Research into Digipaks

Researching on Google I found many digipaks, of all sizes (how many CD's it can hold) and colours.

I looked primarily at this digipak for SteelWing. They use a futuristic font to emphasise their Progressive Metal style. Their track listings are very eyecatching as the letters are predominantly Russian but if focused on can still be interpreted as English quite easily.

The front cover boasts a futuristic robot/soldier next to an alien. On the back it’s a zoomed image of this alien face. This could be a reference to the problems this band has had to overcome in their fight for fame and recognition and is very aesthetically pleasing for their intended audience and fans.

I also looked at this Oasis digipak.

The image of the guitar is artistic because it doesn't show all of it and it is suitable for the title of the cover because it says 'Acoustic'. The back is simple enough, and follows the colour scheme (sticking to 3 or 4 so it does not get too crowded) and it lists all the songs on the CD; this will be useful for a listener to choose which song they want to listen to first. Unfortunately, due to the camera angle I cannot see what it says on the inside, but I presume it includes either lyrics or band information.

This digipak layout is simple and calming due to its natural colours of brown, green, white and yellow. Even the CD itself is decorated, which shows they were thoughtful about the design, as it added additional information or just summarised in case you lost your cardboard digipak sleeve. The information on the left is I assume band information, however what is missing I think is a picture of the band to make it feel more personal, however they could have one on the back.

The front is very simple, because it only uses two colours however, it is very abstract which could highlight the bands individuality or type of music. It has an image of the band members which is good as it makes the digipak more personal to their fans.

From this analysis I understand to have a colour scheme that has a maximum of 3-4 colours and to have a good balance of text and images, as I do not want to crowd the small amount of space available in a digipak. Often less is more.