CD Covers

This post aims to reflect my gathering of inspiration for my digipak. To begin this research I looked at album covers to get a feel for the main focal point of a digipak. Covers I found interesting and inspiring included:

This album cover by The XX is really effective yet is one of the simplest I have seen. The contrast between the black and white gives a strong impact and the effect really pays off. Although I don't want to complete my CD cover this simply I think the idea of staying relatively clean and simple is one to take into serious consideration as it looks very professional.

Further developing the idea of simplicity and contrast I found these three album covers. They all feature primarily black and white colour schemes yet introduce a shot of colour which gives a stark contrast between the black/white and the chosen colour. I think these all work well and I particularly like the idea of a black and white photograph as backing and coloured writing on top; another thing I will strongly consider.

At the opposite end of the scale I really like strong bursts of colour as shown in the covers above. These all show more detailed/complex ideas however a clean cut idea allows them to stay relatively simple so they  don't end up over the top. I particularly like the homemade feel of The Wombats proudly introduce A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation and also Paolo Nutini- Sunny Side Up. These two cases more focus on colour and creativity more so than any other feature and I think this works well and again is another factor I should consider.

The main ideas I want to take away from this and consider are:

• Simple- black and white image with coloured writing
• Colourful- lots of colour and lots going on
• Homemade- illustration more than photograph or creative photography of something other than band member/person

It's from these three ideas that I shall decide how I want my cover to be, and therefore the theme for the rest of the digipak. They are all different however so I will need to make a desicion and refine my idea to be able to start to picture the direction I will take for my digipak.