Form and structure
This Digipak is made from recycled cardboard and when opened has two compartments which house different parts of the album. When folded out the left pocket holds the CD and the right holds a booklet listing all the track names and individual companies and people who helped put the album together. The casing is made from cardboard as it is more eco friendly, as cardboard is recyclable it does not harm the atmosphere as much as say a plastic casing would usually do. However as it is made from a biodegradable material such as cardboard it can be damaged easily and spills from liquids could damage the CD if not caught quickly. But the upside of the casing being made from card is that it is much smaller then your more common plastic casing so is more easily stored. In the Digipak from Kanye West’s album Graduation the artist would probably not be recognised if you were not already familiar with the style of Kanye’s albums like the one that preceded this, ‘late registration’. The from cover of the album consists of a brown cartoon bear being fired out of the mouth of a large creature with many eyes. The creature has a columned building on its head and many cartoon cheerleader animals dancing around it waving at the brown bear, which is flying into the foreground of the picture. The artists name and the name of the album are stuck on the front in sticker form at the top right hand side in red font. However the booklet is very plane in comparison to the artwork on the outer casing, as it is all purple with white lettering. Also included in the Digipak is a double-sided poster displaying the Bear on the cover with the name of the album on both sides.
Genre
The genre of the music that Kanye West makes is a mixture of Hip-Hop, R&B
And rap. However you would not get that straight away by looking at his album package. The bear in the Pictures is dressed similarly to how you would expect a black rapper to be dressed as he is wearing large trainers, baggy jeans, a baseball style jacket and a gold jewel incrusted chain hanging from his neck. This bear is obviously drawn to look like the cartoon version of Kanye and so how it has been drawn fits the hip-hop conventions you would expect. However Kanye is all about style and image, he wants to stand out from other rappers and by not appearing personally on the album cover he has distinguished himself from the competition, who would normally pose on the cover with expensive cars, sexy women and expensive things.
Visual techniques - http://www.takashimurakami.com/art.php
Visually this Digipak is very inviting, it is packed with huge amounts of colour and there is so much going on in the cartoons on the front and in the images inside the fold out album, which make you, want to take a closer look to investigate further. The artwork is done by TAKASHI MURAKAMI a well renowned Japanese artist and someone who has done previous artwork for Kanye west. His style is very recognisable and has become very much associated with Kanye West. The use of bright and contrasting colours is very evident and this makes the album package stand out and look very inviting. In relation to the rule of thirds the most important feature of the front cover is the ‘Kanye’ bear which is being fired out of the mouth of a large creature. He is positioned in the top left hand side of the frame almost in the foreground making him the focal point of the picture.
Meaning
There seems to be a clear meaning evident in the “graduation” digipak produced by Kanye West. The middle three fold out pages of this album show a progression through life of the bear starting from him leaving a house in a dark uninviting street, making his way across a road thwart with dangers including crossing a busy road and being chased by a ghost. However, eventually ending up at a graduation with many other animals. This could be seen as a graduation through life; elevating him to the musical status he is at now (this is shown by him being shot into the atmosphere away from the normal people). I believe this shows how all the events in Kanye West’s life have influenced his music and outlook on life.
Linguistic Devices
There is not a lot of text evident in this album package however the lexical field which is evident clearly links in with the music industry. For example the “parental Advisory” sticker is a legal requirement which must be displayed on the front cover of any album which contains music of an explicit nature. Also within the booklet there is a long list of the songs and who made their creation possible. These sentences use lots of technical words associated with the Music industry like “studios”, “produced” and “mixed to name a few.
Intertextuality
There is no real intertextuality within the framework of this album as it is mainly focused on the artist “Kanye West”. However the use of the artist TAKASHI MURAKAMI in designing the artwork for the album can be seen as a form of intertextuality. As he is an already established artist his inclusion in the album brings another dimension to it.
Artist Representation
I think the fact that Kanye has chosen to remove himself from the packaging of the album speaks volumes about his success. He is such a well known and established artist that he probably does not see the point in slapping his face across an album cover, which people will already know he created. His exclusion from the cover gives the audience a chance to focus more on the Quality of his music rather than actually him as a person. I also think that Kanye Wrest is very concerned with image and style, and the use of this Japanese style Cartoon artist separates him from any other rapper as no one has done this before. This Originality is refreshing as if every Hip-hop artist did the same sort of thing it would become tedious and boring.
Text consumption
The Print advert of this album is likely to be consumed in a magazine or newspaper and by people flicking through and noticing the new Kanye West album. Other forms of consumption include TV adverts and any adverting on the internet on sites like the I tunes music library. As Kanye is a huge artist his album is likely to be advertised on huge billboards and posters in large towns to make as many people as possible aware of its appearance. Music channels on the TV are another massive source of consumption as people will tune in to channels like KISS to hopefully catch a glimpse of a video from one of the new tracks on the album .
