefore conventional to the genre because they more basic the more relatable. There is also a piece which list the most popular songs on each CD, this allows the audience to see if they will enjoy, or know of the music within the digipak. 

An image used in the digipak is a sign which has 'Rockferry' written on it, this is the name of the album. Having the album title shows the audience the artist has chosen it because they have some sort of connection with it, 'Rockferry' is a place which means that it may have some kind of importance to Duffy or she may have a story behind it. This layout shows the macro meaning of the song title. The other images are of Duffy, one is mid shot and one is a close up both picture look although they are from the same shoot. The close up shows the artist, Duffy looking down to the ground and it shows her facial expressions and her make up clearly. She invisibly down and glum, portraying to the audience that some songs are also going to follow these emotions. The final image of a mid shot, is a contrast of the first image, as Duffy is shown as slightly more cheerful. She is hanging out the window of a train and has her held high, this show that she is in a better mood compared to the other image, telling the audience some songs maybe also be upbeat. The two image starring Duffy show the audience that the music in the album has two side, some may be sad and some may be joyful. This appeals to the audience because they have both key emotions met throughout the songs, they can decided on how they want to feel by which songs the chose to listen to. 

The typography of the digipak is mostly white, with the occasional black fonts. These two colours contrast in the same way that Duffy's facial expression do in the two images of her. They show the dark and light side to the album and how there are different tempos and emotion songs within the album. The white represents the upbeat songs which are used to make the audience feel cheerful and the black represents the more slow, depressing songs which are used to make the audience feel blue. The first font used it very curly, it is a classical style with the ends of the letter flicking off for quite a distance, this is because is it Duffy's signature. This shows the uniqueness of the artist and how they dews like to have plain writing instead they makes it feminine and different from any other font. The other font used is very bold and harsh, their are no current ends, the letter end at the same point every time. These two main fonts again show the contrast the same as they colours do, Duffy's signature represents the softer, more upbeat songs in the album, whilst the other font represents the deeper emotions songs and their messages. The fonts and their colours appeal to the audience because it all reflects on the songs within the album and how the artist feels about the music and message. They can then go on to relate the emotions to their own lives and  experiences allowing them to build a relationship wit the artist. 

There isn't any full sentence text to show the style of language, all the text is one word or titles of the songs with in the album. But vocabulary used in the song titles is formal, there isn't any slang used or unheard words. I would still say that the language is formal because the title and song titles are not often heard they are probably know better to a high class, rather than a stereotypical working class person.

The digipak promotes the should genre through the colours used for example, the black and white effect, these colours show the sadness of the artist and the songs whilst also showing the hope, this is conventional because often in soul music the messages are either about broken love and the negative effect of it, or it can be about the moving on from a past love. This appeal to the audience because they will all at some point in their lives been through on of these situations or felt the same emotions. The digipak also promotes the soul genre because of the two facial expressions of the artist. Duffy is seen to be happy in one image and sad in another, these contrasting emotions show the two main effects soul music has on its audience. The sad and hopeful emotions are often used in soul music because they are the most relatable feelings which all audience remember will have experienced themselves at some point in their lives. The digipak promotes the soul genre by highlighting the soul conventions to make the audience attracted.

The digipak also promotes the artist by making her extremely relatable for the audience. This is done by showing her true emotions to them, it is clear in the two images that Duffy is sad in one and happy in the other. In the first image Duffy comes across as happy and almost looks free, these emotions allow the audience to understand how she feels they can relate the way she feels by looking back on their ow lives. The sadder image shows her looking dull and upset, the audience can also relate to the is because they will have a some point felt like this. Allowing the audience to understand how the artist feels promotes her because they can feel closer to her, by understand how she feeling towards the songs in the album and their messages. The images used are to attract the audience as they enable the audience to build a relationship with the artist and her music.  

There are many ways in which the digipak attract the target audience for example, the colours discussed above. The black and white attract the audience because of the reflection on the song and artist. This attracts the audience because they can build a relationship with the artist and gain a better understanding got how she feels towards her music an dhow she wants make them feel. The images also attract the audience again because the way it allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist. It enables them to understand how they feel and the different ways they feel throughout the album. The typography attracts the audience because it makes the digipak appealing to the eye, it makes it quirky and unique. The two different fonts again congrats the two main emotions of the music and the artist allow the the audience the relate to the whole thing easier and therefore enjoying it more. Another things which attracts the audience to the digipak is all the elements used within it. The digipak has many different elements which add to the interest for the audience, it includes list of songs, three images, two CD's one of which a a bonus CD, stylish font and many other things which add to the package. 

My research into the Duffy digipak will help me when it comes to planning my own digipak as it has given me many inspirations and ideas which could work with my artist and their style. I like the idea of using the black and white effect because I believe it reflects on other aspects of the digipak like the songs and messages. But I would like to add on other colour to make some element stand out, maybe a pink or blue. I also took and inspiration of having a bold text, the blocked font used in the Duffy digipak stands out a lot from the images an other text used. I think using bold font against some other softer fonts and make the mots important information stand out the audience. 

This research has helped me to understand what the audience want and what stands out to them the most. I have been able to understand what is most effective to them and what I should use in order to make my digipak intriguing and appeal to me target audience. I am going to take some ideas and inspirations from Duffy's digipak and u se them in my own but adapt them in order to make them my own and more unique, this will make my product even more effective and appealing to the target audience.