Digipaks

Following the presentation given to our year by 'Laurie O'Connor' from the 'wewow' company my knowledge of digipaks has increased.

Due to the issue of global warming, Eco- friendly products are now much more popular and encouraged than those which are not. In the case of CD production this would be the difference between the standard jewel case >>
and the digipak, which is made entirely of biodegradable material.

As well as the encouragement to save the planet, digipaks are soon to become the cheaper option, due to the increasing price of the polycarbon material with which jewel cases are made.

Digipaks are currently more popular with independent labels, but this is thought to change soon. The company Sony claimed that by 2015 they would reduce the companies carbon emissions by 30%. This means that they now actively encourage their signed artists to Sony Music to choose digipaks for album and single releases over the jewel case.

One of wewow's main distributors of CD's is Amazon.com

Although another great way to distribute them is as a free hand out at gigs. To produce small runs of albums or singles will increase the band's appeal to a wider audience.

One of the most appealing factors of the digipak is the retro appearance of them, especially the lancing pack which bares some resemblance to the old fashioned vinyl packaging. This would draw in older age groups who will have used vinyl in their youth as well as younger age groups who consider reviving era's such as the 70's and 80's and re-establishing old sounds and styles of music a good thing, therefore the popularity of the digipak should increase.

Another selling point of the digpak is the use of them as a 'limited edition' which makes them appear more special. For example, Keane recently produced their 'Hope & Fears' album with wewow and produced both jewel and digipak cases and ran the digipak as a limited edition version.

The talk given my Laurie was very insightful, and useful in helping us to produce our own digipaks. He gave us some useful background knowledge on the barcodes and licences which the covers must include, as well as some hints and tips on how to create one using designs such as this one:

4 Panel Paperfoam With Booklet Space

We will be producing our own album digipak which will contain a VCD instead of a standard CD-ROM, as we are creating a music video. Due to the specificity of mine and Beth's original design due we will have to develop a new one, incorporating all the knowledge we learnt for Laurie.