Digipak Analysis - 9 by Damien Rice

This is a Digipak for Indie/Folk/Rock artists Damien Rice. The biggest design feature is the use of illustration, breaking from the convention of using photographs of the artist. Rice's previous releases have also used illustration and never include photographs of him, this shows that he doesn't care about creating a 'star image'. This is an attitude many indie and alternative artists share, focussing on the music they are creating and sharing rather than on becoming a celebrity, they react against mainstream media ideals.
 The cover illustration seems mostly nonsense doodles, though there are some recognisable forms and images within it, such as people. The cover looks like a collection of thoughts and memories, which is also what a collection of songs is. This design is very entropic, though it does reflect the folk genre through the natural, subdued colours and illustration rather than modern designs.

The illustrations on the inside panels are of characters from the songs, accompanied by an extract of the lyrics. These pictures are very simplistic, abstract representations and are quite unusual and artistic. This relates to Rice's target audience, who are artistic, creative and more 'alternative'. The pack is made of eco-friendly paper and the colours of the text, paper and illustrations are very natural, which suits the folk audience and their wider concerns about the environment.

A font is not used for this digipak, instead all the text has been handwritten, presumably by Rice himself, and added digitally. This continues the homemade feel of the design and makes it feel more personal, and represents the smaller, niche audience. Alternative artists often use techniques like this to honour their early career when they may have sold cd's which they created themselves. There is one panel of recording and production information, the writing is quite small so that it fits as there is a list of the people involved with the record. There is a copyright, record label and website note on the back panel, again handwritten, very small. The cover title is also very small, all this shows a disregard for branding and advertising, again so that the focus is on the music rather than all the other details.