What Is A Digipak?

A Digipak is a form of packaging for CD's and is also a marketing tool. A CD Digipak consists of around four fold out sections made out of paperboard or card stock, with plastic slots or trays to hold the CD/ CD's, which all fold together into the same shape as an average CD case.  Each section features a different photo of the artist or some form of art work, or each section will have a photo which comes together to make a large photograph. The imagery used in the Digipak will resemble that of the music video, for example particular shot of the artist from their music video so that the single will link to the song, artist and music video. An advantage of Digipaks for the consumer would be that they usually include extras such as posters, bonus tracks or even a DVD of their latest tour.   


Digipaks are traditionally in hard copy format as it is the packaging for the actual CD. However, as CD's have become less and less popular and people are using platforms such as iTunes to buy their music, digital copies of Digipaks and album artwork are being made for online download. However, Digipaks are an incentive for some people to actually go out and by a hard copy of the CD as bonus features like the bonus tracks and DVD's are only available if you go out and by the CD, so this is an advantage for marketing. Another point would be that your normal album can easily be illegally downloaded, which means money loss for the company and artist, so by creating Digipaks people are lured into buying extra content. 

Digipaks also have other benefits in terms of marketing. This is because Digipaks should be designed in a way that will attract fans and potential target audiences. They should be aesthetically pleasing with a clear front cover that will attract the right gender, age group or generally the right person who would be interested in the artist and their music. The overall design should follow the theme of the music and the codes and conventions of that genre. For example, the colour used, the type of font and the actual imagery used are all aspects that should be considered when creating a Digipak.