This Digipak is made from recycled cardboard and when opened has two compartments which house different parts of the album. When folded out the left pocket holds the CD and the right holds a booklet listing all the track names and individual companies and people who helped put the album together. The casing is made from cardboard as it is more eco friendly, as cardboard is recyclable it does not harm the atmosphere as much as say a plastic casing would usually do. However as it is made from a biodegradable material such as cardboard it can be damaged easily and spills from liquids could damage the CD if not caught quickly. But the upside of the casing being made from card is that it is much smaller then your more common plastic casing so is more easily stored. In the Digipak from Kanye West’s album Graduation the artist would probably not be recognised if you were not already familiar with the style of Kanye’s albums like the one that preceded this, ‘late registration’. The from cover of the album consists of a brown cartoon bear being fired out of the mouth of a large creature with many eyes. The creature has a columned building on its head and many cartoon cheerleader animals dancing around it waving at the brown bear, which is flying into the foreground of the picture. The artists name and the name of the album are stuck on the front in sticker form at the top right hand side in red font. However the booklet is very plane in comparison to the artwork on the outer casing, as it is all purple with white lettering. Also included in the Digipak is a double-sided poster displaying the Bear on the cover with the name of the album on both sides.
Genre
The genre of the music that Kanye West makes is a mixture of Hip-Hop, R&B
And rap. However you would not get that straight away by looking at his album package. The bear in the Pictures is dressed similarly to how you would expect a black rapper to be dressed as he is wearing large trainers, baggy jeans, a baseball style jacket and a gold jewel incrusted chain hanging from his neck. This bear is obviously drawn to look like the cartoon version of Kanye and so how it has been drawn fits the hip-hop conventions you would expect. However Kanye is all about style and image, he wants to stand out from other rappers and by not appearing personally on the album cover he has distinguished himself from the competition, who would normally pose on the cover with expensive cars, sexy women and expensive things.
Visual techniques - http://www.takashimurakami.com/art.php
Visually this Digipak is very inviting, it is packed with huge amounts of colour and there is so much going on in the cartoons on the front and in the images inside the fold out album, which make you, want to take a closer look to investigate further. The artwork is done by TAKASHI MURAKAMI a well renowned Japanese artist and someone who has done previous artwork for Kanye west. His style is very recognisable and has become very much associated with Kanye West. The use of bright and contrasting colours is very evident and this makes the album package stand out and look very inviting. In relation to the rule of thirds the most important feature of the front cover is the ‘Kanye’ bear which is being fired out of the mouth of a large creature. He is positioned in the top left hand side of the frame almost in the foreground making him the focal point of the picture.
Meaning
There seems to be a clear meaning evident in the “graduation” digipak produced by Kanye West. The middle three fold out pages of this album show a progression through life of the bear starting from him leaving a house in a dark uninviting street, making his way across a road thwart with dangers including crossing a busy road and being chased by a ghost. However, eventually ending up at a graduation with many other animals. This could be seen as a graduation through life; elevating him to the musical status he is at now (this is shown by him being shot into the atmosphere away from the normal people). I believe this shows how all the events in Kanye West’s life have influenced his music and outlook on life.
Linguistic Devices
There is not a lot of text evident in this album package however the lexical field which is evident clearly links in with the music industry. For example the “parental Advisory” sticker is a legal requirement which must be displayed on the front cover of any album which contains music of an explicit nature. Also within the booklet there is a long list of the songs and who made their creation possible. These sentences use lots of technical words associated with the Music industry like “studios”, “produced” and “mixed to name a few.
Intertextuality
There is no real intertextuality within the framework of this album as it is mainly focused on the artist “Kanye West”. However the use of the artist TAKASHI MURAKAMI in designing the artwork for the album can be seen as a form of intertextuality. As he is an already established artist his inclusion in the album brings another dimension to it.
Artist Representation
I think the fact that Kanye has chosen to remove himself from the packaging of the album speaks volumes about his success. He is such a well known and established artist that he probably does not see the point in slapping his face across an album cover, which people will already know he created. His exclusion from the cover gives the audience a chance to focus more on the Quality of his music rather than actually him as a person. I also think that Kanye Wrest is very concerned with image and style, and the use of this Japanese style Cartoon artist separates him from any other rapper as no one has done this before. This Originality is refreshing as if every Hip-hop artist did the same sort of thing it would become tedious and boring.
Text consumption
The Print advert of this album is likely to be consumed in a magazine or newspaper and by people flicking through and noticing the new Kanye West album. Other forms of consumption include TV adverts and any adverting on the internet on sites like the I tunes music library. As Kanye is a huge artist his album is likely to be advertised on huge billboards and posters in large towns to make as many people as possible aware of its appearance. Music channels on the TV are another massive source of consumption as people will tune in to channels like KISS to hopefully catch a glimpse of a video from one of the new tracks on the album .
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