Digipak & Advertisement Brief

Today in class, we had a discussion about artwork in both digipaks and adverts for an artist and their album.

Why is artwork popular?

• A form of promotion for the artist and their new album
• Grabs attention from a global audience
• Gives information : By looking at the artwork for an album / single, the artwork can inform visually about what the album is about.
• Indication of artist direction 
• Another form of advertisement
• Art identification : to show what persona the artist is portraying or type of genre
• Also used for MP3 Files

How important are the ancillary products to the artists and relation to the music video ?

• Ancillary products are assisting products that help promote the artist and / or the album as well as an increase for sales.
• Without promotion; will never know about the artist !!
• More many to be made as the ancillary products would be advertised globally and on the Internet with digital downloads and posters etc.
• They help keep the artist in the public eye
• Some fans of the artist want more than their songs and etc, so this also gives them a chance to purchase an additional product.

Looking at the relation between the music and the artwork.

Here is the music video of Calvin Harris-Weekend

This is the artwork of the single :

The picture on the album work is from the actual music video and can be seen from 3:32 til the end. The theme of the music video continues to be something significant and is replicated in the artwork.

In my own time, i looked at some other artists just to see how it is the same, here they are:

Madonna- Hung Up

I found a multiple of artwork covers for this :

The artwork for the single



The artwork for the album - Confessions of a Dance floor

Another artwork for the single

As you can see from these 3 examples of artwork that were all used for her song (and also part of the album), there is a vivid theme of the 70's and the mise-en-scene that is used in the video is also replicated in the artwork. The theme of the Hung Up song and music video was a like a disco, with a 70's approach (women wearing leotards, the hair and colour of the costumes, the lighting and setting, also the cars that were use). Elements of the fashion in her 70's-disco-themed album and music video suits the artwork as a disco ball has replaced 'o' in her name, the lighting of a typical 70's disco dance floor is the background and the font is what was popular and seen a lot in the time period. This is one of the best examples i could find to show how the artwork is cohesive with the music video and the song.

Another artist:

Rihanna -We Found Love, Talk That Talk Album

The Album Cover

The single cover

After watching the video of We Found Love, you can tell that there is a firm persona and image that the artist (Rihanna) portrays, it is also shown in the album cover and rihanna masters the rule of framing and the rule of three where our eyes automatically focus on the artist. The cohesive nature from the music video is also replicated on the single cover.