Research: Digipak Analysis #3

This is the front cover of a single by VARSITY called Cult of Personality. The design follows a similar style to what I want to achieve. It uses pastel colours alongside bright ones to highlight certain aspects of the drawings. The title of the album and artists name are central to the design, meaning that anyone who looks at it will quickly be drawn to reading this. Likewise, the entire design is central to the frame, which proves to be aesthetically pleasing. It's likely that this was a conscious decision on behalf of the design team - for the purpose of attracting an audience. The text that they have used for the title is fitting with the grunge theme as it appears to be hand written. It's also capitalised - something which I have seen in a lot of alternative/grunge album covers and advertisement. This works to stand out to the audience and add to the aesthetic. 

Then, the drawing itself looks hand drawn. Digital artwork such as this is typically made using software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Typically, a photo will be imported to this software and then drawn over using the tools within the software. I like this style of cover art as it can easily be personalised to fit any one theme or idea. For example, a music video about drug addiction could use images of pills or needles to incorporate some of the lyrics into the visuals provided with the marketing of the product. There is a lot of designer control with digital art like this as any image can be made into this style of work and it is up to the creator to make it look however they like. 

Moreover, this digipak features a background graphic with the teabag. The purpose of this is to draw attention to the central subject whilst also adding more colouration to make the design more interesting. This would have likely been made using Photoshop and the layering system that that provides. The picture of the clouds itself would likely have been taken by the creator and imported onto the software that they used where it was cropped to the sixe of the teabag.

Overall, the design of this digipak is very simplistic yet meets a lot of the criteria needed to market an album successfully. It has the name of the band; album title and includes artwork that would appeal to a certain target audience. The colours used would make the cover stand out in a music shop and the style of the artwork is interesting to look at and offers something different from other cover arts. I will use aspects of this digipak as inspiration for my own work when considering colour schemes and styles of design to appeal to a grunge/alternative audience.