Album Covers and Digipaks

One of our individual tasks is to make an Album cover, more specifically a Digipak. In order to do so i will have to understand exactly what is needed for a Digipak Album Cover.

Wikipedia says a Album Cover serves three main purposes;

'1. To advertise and identify the contents of the music product.
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists

3. In reproductions of the artwork, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, as an identifiable image associated with it.'

and that a Digipak is;

'typically consist of a gatefold(book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside'

After looking at a variety of websites, most of which showed usually the same thing as the one before, i found that a digipak is similar to a old school jewel Cd case, except this time it can have more than 4 panels, typically around 6 or 8 panels. This often contains information, pictures and sometimes more discs with extras on it and other attributes to help promote the band/artist. Due to moving trends, bands tend to have this lightweight and tougher option when designing there album covers, resulting in an increase in the popularity of Digipaks.