Digipak Analysis - Miss Georgiou

A digipak is a style of packaging for musicians CDs, singles or special editions of CD albums. They are typically made from cardboard with one or more plastic trays on the inside to hold the disks. Digipaks aim to promote the album/artist and list the contents of the album. This makes the CD eye-catching and as a result a wider audience is attracted. The artists image is reoccurring throughout the art and images of the digipak in order to advertise and promote their style which gives the audience more information about the artists style of image and music. The main purpose of digipak though, is to supply the artists audience with a lot of information about the artist such as song titles and lyrics as well as special edition aspects such as bonus songs. This will excite the audience and create a buzz around the album which as a result creates a need for more information in the artists target audience. A digipak is made up of six slides which entail of artwork, images and extra information (promotion /lyrics etc.) which again promote the artists style in terms of image and music.

I have chosen to analyse Gabrielle Aplin's digipak for her debut album 'English Rain' because Aplin is my chosen artist and therefore analysing her most recent digipak will give me ideas for my own digipak I will create as well as showing me what has and has not worked well in a digipak in my chosen music genre. Furthermore this digipak contains the song I have chosen to create a music video for and so I will be able to see how the artist decided to portray the song to make me think about how I will do so.


Across three pages of the Digipak is spread an image of the artist wearing shorts or a skirt and a long sleeved jumper as she walked through a gloomy looking field holding balloons. This represents her as carefree and easy-going as she does not seem to care that she is standing out and does not care if she is cold in her minimal clothing in the dark field. She is also portrayed as brave through this image as the location looks desolate and dark and the artist is all by herself as though confronting the loneliness of the field that may represent her dark experiences. This is conventional to the indie genre because indie artists often sing about their own personal experienced which may include dark moments from their past. This is evident in this artists album as a variety of her songs have a dark theme and my chosen song in particular is about a breakup. The colourful balloons reinforce the idea of the artist confronting her bad past and represent her happiness and positive attitude she has gained from doing so.


However the representation is also unconventional to the indie genre as the image of the artist does not show much of her and you cannot even see her face. Typically an artists first album/digipak/advertisement etc., will all include a close-up image of their face in order to introduce them to the audience. However, in this digipak the artist is represented a mysterious and with a lot of secrets as enigma is created through not showing the artist clearly. This makes the audience wonder about the artist an what she is like and looks like which will encourage them to buy into her music to find out.


The same colours are used for the umbrella and balloons and all of these colours have both positive and negative connotations. The negative connotations can portray the emotions and bad experiences Aplin has lived through while the positive connotations can portray the positive emotions she has finally experienced after getting over her dark past. This concept is conventional and typical of the indie music genre. The green has connotations of greed and jealously that Aplin could have experienced in a past relationship. The colour can also represent emotional healing, protection and peace. Similarly, yellow has negative connotations of caution, sickness and again jealously. This suggests the artist may have been cautious in the past relationship because she did not want her feelings to get too complicated. This is the theme for my chosen song Panic Chord. However, yellow can also portray happiness and joy which may be the emotions the artist felt during the first stages of the relationship.


The main connotation of blue is sadness as well as loneliness which are emotions that you would not expect to feel in a healthy relationship and this therefore suggests that the relationship was dysfunctional and problematic. Blue also portrays integrity and so possibly the artists act of finally mustering up the courage to break free from the unhealthy relationship. A feeling experienced after the relationship breakup may be peace which is another connotation of this colour. The colour purple evokes gloom and sad feelings and can cause frustration which again represents emotions that occurred during the relationship. Purple also represents romantic and nostalgic feelings which links in with the theme of looking back on a past relationship. I will explore this theme in my own music video and will therefore try to interpret the colour purple in order to portray this.



Pink is the final colour that is found within the balloons and umbrella. It has representations of memories associated with comfort as well as feelings of compassion ans the theme and feeling of love. On the other hand, pink can also portray a lack of will power, self-reliance and self worth. These representations will portray all emotions that may have taken place in the relationship rather than showing the emotions before and after the breakup like the other colours portrayed. This colours shows the contrast of emotions when in a dysfunctional relationship which makes it so hard to breakup. The subject may be feeling compassionate yet unhappy but lacks will power to end the relationship because they want to stay for the good memories and comfort.





The black and white theme portrays the location as dull and depressing which makes the artist, who is usually seen with colourful iconography, stand out and appear positive in a negative world. This allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist as she is portrayed as a good role model as she has kept a positive attitude and outlook through her bad times.  This is also engaging to the audience as their focus is directed onto the artist as she and what she is holding are the only aspects of the digipak in colour. This reinforces the relationship between the artist and audience as the colours portray the artists personality and so the audience feel as though they know her more.


The design of this digipak is very simplistic and similar throughout so that the audience can see it is all part of one project of the artist and can see the direct links between the album, artist image and songs. There is not too much writing so the digipak is received mostly visually by the audience which focuses on the images and artist representation. This may be because this is the artists first album and so she wants to show the audience a bit about herself and introduce her style and personality through the image. However, the writing that is used is quirky and unique which is conventional to the indie genre as the artists tend to have unique and sometimes unusual styles compared to mainstream artists.



The image choices are very simple with several connotations. The front cover image shows Aplin standing behind an open umbrella hiding most of her body. This is unconventional of a debut digipak as artists tend to include a clear full body shot or close-up image of themselves to introduce and promote themselves as they are relatively unknown to begin with. Contrastingly though, Aplin is hiding most of her body and her face is too far away to see which may portray her as scared and hiding herself from the audience as if she does not want to completely reveal herself to them . This makes the audience curious and want to find out more about the artist. I believe that the artist may have purposefully made this image unconventional in order to avoid mainstream guidelines and stand out so she appears unique and is therefore more memorable.








The typography used in this digipak is conventional to the music genre as the artists name is clear and easy to read yet not perfectly straight or neat like that of some mainstream artists digipaks. This creates a quirky effect which represents the artists personality, image and music style as unique and interesting. This allows a relationship to form between the artist and target audience through this typography as the audience will see the artists personality and therefore believe they know her more a s a person due to understanding she is quirky and unique. They may also be able to identify with her image and music style which will help them to relate to the artist.

The digipak promotes the indie music genre as it shows many codes and conventions of it such as the contrast in colours portraying the artist as having a positive outlook on life and as a result being a role model. The artist is promoted by this digipak by her personality not being completely revealed and a clear image of her not being used. She is shown far away in a picture, hiding behind iconography or looking in another direction. This means the audience do not know much about the artist as this is her first album and so a sense of enigma is created around her. This may make the target audience want to buy into the music to find out more information about the artist and her music. This also helps the digipak attract an audience as they are intrigued by the simplistic image and want to find out more. This digipak also stands out due to its unconventional aspects such as no close up images and greyscale colours rather than bright bold colours and close-ups you would see in most mainstream digipaks.

I will use this research to inform my planning as I now know what does and does not work well in a digipak as well as the common codes and conventions of one in the indie genre. This was helpful because it showed me what was conventional and what wasn't and the benefits of being both conventional and unconventional. I find the idea of contrasting black and white with bright colours effective as there are many positive and negative connotations that come with this idea and so I will take it on board when creating my own digipak.