Conventions of a Digipak

A digipak is a package for a CD or a record that has six panels as apposed to the standard 4. The larger pack will include more information or maybe a double album pack or compilation CD. There will be more opportunities for images perhaps of the band or that continue the theme of the album cover. A digipak is often a special or limited edition version of the CD and is part of a promotion campaign of that particular band or artist. The theme of the digipak cover will tie in with other parts of the promotion campaign. The band website, the magazine and the digipak cover will all be aesthetically similar if not identical. The images across all the forms of the promotion campaign will be similar and are all used to promote the bands image at that particular time.

Above is a typical layout of a digipak. There are five panels that will have information on about the band and the sixth panel will hold the jewel case that the Compact Disc will be placed in. The front cover is where the band or record company can be inventive and there are no set conventions for a front cover (genre permitting, pop covers tend to have the face of the artist on). Other genres have no real expectations for front covers but a lot of them may focus on images of the band. An iconic cover will often occur when an artist use an abstract and often simple image, for example Primal Scream's Screamadelica and perhaps more recently Arctic Monkey's AM.

The back cover will often reflect the front cover by  flipping the image (What's The Story Morning Glory) or the back cover may be a continuation of the same image from the front cover. The back cover should always be the same theme as the front. The main feature on the back cover is the track listing that shows the running order of the album. There may also be a barcode on the back as well as a copyright notice and the logo of the record label.

The inside covers give the band chance to give some information about themselves or the album. There may be another track listing on the inside of the digipak but more often than not there will be lyrics to the songs. There will often be one panel dedicated to an image of the artist or more images in a similar theme to the rest of the digipak.