Artists Digipak and Magazine Advert Analysis

Lily Allen, Alright stillDigipak Analysis

The layout of this digipak and album advert is highly conventional as they include all the elements that the audience needs to be informed about. Such as artists name, album title, song list and image of the artist and links back to institutions. I believe that this album release is very appealing to the target audience due to the comical factors, such as how the song list has been placed out, Lilys’ care free attitude and how she’s been placed on the album. The whole mise-en-scene of the album and promotional material suit each other and the artists’ genre, style within the music industry and her brand image. Lily is well known for not caring about how she is preserved you can also tell this by her ‘street’ style clothing choices such as the dress and trainers and gold hoop earrings. I believe that the genre indie pop is clear from these two pieces of promotional material however I do believe that audiences could assume that she belongs within the pop genre due to the use of colour and the comical element throughout her promo material. However I choose to look into the two other digipak’s and adverts from the pop genre to look at the different conventions between pop and indie pop digipaks. Colour and the image of the artist seems to be the most important elements to convey genre.

This is the magazine advert for Lily Allens’ album Alright still, as you can see the same image has been used throughout every element of promotional material this helps to create a consistent campaign, and helps the audience to realise the brand recognition.

Red is a predominate colour throughout Rihannas’ promotional material for her album ‘LOUD’ I believe that this is due to the connotations that the colour is associated with such as love, sexuality and passion. I think that this colour has been chosen as it suitably reflects Rihannas’ brand image of being sexy, provocative, and easy going.

The the font is very simple, neat and symmetrical. The font is stylish and leaves the image the main focus as opposed to the font being too bold and overrides the image. The redundant elements of the album cover/digipak such as the barcode and credits can be seen scattered across the back of the album.

The genre of this digipak and album is easy to work out due to what the artist is known for, however if an audience came across the artist for the first time they might associate this artist as being in the classical genre of music due to the softness of the album. However there is a contrast with this idea within the mise-en-scene of the album and the way that Rihanna’s brand image has been constructed which leads us back to believing that this is a pop album, the styling of the artist and her hair and make-up all reflect a vibrant quality therefore creating a more fun outgoing side. This digipak is unusual in some ways as the artist has her eyes closed, this is odd because it’s usually conventional for the artists eyes to be open as this engages the audience and creates direct contact between artist and audience, this would also usually create a connection between the two. Although even though I believe that this element of the digipak is unconventional I still believe that it works as her eyes may be closed as she could be embracing and feeling the music that is within this album, this works well with Rihannas’ brand image and the use of red colouring as a sense of passion is symbolized through the red of the roses, which could be taken in two ways either the passion for her music or telling the story to her audience of what is involved within her songs. The close up image used outlines the lack of imperfections the artist has, there is a huge amount of saturation and exposure throughout the album cover to really embolden the lines, shapes and shadows of the cover star. For example the eyelashes, hair and jawline and lips all jump out from the photograph. The red hair and red lips have connotations of sexual energy and attraction, and the enviable dark, long lashes are iconic symbols of beauty. This would push the large portion of female fans Rihanna has to see her as stunning and an idol.

Rihanna, Loud Digipak Analysis

This is the magazine advert for Rihannas’ album ‘Loud’ there is an obvious similar style that runs throughout these two elements of promotional material. The same image has been used for both the advert and the digipak this create a consistent campaign throughout each piece of promo material.

The main images within Katy Perrys’ Teenage Dream digipak are consistent with her music video for the single ‘California Gurls’. The images show Katy on pink clouds this works with the brand image for this album as the whole concept is a surreal interpretation of a candy land. This also works with the images of Katy as she has been sexualized throughout the promotional material for this album, being almost naked in all of her images. However although her brand image has always been about being sexy and appealing, this digipak and promotional material as a whole has a quite youthful fun loving side due to the colour choices such as candy pinks, reds and fun blues as well as the consistent candy imagery, as seen on the discs. Therefore this means that not only does Katy Perry attract and older audience but also a younger range as they would see this as being fun and quirky.

Katy Perry, Teenage DreamDigipak Analysis

The leaflet inside the digipak carries the style of the pink candy floss cloud throughout the whole of the front this creates a highly professional finish as the whole digipak looks uniform. This would appeal to Katys’ audience as its easily recognizably pop related.

As you can see within this advert there is a very similar theme running through it, the candy idea. You can see the sweets around her this clearly further illustrates the ideas around her album and other promotional material. Katy Perrys’ brand image has been portrayed again within this advert due to the use of the crown, this could portray her as being someone important or that the viewer and/or audience should look up to her as a role model.Similar colours choices have been used throughout this advert such as the pinks, blues, and other vibrant colours. Again this further reinforces the style of this album and or digpak.