The Years & Years digipak displays ‘Y’ artwork incorporating the colours of the rainbow. The main colour of the outside of the digipak is black which makes the digipak look slick and minimalistic. The Years and Years ‘Y’ is a common motif for the band and they use the graphology as a backdrop for their stage performances and merchandise thus making the album distinctive to the artist. Not only does the rainbow gradient stand out against the black, but also acts as a lowkey symbol for the LGBT+ community of which the band are advocates for. The front of the digipak doesn’t actually say the album name or the band name, the Y is the only indication that the album is by Y&Y. Although the Y is subject and identifiable to just that band, people unfamiliar to years and Years won’t know that this digipak belongs to them and could disregard it. The CD album however does include the band’s and album’s name and is the same design as the insert booklet found in the digipak.

The back panel of the digipak has the songs listed in the centre and still follows through with the rainbow gradient effect. By having the album tracklist in the centre of the back panel, there is a sole focus on it and the buyer’s attention is drawn to the song titles. The tracklist doesn’t contain the song timings which is a feature that I think is important. The barcode and legal information is also centrally aligned which doesn’t make the aesthetic look messy.

The spine of the digipak is in-keeping with the matte black panels however is in white writing instead of rainbow to coincide with the legal information and is easier to read due to the text being very small

The inside panels follow through with the ‘Y’ artistic motif however is split into different ends of the colour spectrum (red and blue vs green and yellow). The background of the CD holder is again a gradient of the rainbow which ties in with the rainbow theme.

YEARS AND YEARS COMMUNION

The disc displays a black background as well as the ‘&’ sign of the same colour scheme; the only graphics through the whole panel designs are ‘Y’ and ‘&’ which indicate that the band is Years & Years.

This is a poster for Years and Years’ album release which was most likely used in a music magazine (although it wasn’t confirmed). The poster includes the star image in the centre and focuses more on pinks and purples as opposed to the whole rainbow seen in the album. A picture of the album cover is included in the poster along with promotional jargon above it. The poster includes very little black – unlike the album – but contains the same font which is found on the album and merchandise.

YEARS & YEARS advert

The main image consumes the bottom two thirds of the advert and the frontman of the band, Olly, is framed centrally with the other band members framed symmetrically behind him. The advert contrasts the album in that the main focus of the advert is the image of the band whereas the album is very graphics heavy. Other promotional posters made include the Y rainbow graphic (such as tour date posters),however as the band have been developing their look recently, more photos of Olly have been used.

Throughout all of the Years and Years products, the Y graphic is very prominent thus making the band easily identifiable. This band bends the norm of indie pop aesthetic and instead of using monochrome designs, they have done the opposite and gone for all colours of the rainbow with a main focus on purple. The bright colours could be an indication of the electric pop sound the band has as well as the font used (Macula) which contains lots of hard edges and

appears like an illusion.

Despite Years and Years changing up their image slightly, the rainbow Y motif has been constant at concerts and in promotional material, so it is likely that it will continue for their next album. ‘Dolvador’ is Years’ record company hence their logo on the back od the CD, and similar to the Y motif, will stay the same through Years’ career.

PANIC! AT THE DISCOTOO WEIRD TO LIVE, TOO RARE TO DIE

The outer panels of the album take on a black and white aesthetic as well as the influence of a desert in Vegas due to this album being based on Brendon’s life living in the Western state. The desert motif continues to the inside of the digipak and album however these aren’t monochrome and instead are sepia which gives a visualisation of the desert however isn’t (in my opinion) as edgy as the front cover. There is a large focus on the car within this album – The CDs insert cover displays an image of the red car which is followed through to the back panel of the album where Brendon is shown in the car however the image is now black and white.

I am a fan of how colour is distributed through this album. I think that the colour pop of smoke on the cover adds to the edgy alternative/rock sound that this album was going for. Also, I think that the desert motive works well for this album and the monochrome and sepia effects go well together; it’s as if when opening the CD/digipak the content comes to life.

The band name and album title is positioned in the sky to the top left of the panel which makes the titles clear to read and balances the frame out in relation to the star image, the desert and the coloured fumes.

The tracklist is presented to mirror the car windscreen and is split into thirds, two of which display 5 tracks per side. The other third is added to include legal information such as the barcode as well as website addresses and the album’s producer.

