DIGIPACK DECONSTRUCTION-

Paolo Nutini – These Streets

What is a Digipack?

• A Digipack is a small way to present and advertise a band in cardboard form. Digipacks are used as an alternative album casing and can be used to create a much more creative cover in terms of texture and artwork.

• The genre of research I have chosen is singer-songwriter, what I have found out researching them is that they are fairly simple covers, usually just the artist in front of a simple background. Most singer-songwriters like to be portrayed as a simple image but rely on their lyrics to deliver specific messages rather than their appearance.

• My album cover shows the Artist, ‘Paolo Nutini’ with his acoustic guitar standing casually in different positions across the cover, connoting simplicity.

The Digipack: front

I have discovered that Paolo Nutini has used a font that he can be recognised by as this type of font re-occurs across many pieces of his work.

The front cover is a 4 piece image of Paolo Nutini standing casually with his guitar across the cover. ‘These Streets’ was His first commercial album and standing in different positions could connote that he is trying to show off different sides of himself to his audience, both on his appearance (personal) and musical level.

The colour scheme moving from plain white to red could be connoted to mean that is the journey he wishes to take through is musical career (from being plain and new to an established singer, in this case the colour red). Or the colours could connote the level of intensity of the songs on the album, as white could represent ‘New Shoes’ a happy fun song where as red may represent a song like ‘Rewind’

Using colours that are all of similar identity (orange/red) and the fact that the title of the album is small and plain Times New Roman font could connote a ‘Simple’ message that most singer-songwriters portray. Overall the front of this Digipack is fairly simple but effective and I believe it is a good starting point from a debut album from such an artist

The Back cover

The back cover again follows the theme and colour scheme of the front cover with a selection of the track list to the left of the cover with the same font being used for the track list as the front cover.

The Inside CoverWhen opened, a featured item from the Digipack can be removed. It is a small book that contains the title of the songs on the album with lyrics noted down.

I believe that this feature represents the singer-songwriter genre in itself as most artists in this category rely on lyrics to deliver messages rather than their appearance.There is also a close up of the artist,

This could connote that once openedThe buyer feels more engaged with the artist.The picture of Paolo Nutini also uses the same colour scheme of red/pink/orange much to the similarity of the front and back cover of the Digipack

The Disc trayThe disc tray inside the Digipack is once again following the overall colour scheme and theme of the album (stripes and simplicity).

Overall, for a debut album there may not be many creative techniques used but a new artist just wants to release music rather than become a fashion icon or be slated by media on what they look like and the attitude into the industry.