Inspiration for Digipaks.

The concept of album artwork really started in the 1950's as a way to help sell records and most major record companies created an album cover for vinyls to get an edge on other artists and reach the top of the charts.

Since then the album artwork has been one of the most important factors in creating an image for the album and often implies the genre of the music.

Colour themes, motifs and art style are usually consistent throughout the album artwork and help create the overall image of the album.



This is the front cover, record sleeve and back cover for Supertramp's album Breakfast In America. The image is quite famous and the album won a Grammy for Best Recording Package in 1980. Throughout the album artwork there are references to typical American icons; the Statue of Liberty posed by the waitress and the diner theme is shown through the fonts, images and layout. The layout of the sleeve makes it look like a diner menu at first glance. Also the skyline of New York at closer glance is in fact different food and cutlery you would expect to find in a diner - salt and pepper shakers, vinegar and ketchup bottles. This is a really clever album artwork that clearly follows a theme throughout which links to the album title "Breakfast In America" because of the stereotypical idea that Americans eat breakfast at a diner. The colour palette is also part of what makes this artwork stand out - they are quite bright positive colours (sky blue, yellow and orange). The only image of the band on the whole album cover is on the back and it links to the theme as they are seen in a diner being served by the Statue of Liberty waitress. The motif of the "diner" Statue of Liberty is use on every side of the sleeve and also on the centre of the record itself which adds to the continuity of the theme throughout the artwork.

I think this is a really clever piece of artwork and would use a similar amount of continuity in my digipak to make it as effective as possible and link each side together.