The CD uses the same logo used to present the album and band name which is imposed on top of an image of the desert in a sepia filter. The image behind the CD holder is again the sepia desert, carrying on the theme of Vegas through the album and its artwork.

The artwork on the cover of the CDs insert resembles a polaroid type image with just a plain white background. This look is quite simplistic and takes away commotion from the outer panels to make the album seem more sombre.

This album advert incorporates the same image as is found on the CD/ digipak which ties the two products together. The star image (Brendon) is off centre however is still a main feature of the ad as his attractiveness attributes to the selling point of the band.

PANIC! AT THE DISCO advert

Below the name of the album is the promotional jargon stating that ‘the new album’ is ‘available now’ (short and snappy) and is also in a different colour to the rest of the poster in order to stand out and make it clear that this poster is an advert for the band’s album.

The band’s font changes every album, and this album uses the font ‘thirsty rough light’ which is a font that the band seem to have stuck with. This design of the band name is still on the drum set even after a new album was released with this font .

The exclamation mark is Panic!’s symbol and a lot of the merchandise uses the ‘!’ in the ‘thirsty rough light’ font thus portraying the link between this album art and the band three years later.

The bottom of the advert has 4 ‘uninteresting’ pieces of information such as a website in the bottom left corner, the record companies in the centre and the iTunes logo in the right hand corner which allows anyone who has come across the advert to access the album, merchandise and/or other music associated with the record label, thus promoting all of the other companies synergised with the band.

This poster, similar to the advert isn’t very computer graphic heavy as more of the focus is upon the image of the frontman.

Other promotional material for Panic! Includes billboard-esque posters (below are examples from the band’s second album and fourth studio album) which give information of when the album will be released and promoting the single ‘Miss Jackson’. The evolution of the albums have very different aesthetics which in some ways document the band’s sound change; despite their sound varying, Panic! have still stayed with the record label Fuelled By Ramen (noted at the bottom of the posters). Both of the advertisements below use the same theme as the album displays (the floral image for Pretty Odd and the desert for Too Weird) which ties the products together.

PJ HARVEY STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA

This digipak is made up of 6 panels, of which the front displays the singer (PJ Harvey) in a busy city street – presumably in New York or somewhere similar – which links with the first part of the album title ‘Stories from the city’. The back panel is split into two parts with the image of a moving car in a busy city street taking up slightly more of the panel than the black part displaying the track list and legal information. The front and back panels have similar aesthetics and link due to the setting and colour scheme, whereas the inside 4 panels have a different aesthetic and link in that way.

The inside panels of the digipak are all snippets of PJ’s recording journey Three of the inside panels display blurred images of the artist in the recording studio and have a glazed effect on them as though they were taken through a glass window. The panel behind the panel which holds the CD uses the image of a mixing desk to again, link with the aesthetic of the recording journey.

The CD is black with silver writing and ties in with the cover aesthetic (the busy city). On the CD is the tracklist again with some legal information (such as the record label) and seems minimalistic.

The black back panel displays the tracklist on the top third and is aligned to the left of the panel. Below the tracklist is the middle third which is blank black space and below that is the barcode and copyright information as well as the record label which is a common feature on digipaks and CDs.

PJ HARVEY advert

This poster uses the same image as on the album – PJ Harvey on a busy city street. The styling of the artist is appropriate for the time of release (2000) and demonstrates an indie rock vibe which is the genre of music the album emits. Continuing from the album, the artist and album name is laid out in the same fashion as the digipak and below that is the album release date as well as promotion of a single from the album. In the bottom right hand corner the record label is displayed; often in album adverts the record label is featured in the bottom right had corner. Due to this album being released in 2000, the advert doesn’t include the iTunes logo as music streaming wasn’t around during that time.

The album and advert are quite simplistic however are effective. The framing of the artist is slightly off centre yet still makes it clear that she is the star artist of this album. The image is also slightly blurry as it is in movement but also because the cameras around in 2000 weren’t as sharp as they are today in 2016 so the fact that the image is blurry due to movement helps the case of it being blurry.

The font used is fairly basic but is clear to make out what the poster is giving off. The writing is also white so that it stands out against the dark background. I think the writing fits well with the image as it is placed in a clear position on the image and doesn’t mask anything important in the photo.