Analysis of DigipaksHannah Lenane

Biffy Clyro -PuzzleThis is the front and back cover to the Biffy Clyro, Puzzle digipak. Immediately we can notice theLayout- unusually the front cover has no text on it and instead the album name and artist name areon the back cover. This is unusual as artists usually include this information on the front cover inorder to attract audiences to the product and allow them to recognise immediately who it is. It ispossible that as Biffy Clyro are already a well known band who do not need to establish themselvesor their image they were able to put this information out of sight and focus instead more so on thealbum cover artwork. The band members are not included in any of the images on the front andback covers of the digipak, this is again unusual but possible for a well known band such as Biffy

Clyro. The images are ambiguous and there is a repeated motif of the

puzzle piece. It is possible that the artists wanted their

audiences to be thoughtful about what message they

are trying to portray and to take their work

seriously.

Here are the inside pages of theDigipak. We can see again thatThe band are not the focal pointFor any of the images and have Instead chosen to display artistic,Meaningful, ambiguous photosInstead. The structure of theInside pages is simple. On the Left hand panel there are lyrics to a song from the album typed up in full for audience members and onthe right hand panel is a photograph. Although there is no direct link between what is written in thelyrics and the photograph accompanying it, both are passionate and meaningful and will causeaudiences to think about the messages being delivered to them and the band’s purpose. The font usedis bold white lettering. By using such a simplistic font the band do not take away from the album artwork or the message being portrayed in the lyrics. They have used a bold font so that all lyrics can beread easily and are not disrupted by complicated and intricate fonts. The colours used here are darkand dull, there are only a few bright colours highlighted such as the flames from the man on fire. Thesedark colours coincide with the serious and professional theme/feel of the digipak.

Kate Nash- Made of BricksThere are noticeable differencesBetween this digipak and the lastAnalysed which arguably are aResult of the artist’s gender. FirstlyTake for example the font, here theFont is feminine, handwritten and Delicate when compared with theSimplistic bold font seen previously.This perhaps has strong connotationsOf gender expectations –women areMore likely to focus on personal touches (such as hand writing their text and are expected to be verypretty , delicate and feminine instead of bold and strong. Linking to this is the image on the frontCover- we can see the artist in a red dress, the colour drawing attention to her and the colour perhapsConnotating her as passionate, lustful and feminine. We can also see behind her a homely house andneat garden. This again suggests the idea of typical femininity –focused on a neat, pretty home. Thecolours both on the front and back page are bright yellows, reds, blues and greens and white. Thisagain contrasts to the darker, more imposing colours seen in the male artist digipak seen prior to this.

Moving on to the inside pages of the digipak we can see that the feminine motif’s focused on, onthe front page are continued through the inside- the colours are again bright, light and colourful.Many shades of pink, red, yellow, blue and purple can be seen here making the page visuallystimulating for audiences. Again the artist is included in the image in a scenario that is very typicallyA feminine stereotype –she is in a bathroom where clothes have been hung up to dry and she isdoing her makeup in the mirror. These factors all emphasize her femininity to audiences making herappealing to both men- who are attracted to her and women who want to be like her. The structureof the inside pages of the digipak are the same as the digipak of Biffy Clyro. On the right hand panelthere is an image (here of the artist instead of an aristic photograph) and on the left hand side panelis a typed copy of the lryics to one (or two here) of the song(s) on the album.