Conventions and purpose of a digipak

A digipak is made of card and has several panes with two CD holders. Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD. Digipaks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging. This product normally contains  some information about the CD and pictures of the artists . 

But digipaks do have pros and cons: 

Cons:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipak sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.
• Digipaks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.
• The trays in digipaks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.
• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipak, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipak, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

Pros:

• Digipaks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper. 

Im am going to write/compare two Digipaks. One being Michael Jackson and the other being Rihanna. This will help me when coming to make my own digipak because i will know what to include and what is typical of a digipak. 

Michael Jackson 'THIS IS IT': 

This is a Michael Jackson Digipak that is for the "This is it" album. The main unique selling point of this Digipak is special art work that will attract the most loyal fans. The front cover of the package is very simple but effective with the white background and then the silhouette of Michael Jackson in the middle. This was a special edition Digipak as the was going to be the last tour MJ was going to do. Therefore this Digipak became the last of his career. 

This particular digipak represents Michael Jackson as being the centre of attention. From having his body filled with past events and his concerts, this makes his target audience remember what he has achieved and from having a dull grey back ground on the front of the digipak makes his stand out more. The pose MJ is pulling in both pictures are very classic and original for him as everyone knows they are his original moves. This digipak isn't as original as some as it has pages of photos rather then a standard cardboard flip open. 

But on the other hand Rihanna's digipack is more classic. 

This digipak is a lot more pain but bold. Although the colour represented connote a lovable, sexy and passionate artist. Her eyes are shut in both pictures which could connote she is blind and vunrable to what going on around her but the title goes against this "LOUD". Which leads me on to my next point. The typography is very minimal which connotes that they wanted the attention to be more on Rihanna.