Digipak Analysis-Jamie Craig

The ‘digipak’ and advertisement that I am going to analyse is the album ‘Three Days Grace’ by ‘Three Days Grace’. This is their second album and so the band have already made a name for themselves. They are a Canadian rock band and sold their music in multiple countries. Therefore their advertising campaigns are quite big, although they do already have a name for themselves. I chose to analyse this album’s work as it is from the band that our group are making our music video for, this will help us to understand the conventions of the band and their take on the genre.
The album art work is fairly simple, it is black and white sketch. It shows two larger outlines of people one smaller. The three figures denote human people, the smaller standing in front of the bigger two, this connotes a family as in a child standing in front of his/her parents. Next to the supposed family is sketched what appears to be a long path to a house by itself. Sketchy lines contain the image in a border and also create a horizon. There is a very faint hint of yellow on the house and the heart area of the people. The image gives off the feeling of winter and a dark night time environment. The album cover image does not have a squared edge, it is given the impression of being an artist’s sketch by not fully touching the edges of the cover. The text purely says “Three Days Grace” at the top of the album cover, it again has a sketchy feeling to it, it has a thick black outline with white in the middle of the letters. Behind the text are three thick black vertical lines, this denotes three lines that resonate the name ‘Three days Grace’ but connotes a sense of fear and the darkness of the band.
The advertisement for the album was generally a half page advert in music magazines and in posters in Canada and the UK. The posters were made of the album cover as the background and text for the advert was put in the white sections of the picture. The text on the advert stays in black to stick to the conventions of black and white album cover. The text purely says the release date and the fact that it’s the band’s second album, along with the recommended retail price.
The advertisement poster uses the same image as the album cover as it saves on money from having to commission an artist to make a new image, it allows the poster to stick to the characteristics of the band and it means that someone who sees the poster will quickly spot the album when they see the same art work on the album cover.
The audience is more attracted to the image by the use of light within the image, instead of purely black text, the wording has a white middle which makes it stand out more and become a sign of importance. The text becomes a signifier and will stick in the consumer’s mind when they then go to shop for or research the album or artist they have seen.
In order for an artist to be successful an artist needs to create a brand, this includes their star image, the type of music they play, the topics they sing about, the conventions of their videos and their products and art work. The adverts and products are easily relatable to each other as they conform to the ideological values of the genre and band’s image.
This can be seen as post-modern as there are intertextual references to other media forms such as print, such as the artistic style of the album cover which brings in a new appreciation to the art work. The advertisement of the band is linked to the views and values of the band, it remains dark and meaningful, making it possible for different audiences to interpret the texts differently.